After years of diligently purchasing top-end, last-gen hardware for the homelab, I realized about 2 years ago that in the world of NUC-alikes, I can get a CPU t

After years of diligently purchasing top-end, last-gen hardware for the homelab, I realized about 2 years ago that in the world of NUC-alikes, I can get a CPU that's "fast enough" for virtually anything I need to do, for less than the cost of the last-gen stuff (indeed, low enough to be basically disposable), in one-twentieth or so the physical volume, with a negligible impact to the power and cooling bill. Sure, I have a physically big NAS (I don't think RAID-1 is a NAS solution), and I keep one beast box for the times I really need it (currently a late spin Threadripper with tons of ram, usually powered off). And people don't have to yell over the sound of the fans in the basement.