I dusted off my RPI4 and started tinkering with self-hosting things and it’s sparked a fire. Suddenly I have 7 docker containers running and I need more RAM, more space and I want something reliable with room to grow. I like small form factors but it doesn’t need to be RPI small. Any recs for your favorite hardware under $500?
I have a couple of Intel NUCs and they are great, one is the first generation NUC with the Celeron and runs Home Assistant without problems.
At the moment I am eyeing the new N100 CPUs they are pretty powerful compared to the previous generation. Asrock and Asus are bringing out motherboards with the CPU soldered and they are also fanless. The Asrock is nicer because you don’t need a real PSU for it and it has an extra SATA port. They are not yet available.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/N100DC-ITX/index.asp https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-n100i-d-d4/
NUCs are great if you can snag them on sale or for a good deal but they’re (somewhat) like Apple nowadays, paying the “NUC tax” imo. You can usually find other SFF with similar or better specs for cheaper on eBay. HP Prodesk (Mini) for example you can grab some extra RAM and a cheap SSD to max it out.