I Bought An N100 Mini PC, Then Another

A hands-on experience report comparing Intel N100 mini PCs to Raspberry Pi 5 for home lab and R&D work. The N100 offers 4 cores, up to 32GB DDR5 RAM, NVMe support, and 4x 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports at a comparable price point (~195 GBP all-in). Key advantages include KVM/Firecracker support for running multiple microVMs, making it possible to run 3-node K3s clusters on a single device. Thermal behavior is discussed in detail — fanless design runs hot under load and direct sunlight but remains stable. Geekbench scores are provided comparing RPi 4, RPi 5, N100, and higher-end AMD Ryzen systems. The post also covers use cases including testing OpenFaaS, Actuated CI, and Slicer (a microVM provisioning tool), plus alternatives like the Acemagic F3A with AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.