A couple of months ago, I acquired one of these N100 low power boards to replace my old Wyse 5010. These boards are way more powerful and have a lower power consumption, while still remaining relatively affordable. The CPU and motherboard combination can be had for under $200.
I chose a board with 4 ethernet ports (2.5G), 6 SATA ports, 1 PCIe slot and 2 NVMe slots. While it bumped up the cost and power consumption a little, it provided much extensibility.
I bridged the ethernet ports and replaced my network switch. Even though there are comments online discouraging running a switch in software on Linux, I found it to be relatively stable and good enough for my needs.
The SATA ports have been utilized for connecting multiple HDDs for NAS functionality, while the OS resides on an NVMe SSD. The HDDs are set to spindown when data is not being accessed.
Finally, the PCIe slot provides future extensibility, in case more network ports, SATA ports or wireless functionality is required in future.
The N100 has support for AV1, HEVC and VP9 hardware decoding which meant I could use this server for basic web browsing and media consumption. This meant I didn't have to fire up my beefy desktop regularly anymore, maybe only once a week when I want to game a little. The N100 also runs Home Assistant and pi-hole in the background without a sweat.
A single low power server can act as a network switch, NAS, media server and home automation server all in one. A good decision indeed.