I wonder, why, in today's world, people still use these for Firewall and NAS purposes. Both Mikrotik and Ubiquity offer low-cost systems under 100€, that have

I wonder, why, in today's world, people still use these for Firewall and NAS purposes. Both Mikrotik and Ubiquity offer low-cost systems under 100€, that have been purposed for FW+Routing and come with very capable firmwares, 4 network ports and, at least I know this about Ubiquity, specialized CPUs with hardware encryption. The NAS systems many vendors offer, use the same ARM CPUs for the low cost solutions, but offer more performance for a little bit of extra money, and then, sometimes, allow for ECC and real SATA, instead of these USB<->SATA bridges. If you want to tinker, you always can, because: it's a computer. I got a Ubiquity EdgeRouter-Lite as hardware firewall. It comes with: * 3 Gb Ethernet ports * 1 console port * fanless * EdgeOS, which is a (superb) Vyatta (Debian) clone * total cost, including PSU and nice metal casing: 90€ As for NAS, and backup in my parent's home I installed a WD MyCloud with 4TB, wiped off the firmware and installed a custom solution, that is available on the WD forums (OpenMediaVault). Price: approx. 155€, including PSU and nice casing. 10€ more, than the hard disk, that is inside, cost retail, back then. RAM could be a bit more, but this is for my parents, so the only one missing the RAM is me, when I am on vacation. At home I use two HP MicroServers. A 36NL and its update, I think it's named 40NL. * AMD CPU * 4x (real) SATA + 1 aux. SATA (I think it could do RAID, but I use ZFS anyway) * 16 GB ECC RAM * 1x Gb Ethernet * 1x remote control administration card (can switch on and boot, enter the BIOS, install OS via network) * place for a single 5.25" (I mounted a hard disk swap frame here, that is compatible with my external USB slide in HDD case) * beautiful case with 4 hard disk swap frames (no hotswap) * 160W PSU * not fanless :-( * Hewlett Packard entry level server, semi-pro This system cost, including a wimpy 1TB HDD and 1GB RAM, 160€. I run SmartOS on my main server, and am going to install UnRAID or similar, on the elder one, that I am going to use for backup. As for other appliances: in the kitchen I use a Logitech internet radio, as media clients I use an Android tablet and an NVidia Shield console (USB audio out to external DAC!). Again, no need to do any tinkering above the average level. This is exactly the thing with appliances: They are domain specific, specialized purpose utilities! That's why you want hardware, that has been specialized, just as your firmware/OS has been specialized (OMV, FreeNAS, pfSense, etc.) I would never want to have a server without IPMI (remote control) again! And, since you can get good offers for these devices on the retail market, you can pay less, that for a full SBC setup, which will need a case and a PSU in addition, and which gets sold with an additional retail margin (yes, I know, packages exist).