u/I_SAID_RELAX

Just wanted to say thanks for existing with that name. You made me laugh after a stressful day. I gave you a high score in the tower.

Not for nothing though, this is really the sort of low-key thing that I've always found great about this damn game, outside of the gameplay itself.

Arrggh I'm having trouble putting a system together because I'm trying to satisfy too many constraints. What would you do here?

My approach is to build a single system to avoid paying for RAM and drives twice. Ideally, I'd rather go for DDR4 depending on motherboard availability and cost. I'm willing to go non-ECC memory; it is what it is. Original plan was to build on the MSI PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 board because it's got oodles of x16 slots, but then I found out only 2 run at x4 lanes or higher.

Goals:

1. Low(er) power consumption. Looking at newer hardware for this reason.
2. NAS-like functionality (and backing the standard assortment of Immich, NextCloud, etc.).
   1. ZFS for storage drives but I don't particularly care if I'm going DIY or letting TrueNAS manage it.
3. 10 Gbit LAN either built-in or room via PCIe.
   1. Looking at the newer controller cards that are less power hungry and run cooler like the Aquantia AQC107. If PCIe, it needs either PCIe 4.0 x1 or PCIe 3.0 x4
4. Service hosting (Jellyfin, Home Assistant, Minecraft, etc.)
5. Transcoding support for video streaming
6. Expansion support for being able to do object detection in Frigate and/or local Voice Assistant integration with Home Assistant.
7. Drives: 2 SATA SSD, 2 NVMe, 4 HDDs
   1. Looks like this forces a PCIe card in almost all motherboard offerings and as far as I can tell there's the LSI HBA method which needs at least an x8 slot but can probably run at x4 lanes (?); otherwise something like ASM1064 chips that can run as low as PCIe 3.0 x1 (maxing out 4 HDDs dubiously but probably fine for the slow storage tier and lower power)?

So that would seem to put me at a motherboard that needs:

1. At least 1 PCIe x16 slot (for a relatively low-power GPU) down the road
2. At least 2 PCIe slots running at x4 lanes or more (probably x16 sized on the board)
3. At least 2 NVMe slots
4. At least 2 SATA ports
5. Enough chipset lanes to run 2-4 if the GPU takes all 16 of the CPU lanes (assuming a 12th-14th gen Intel CPU)

I was looking at these boards but can't find any in-stock from a reputable seller, not to mention the prices are cutting deeply into the DDR4 vs DDR5 RAM savings.

• ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI D4
• ASUS Prime Z790-P WiFi D4
• ASUS TUF Gaming Z790-Plus WiFi D4
• GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX DDR4

The MSI boards I came across seemed to all be missing at least 1 PCIe slot needed.

It's the modern layaway program. You just put your money into Micron stock and bing, bang, boop: you'll soon have profit to buy your RAM.

I need to build a NAS at the wrong moment in time. I'm looking at multiple sites (like serverpartdeals) and seeing all the "seller refurbished" drives with 2 year warranties but with 40-75k+ hours already supposedly on the drives. These are offering decent discounts to new pricing and it's not like I'm seeing more than 3 year warranties on new drives out there anyway.

So, realistically, are you all trusting these drives as long as they're from a reputable retailer? Relying on your 3-2-1 backup anyway so willing to roll the dice for a better value?

I have died so many damn times in the Lightfall campaign just trying to swing around and screwing it up. Having a blast though.

I know it's considered a terrible campaign, but I'm just happy playing Destiny again and this is where I'd left off.

https://preview.redd.it/hhc8i3m7e50h1.png?width=1096&format=png&auto=webp&s=f34a20c9d64af29abe71ad4b470fc6229a7be91d

It's so effective that it hides 97% of start menu content!