SATA ports are indeed rare with ARM SBCs, but those with PCI-e ports and m2 slots exists. Probably the best supported board with PCI-e for now is: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/
The server I have up is kind of all in one, ad-blocking from an unbound instance, rdp/ssh forwarding for remote desktop, plex server, and NAS. Starting to feel like a unicorn to want all of that in a low(ish) power board. Runs great on Ryzen but isn’t anywhere close to power efficient especially while idle.
SATA ports are indeed rare with ARM SBCs, but those with PCI-e ports and m2 slots exists. Probably the best supported board with PCI-e for now is: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/
That is fantastic to see! that ram spec is kind of terrible though with just 4G as a max
Due to technical limitations only the very latest generation of ARM SBCs have more than 4GB ram.
For most server use 4GB is actually good enough as you don’t need to run a heavy desktop and browser etc.
IMHO much more important is good software / main-line Linux kernel support, otherwise ARM SBCs are just too frustrating.
The server I have up is kind of all in one, ad-blocking from an unbound instance, rdp/ssh forwarding for remote desktop, plex server, and NAS. Starting to feel like a unicorn to want all of that in a low(ish) power board. Runs great on Ryzen but isn’t anywhere close to power efficient especially while idle.
Uhm, yeah better stick with x86 then. There are more power efficient x86 chips though as a Ryzen is probably overkill for that.