You can now buy bare Snapdragon SoCs with 410E and 600E

Here are some pages with details:

https://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation https://www.coreboot.org/Intel_Management_Engine https://www.coreboot.org/Blob_Matrix

Intel also made it so that a PC has a timer that turns it off after 30 minutes if you don't run their signed firmware.

[0] https://github.com/ARM-software/arm-trusted-firmware

[0]: http://www.pulp-platform.org/

[1]: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

There are two levels of "open source" for hardware: the first is where the registers and behavior are documented, allowing programmers to write their own drivers for the hardware, but for moderately complex stuff doesn't get you far for copying it. The second level is where the implementation details of the chip (the Verilog or VHDL description of its behavior) are open-sourced. Only the latter would let you "easily" create a knockoff, and even that isn't within reach of any household hacker, as the base cost of fabbing a chip is still in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but yeah that would be within reach of an undercutting competitor.

(there's even a third layer of open source where the Verilog/VHDL is turned into the final layout tuned for the fab, think of it like having the source-code vs the final assembly for a given architecture. That step is costly too)

But 25W is still more energy efficient than a full-blown computer.

> The price for the whole system (RAM, PSU, case) will probably be quite a bit higher as well.

$20 for 4GB of RAM + $40 case. You really can build the core components for less than $150.

Don't forget the $10 USB boot drive. USB-boot seems like a superior option over hard-drive boot. That way, your entire hard drives can be used for data-storage. USB-boot can be easily backed up separately and kept independent of your data.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA07232B10...

Or spend a bit more on a bigger case + PCI SATA3 port extensions to grow to 6+ Hard Drives.

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Of course, the hard drives you put in will raise the costs by several hundred dollars. (Four 5TB Drives will cost $600 for example).

> But it looks like good option if you need a standard platform with comparatively high single thread performance.

I've contemplated a Windows-based NAS before, but the $100 Windows tax is just too much.

But I do want to play with Storage Spaces. It seems like Storage Spaces + ReFS is Microsoft's answer to BTFS / ZFS. And I do mean the two features combined. ReFS only does bitrot checking so it isn't quite a ZFS replacement. But combined with Storage Spaces the Windows solution has distinct advantages.

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I've ordered a Synology for work, and it works good too. Its simple and solid, works with everything I expected out of the box. At home, I can afford a little bit of time to baby these machines (ie: build custom). Plus, you can build 4-bay systems for very cheap.

Lots of good configurations out there. I think people forget about standard PCs because they think they're expensive... but for the costs of ~$100 (like a Dragonboard), the standard PC / AM1 platform is indeed competitive. Although it does use more power.