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Comment by magicalhippo | Hacker News Reader

Over at AliExpress there are tons of options, like this[1] or this[2] fun 4x M.2 box.

Yes they're about twice the price of a bare Pi5, but they come with metal cases and power supplies, can fit an M.2 NVME without add-ons, and like the first example also includes some RAM and storage.

While likely not the best quality RAM and storage, what I got in mine has held up to light use for several months so far without issues, so better than nothing. YMMV.

I bought a few 2GB RPi4's when they were $35. At that price point they were great. I don't get the RPi5, especially 4GB+ variants.

[1]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007511663921.html

[2]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007900081466.html

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I haven't got any personal experience of them but aren't there a number of Raspberry Pi clones which offer the same functionality at much lower cost? Seems like that would open the gap up.

There are some, but a lot of them have very spotty Linux support. In most cases either you're stuck with some ancient kernel provided by the manufacturer, or you're relying on community support from Armbian at best.

Take for example the OrangePi Zero 3[1], which you can get[2] from around $25.

Armbian provides community support status[3], so you're relying on volunteer efforts to provide updates and support. Also drivers for peripheral devices might be missing[4].

There are others, like say the NanoPi Zero2[5][6] for around $20, but again, support might vary. The Zero2 is so new it's not listed on Armbian, and most of the other NanoPi's are under community support.

That said, I've been running some NanoPi ZeroPi's (the Zero2's predecessor) for several years now, without any issues. Just using them for light loads, one is my PiHole for example, but yeah can work great as long as you do a bit of research in terms of what's supported and not.

[1]: https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/07/03/orange-pi-zero-3-all...

[2]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007673457198.html

[3]: https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero-3/

[4]: https://linux-sunxi.org/H616

[5]: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/09/13/nanopi-zero2-tiny-he...

[6]: https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product...

The issue with nearly all Raspberry Pi clones is documentation. Boards tend to be undocumented, sparsely documented, or documented with errors. It makes for a frustrating experience when you run into problems, especially when those problems are with bog-standard Raspbian (or whatever). Raspberry Pi hardware has occasional quirks (eg, don’t try to hotplug USB on a Raspberry Pi Zero), but quirks are the norm for other SBCs (anything from Pine64 is an exercise in frustration). So the modest upcharge for a Raspberry Pi is usually worth it.

[1] is 150 EUR from EU, not bad. I can see myself give it a go at some point. Still twice the price for my needs.

Right, it's twice the price but like 10x the capability (unless you need GPIO).

That's why I think the lower-end, lower-priced RPi4 made more sense. Fast enough to have decent network speed and run a lot of functional workloads, cheap enough that you could "spam" them.

I use it in a 3d printer. I don't need 10x the capabilities. For my usecase it's just 70 EUR more, with the only benefit it might boot and update faster.

And then I have to add 25% VAT because the order is more than 1500 SEK.

No, I think that was the price from the Spain warehouse and included tax. Just 10 EUR shipping. Aliexpress got better with showing you the real prices.

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