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Comment by joe_mamba | Hacker News Reader

> And mechanically reliable.

What moving parts do competitors have to be less mechanically reliable?

In fact, a NUC or used laptop would be even more reliable since you can replace NVME storage and RAM sticks. If your RPI ram goes bad you're shit out of luck.

>RPi will still have lower power consumption and is far more compact.

Not that big of on an issue in most home user cases as a home server, emulator or PC replacement. For industrial users where space, power usage and heat is limited, definitely.

>I'm in the market to replace my aging Intel NUCs, but RPi is still cheaper.

Cheaper if you ignore much lower performance and versatility vs a X86_X64 NUC as a home server.

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I don't want a used laptop. I have my NUC mounted inside a small enclosure on a bracket, with PoE for power. It's a single-purpose device, only used for HomeAssistant and nothing else. It also has to be located centrally in my house for better ZigBee/ZWave networking.

Unfortunately, it's close to dying. The heat from the CPU disintegrated the plastic of the SATA cable header on the motherboard. I fixed it for now with a bit of glue, but it's not going to hold indefinitely. And NUCs were pretty pricey.

RPi with a SATA/M.2 disk and a PoE hat is not that much cheaper than Intel, but it uses much less power. They also tend to not have cables that are kept under mechanical strain. I have a single-purpose RPi that's been running since 2014, and it's doing just fine.

It feels like you think that the parent hasn't really considered their options and don't know what they really want.

> Not that big of on an issue in most home user cases as a home server

I don't know what "most home users" want, but I can understand wanting something more compact and efficient (also easier to keep cool in tighter or closed spaces), even at home.

> Cheaper if you ignore much lower performance and versatility vs a X86_X64 NUC as a home server.

Or maybe they noticed they don't need all the performance and versatility. Been there. It's plenty versatile and can run everything I need.

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