u/--Hyper--

So I have an issue that I want to use disks I already have data on in a raid configuration but that requires that I wipe the disks and I dont have enough extra space to get everything off those disks without losing stuff. Because of that I was going to try and compress everything and then unpack it later.

I know google exists, but I just wanted some opinions on people's success or failures with this since this is gonna take a while to zip up and compress with whatever I decide to use. I wanna make a good choice before I hit start lol.

So I've transferred my optiplex MOBO into a different case and saw it had a 19pin usb 3.0 port labeled as a card reader.

Is this even usable for USB devices at all? All I get online is conflicting results of people saying they dont know, it worked, it didnt work, or to just buy a usb extenders or an expansion card

AI isn't any more help since it will just tell me online reports are conflicting or to just buy something instead.

If it does work for anyone, it possible to move the wires of an internal usb 2.0 header around in the plug to work with the port since 3.0 has all the pins for 2.0? It'd seem a bit silly to buy a $10 adapter cable when I can easily depin the endings and put the wires in the right spot.

(For more context, yes I need this because I am using an extra fan controller for HDD cooling, and it needs a USB 2.0 header to function/control speeds.)

Long story short, I planned on receiving some recycled drives for use in this cobbled together NAS, but that's been delayed at the last moment and I am not going to be getting those for about a month.

Because of that, I don't have enough storage to create a proper pool to transfer the data of all my individual disks and I don't really like the idea of making a pool for each drive individually.

I use a 120gb SSD as a boot drive for this and nothing else really so I wanted to know if there was any way to shrink the volume truenas is installed on so I could fit something else on for dual boot. Searching for this just gives conflicting ideas and answers, and I really just wanted to know if it was possible.

Yes yes I understand it is frowned upon, but I am new to this and would like for things to be ready to go when the drives arrive, and I also like the ability of a fall back option to something I absolutely know how to use if I mess something up and truenas gives me issues.