My secret protip: old Fujitsu desktop/nuc PCs. At least in Germany (Europe?) they are cheap on ebay since a lot of businesses use them and upgrade on a regular schedule.
In one case I had a nuc where on Linux after enabling power saving features for the sata controller, idle usage even fell to 5W when the pdf claimed 9.
Having an actual pc instead of a random sbc ensures best connectivity, expandability, and software support forever. With almost all sbcs you're stuck with a random-ass kernel from when the damn thing was released, and you basically have to frankenstein together your own up-to-date distro with the old kernel because the vendor certainly doesn't care about updating the random armbian fork they created for that thing.
If you care about power consumption like I do, you can Google "$model energy consumption white paper" which contains very accurate data about idle usage, for example https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/wp-energy...
In one case I had a nuc where on Linux after enabling power saving features for the sata controller, idle usage even fell to 5W when the pdf claimed 9.
Having an actual pc instead of a random sbc ensures best connectivity, expandability, and software support forever. With almost all sbcs you're stuck with a random-ass kernel from when the damn thing was released, and you basically have to frankenstein together your own up-to-date distro with the old kernel because the vendor certainly doesn't care about updating the random armbian fork they created for that thing.