Is this really that expensive? I bought a 4-bay Netgear NAS (without drives) back in 2013 or so for around $375. I still use it today, but its performance is pretty bad (it's a single-core ARMv5TE with 256MB -- yes, MB -- of RAM), and I've had to deal with a no-longer-supported proprietary OS[0] based on Debian squeeze (unsupported since 2016).
I see a Synology 5-bay NAS on Amazon for around $700. The PiBox 5 plus an 8GB CM4 w/32GB eMMC runs less than $350. Even though I'd expect the performance of the PiBox to be less than that of a Synology NAS, I will gladly pay half price for something decent that runs an OS that I can update essentially forever and manage how I see fit.
[0] Luckily I've managed to build and flash a modern kernel and install Debian buster on it, since support for its hardware has been upstreamed, but I imagine this is the exception, not the rule.
I see a Synology 5-bay NAS on Amazon for around $700. The PiBox 5 plus an 8GB CM4 w/32GB eMMC runs less than $350. Even though I'd expect the performance of the PiBox to be less than that of a Synology NAS, I will gladly pay half price for something decent that runs an OS that I can update essentially forever and manage how I see fit.
[0] Luckily I've managed to build and flash a modern kernel and install Debian buster on it, since support for its hardware has been upstreamed, but I imagine this is the exception, not the rule.