Just performance when compared to current generation hardware. Not significantly worse, but things like DDR4 ram and single thread performance show the signs of aging. Frankly for similar $$$ you can get a new hardware from beelink or equivalent.
Got it so basically it's one of those things you do if 1) the project interests you and/or 2) you get one dirt cheap and don't have high expectations for certain tasks
There are a ton of features that fall under 'managed' umbrella, but for most home usecases you don't really need to manage the switches often. Once you setup WiFi SSIDs with VLAN tags, you almost never have to touch the switch. I like to separate networks with VLANs.
If your WiFi doesn't have client isolation, IoT devices can still scan your network. WiFi client isolation will prevent that, having them on separate VLAN also makes sense.
Another usecase is a Guest network, when friends come over. You might not want to isolate clients there and allow devices to talk to each other, but also don't interfere with your home network.
If you work from home, depending on what you do, you might want to have 'office' VLAN. Or a 'Kids' VLAN, where internet turns off every night at 8pm.
At this point, it may be easier to QoS and give only 10% of your internet bandwidth to Guest network, and 5% to IoT device network, etc.
I cannot imagine adding this complexity to my home life. Work is frustrating enough. At home I use the box from the cable company and don't change anything. That way if it doesn't work it's their fault.
How many layers of complexity live in in your current arrangement? They're still there. I've owned my own networking hardware for a long time, and it's stable to the point that I essentially never touch it after minimal setup. Some of us choose to go further down this path for our own reasons: features we want to use, to grow our knowledge, or just because we can. I find this take dismissive, reductive, and ultimately not a productive.
Network switches, even managed ones, are usually "set and forget".
But sure, if you don't want to take control of your home network, then the corporate overlords will be more than happy to control it for you --- possibly against your wishes.
I work on networks in my day job. Just like the parent at home I'm cool with a single L2 network behind a firewall. The box that plugs into the fiber is my NAT/Firewall. The rest is just off the shelf stuff I never have to touch or configure, mostly WiFi. No idea why you need link aggregation or vlans at home for most home use. what's next? VRFs and VXLAN? IPsec? Racks in your home data center with spine/leaf? ECMP?
EDIT: I have kids and never felt the need to isolate their network. I've never had a guest/friend that needed to access my network, everyone is on a network via their phone. But if they did they can jump on my WiFi.
Sure, "I wish to learn about this stuff" or "I think playing with this stuff is fun" are both fair reasons.
But apart from those, I just don't understand how adding the complexity makes my life better. People are saying "VLANS!!!" but why would I want to do that? How does my life improve if I do?
Also worth keeping in mind that "degradation" usually means the battery holds 80% of original charge. Basically your range shrinks from 300 miles to 240 miles. Automobile with 240 miles range is still a very useful car.
This sounds similar to the sound a hybrid Toyota makes when backing up. I wonder if in this geographic area, hybrid car awareness sounds should be something like construction banging, just to differentiate from the ambiance.
The surnames with the suffix -enko are the most known and common Ukrainian surnames. Where "en" is roughly son-of or a child-of equivalent in English, and the "ko" means a smaller, baby version. For example Kovalenko where "Koval" means blacksmith, Petrenko where Petre or Petro if from a biblical name Peter.
Surprised author didn't mention https://labgopher.com/ for finding used enterprise hardware at low cost on ebay. This hardware is cheap and typically out-of-service for enterprise, but great for home labs.
The big problem with off-lease enterprise hardware is the power usage can quickly outrun the original costs - but that may not be an issue for everyone.
The nice thing about off-lease enterprise hardware is there is so much of it, and it's enterprise. You can easily find replacement parts, and working on that stuff is a joy, everything is easily replaceable with no tools.
THIS! My Dell and HP blade chassis/server EAT power (10+ Xeon blades). I actually shut them down and started moving to SBC based stuff like odriod H2/H3's. Basically silent and just sips power. All much less heat (I live in a desert, so thats important)!
For what it's worth, we're just starting to get to where enterprise stuff that cares about power usage is coming off-lease. Some of the newest stuff actually sips power relatively when not under load.
My biggest (current) problem is finding something that supports a ton of SATA drives and still is low power (though at some point even the power usage of spinning rust can become noticeable).
I live in the icy wilderness, so excess power to heat isn't a problem for most of the year.
yeah - I don't have a need for a lot of drives, but its hard to come by...but the odroids have a PCIE expansion slot, so you might be able to add a add-on controller...
Given how huge drives are now, 1 nvme and 1 sata/spinning rust is basically all I'd ever need (I don't do video/music/etc. )
Edit: Oh shit...just checked, it does NOT have a PCIE slot..I was sure it did :-(
Some people even use an Alder-Lake-N miniPC as a "user-facing machine" (i.e., as the only computer in the room). I do, and I love it so far (after about 45 days of using it) because it doesn't have a fan to make noise and gradually become noisier as the machine ages.
My guess is that if I was used to a much faster machine, then the machine's slowness would bother me, but it in fact does not bother me. (The machine has an NVMe interface, and I have a fast SSD in there. I have the N100 CPU because I couldn't find the N200 or the i3-N305 for immediate delivery from a non-Chinese manufacturer.)
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