I don't see where it makes any sense to compare an ancient used end-of-life x86 laptop with a brand new ARM SoC in any of the relevant categories, such as price, form factor, power consumption, availability, and even support.

Just for context, you can fit about 10 raspberry pi 4s in the same volume you fit your used laptop, and for the price of an old end-of-life Thinkpad you can buy 5 or 6 RPis. Hell, you can go to any online store and buy dozens of RPis in a couple of clocks and have them delivered to your doorstep in a few days.

Meanwhile, your cheap Thinkpad is already in the tail end of its bathtub curve.

People need to stop thinking in terms of -ancient -used -end-of-life -old

..when describing hardware used for mostly trivial purposes. The mentality of just clicking up some new hardware with no consideration of e-waste has to stop.

Anecdote; my last laptop was a used T420. $80. You're lucky to get two Pi+SD card+power supply for that.

What do I care how many Raspberry Pis I can fit in the same space as a used Thinkpad which brings a display, keyboard, battery backup, and myriad high-speed IO ports beyond just USB, when we're talking about a stationary server role?

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the average HNer already has numerous retired laptops collecting dust in a corner, all more powerful and better suited to connecting high-speed storage to than any Raspberry Pi. They're already wasting space and have already been manufactured, instead of adding more e-waste piecing together Pi-based storage contraptions just turn one on and set it up for server duty already.

Every pi sold feeds starving people with lifesaving pie.

As someone who's grown tired of a flaky rpi connected to an external drive, is there a generation to shoot for in terms of low price to reasonable performance?

I was able to swing $230 total for two x230s with the base i5 and ssds last fall/winter (actually three, but the third doesn't really count (arrived damaged, seller initiated a refund then ghosted, got a full refund from ebay)). If you're really lucky, you can find a computraced one for super cheap ($85 in my case) and then coreboot it.

That said, x220s and x230s seem to have gotten more expensive since then, I haven't seen any similarly good deals lately.

Check the buyer’s guides on r/thinkpad. Typically you’re looking at T or X series, with T giving the most flexibility. T410 to T430 can be had for less than $200 and should be fine for server use. The numbering scheme is Txy0, with x the screen size (4 for 14), b the Core i generation (0 is core 2 duo).

As someone who's not a huge fan of used laptops as servers (they've already seen hard use and are not really meant for 24x7 operation either), consider the Odroid H2+ instead: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ Tiny, x86-based, and only $119 plus RAM and storage.

Yeah I’m in the same boat right now. I want an always on machine to connect a disk to that doesn’t draw too much power. I looked at NUCs but they seem far too expensive for my usecase.

I use a powered USB hub and it got rid of my flakiness problems.

I went for a ThinkPad 13. Add on the dongle for an RJ45 port (about GBP10) and you're sorted!

I use a rpi2 with a DAC hat attached on top, hooked up to amp and speakers, powered by and Ethernet connected to a time capsule nas. It all fits nicely on a shelf.

I could have used a thinkpad with a usb DAC, but it would require more space, more power cable, ... It would provide a built in ups and screen, which I don’t need.

I think rpi are OK when the whole service it provides could be read only, with no local storage / state.

Don't know about Thinkpad, but my previous Asus laptop won't boot unless the monitor is connected.

Most things I use Pi's (Raspberry and other flavors) for are headless.

Sure I could probably fool around with a logic analyzer and try to figure out some way of fooling the motherboard it has a monitor, but meh, Pi's are cheap and easy and just work.

What about power(electricity) consumption?

Architecture, form factor, access to pins, scale, power.