This weekend I got an email that some Pi compute module 4's were available (at normal price), but I didn't see it until it was four hours old. I was expecting them to be gone but they were still available. They did sell out, but in any case the compute modules are more available than the regular Pi boards. There are various carriers available for the CM4's that optimize the I/O connections for specific purposes. It does raise the cost a bit over a stock Pi4 (not nearly as much as the scalpers), but for example some of the carrier boards have SATA connections directly onboard that are better for servers. The CM4's come in many flavors with regard to wifi, ram memory, EMMC so you can choose more precisely what your project needs, and you can avoid being dependent on the slow microSD if you want to.
For disk servers there are boards other than Pi4's that are well suited to the task, so Pi's aren't the only game in town. For many hardware I/O related projects the Pi's have better software support but for server purposes the Pi doesn't have much advantage over many other boards running Linux. For example the Mini PCs start at about double the cost of a fully equipped but offer about five times the performance.
I heard that the Pi backlog may get significantly better in the first half of 2023. They are producing 400,000 boards per month, but they are mostly going to OEMs, hobbyists are not a priority, unfortunately.
Adafruit has a batch of Pi's most every wednesday morning, get signed up with them for two factor authentication (required for Pi orders) and get on their notifications for the boards you are interested in. Log in tuesday night so you are ready and see what comes the next morning. They only allow one Pi per lifetime right now, or at least one in recent months, so be ready to move quickly but only order the one you really want. They generally only have one type available, and it is all sold out in a half hour or so on the Wednesday morning.
It is not a replacement for everything a Pi does, but the Pico's are adequate for many of the smaller projects. I've been using them for a variety of clock projects with internet time and with GPS time. They cost $4 without network, and $6 with wifi and are much easier to come by than Pi4's. They program with Arduino, Platform I/O or MicroPython. Since Pi's are hard to get, I've been doing more Pico projects lately. Pretty amazing to get a 133 mhz dual core microcontroller with wifi for $6. My Pi Zero W ($10 module) clocks take about 60 seconds to boot and get time, whereas the Pico W boots and gets time from the internet in about 3 seconds. They aren't equivalent for all projects but for many smaller projects the Pico's are excellent and when they are in stock you can buy several at a time so the shipping gets spread out.
Alan B
