Pi's themselves are random in quality. Some are very reliable. Others less so. That's what you get when you buy toy quality hardware. We recommend used ThinkPads because they were originally $1,500 enterprise quality machines but they sell for less than $200 when entire fleets are sold off lease. I...

Raspis just aren't long-term reliable. My Raspi4 node died twice and completely corrupted its ssd each time. They would almost certainly do better with a UPS, but at that point the arguments in favor of repurposing an old laptop get stronger (laptop's battery is effectively a UPS). And sure, "use w...