The selling point for the people in the Plex community is the N100/N150 include Intel’s Quicksync which gives you video hardware transcoding without a dedicated video card. It’ll handle 3 to 4 4K transcoded streams.

There are several sub $150 units that allow you to upgrade the ram, limited to one 32gb stick max. You can use an nvme to sata adapter to add plenty of spinning rust or connect it to a das.

While I wouldn’t throw any vms on these, you have enough headroom for non-ai home sever apps.