Time to order a few SanDisk cards

I use Xpenology on an HP Gen 8 microswrver, a pretty nifty piece of kit. Works great, but setting up and upgrading versions can be a rather involved process.

Gamer desktops tend to be power hogs. Running them 24/7 can rack up some hefty power bills, plus noise, plus space, plus other tradeoffs.

Better a used thin client.

If you have a 3d printer, or access, o know someone willing to print for you, there are many free models out there

Definitely an option, but for the price of a Pi with all the extras, case, power supply, etc, you can get a used thin client that is way more capable.

There is a guy on YouTube that often reviews these things, and discovers some models that are surprisingly capable.

Synology publishes a list of certified non-synology drives, and warns you that drives outside the list are not recommended, but, at least in non enterprise models, allows them to be used. I believe there is some rather easy way (some config file change or the like) to circumvent the limitation, but yeah, dick move.

Bargaining chip. Hehe, I see what you did there.

Tesla sells itself as a technology innovation company, but it sells hype.