[willglynn]

Be aware that there's N100 boards with 6x SATA, 2x M.2 NVMe, and 4x 2.5GBASE-T around this price point. For example:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806198066931.html

The N100 processor offers 2-3x the performance and lots of additional PCIe lanes compared to a Raspberry Pi 5 despite having half the TDP (6W vs 12W).

[geerlingguy]

Not to ding that board at all (because it is quite nice), but adding on a power adapter (like Pico PSU for $30) and a cheap NVMe SSD (Kingston for $20) brings it up to $175—which is not that much more than the $127 entry for the 4GB Pi option—but it is closer to a $200 price point.

The overall build footprint will also be larger, and you'll have to pick up a set of SATA cables ($10 or so for four) and possibly a case or bracket to support the drives ($10-20).

It does have 16 GB of RAM (Pi tops out at 8GB for $147), the CPU is faster, and it has 4x 2.5 GbE which is a huge upgrade!

But I wouldn't quite put a mini ITX motherboard in the same price class, even though it's a better all-round board for a 'homelab in one box' type of setup.

[shadowpho]

n100 will also last longer and be more reliable. You can run regular linux distro and it will be supported forever as it's x86. You will get better performance with the NAS too (6 drives can go pretty fast!)

[rickydroll]

I really would like one of those with dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet. My home lab needs are a little more advanced but my budget isn't. :-)

[geerlingguy]

I know GoWin has started releasing some boxes with 10 and even 25 GbE adapters, it'd be nice if all manufacturers were able to add on 2.5 + 10 GbE, since modern low-end chips can finally get those speeds.

[justinclift]

4x 2.5GbE? Wonder if they make a 1x 10GbE version as well? :)

Couldn't see one in quick searching though. :(