Folks, the OP was asking for alternatives to Raspberry Pi, but everyone keeps saying just use Raspberry Pi with a USB hard drive or get some obscure second hand

Folks, the OP was asking for alternatives to Raspberry Pi, but everyone keeps saying just use Raspberry Pi with a USB hard drive or get some obscure second hand hardware. I think the best alternative, while staying in the SBC realm, is a RockPro64 by Pine64. These boards have PCI-e slots and very cheap SATA & NVMe attachments. That way you get full performance from your SSD, versus a USB connection. And the boards have a huge number of community supported OS builds available. They are simple to install in a few clicks, with the official Pine64 installer. The RockPro64 is highly underrated in my opinion. Especially when you consider the flexibility, available attachments & accessories, and wide range of use cases and OS options. A brand new board with 4GB RAM, power supply, and SSD PCI-e interface will run you only around $100 before shipping. Check them out. I have had one for a couple years and I'm super happy with it! Boards: https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64/?v=0446c16e2e66 https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64/?v=0446c16e2e6... Accessories: https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64-accessories/?v=0446c16e2e66 https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64-accessories/?v...