These small boxes are great, but cooling is always an issue. IMO a perforated case, equipped with some kind of tool-less plastic holders for an externally mounted standard 120mm or 140mm case fan, that could be powered from an USB port, could be a solution. Even an option to mount an external fan on both side of the case maybe, if the box is standing vertically.
That would enable users with moderate CPU and nvme storage solutions to run with a small internal fan, or enable the use of very powerful CPU and fast nvme + fast 40GB+ networking cards, without much noise, and also easily replaceable fans.
I don't see any other way to cool these without constantly having to worry about the small internal fans failing, and frying the NIC, or throttling the nvme ssd / cpu..
is it a totally dumb idea?