Lolight

It seems that the vast majority of Amazon customers are still unaware of their product intermixing practices.

Did you use a 140mm exhaust fan on the back of the HDD's side?

Please let us know of their response. Wonder if it's a repackaged fake.

If you plan on 4K transcoding, then I'd advice to upgrade to the i5-13500 for a more powerful iGPU. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=230580,230495

Welcome! The Case - Fractal Node 304. Note that it only accepts mini-ITX form factor motherboards. Select an Intel, Socket 1700 (non-F SKU) 12-13th gen. processor with as many cores as you can afford. At least 32 GB of memory and an NVMe SSD for cash. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ Don't try to save on a power supply - get one in the smallest wattage you can find out of the Tier B, Mid range or better. https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

Wonder if something like this would be an option: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GL3FNCY?th=1

Not, it surely wouldn't be a better option, not even close. Even without taking into account the extra power consumption that will quickly eat up any price savings over a brand new component set.

I'd assume @Vr2Io hasn't noticed the 2080 ti and was just comparing processors. And yeah, steer away from liquid coolers in a NAS environment. IMO, option 2 is the way - no contest.

Cost efficient - Arctic P12 or Arctic P14 Best performant - be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4

It becomes the problem when Unraid refuses to boot, save or retain configuration changes. There's a bunch of utilities you can use to identify and screen out problematic USB drives. https://whatsoftware.com/how-to-check-and-test-usb-flash-drive/

That's a very good advice and should be followed by everyone after purchasing new USB flash media.

Nothing in the Uncast series... Instead NASCompares invited Spaceinvader to his own channel:

Welcome! No need to upgrade for just a single instance of trancoding.

Isn't it the other way around? Why to spend on a stand-alone power hungry GPU when his proposed CPUs already come with built-in iGPUs which are perfectly capable of performing the task? With great efficiency.

Yeah, sounds like a case of mistaken marketing message. How did that happen @SpencerJ? Or has it been a quiet change made to the basic license' feature set?

Another option is to use a 9-pin USB adapter - It will allow the Flash drive to plug directly into the mobo via an USB header. You might use tamper proof screws to secure access to server's components. Granted it's not that much of a deterrent to someone who's real determined, especially when equipped even with the simplest of tools like a can opener. But if that sounds like a real possibility then maybe you'd need to rethink the overall security situation of your server's location.

Sounds like a real good experience in your particular case. To everyone else - YMMV.

Every consumer board is designed and capable of 24/7/365 (at least the big branded ones, not some cheap junk of unknown origin). The Server grade mostly only differ in design, features and associated component sets, not necessarily construction (if at all) with the exception of ones specifically designed and build for military or unique industrial uses.

Welcome! Will you need to transcode? Regarding an HBA:

Please re-read that post. According to @SpencerJ: "Either due to counterfeit devices being sold or a manufacturing change directly from SanDisk." I'm not aware of any reports on anything related to SanDisk changing their manufacturing practices. Besides it would make absolutely no sense for them to do such a thing. It's been mentioned numerous times on this very thread that the online market (particularly Amazon) is flooded with counterfeit USB drives. e.g. even by buying directly from the Amazon store instead of one of their third party sellers it would still give no guarantee of receiving the real thing due to Amazon's bin mixing practices. The situation is not exclusive to SanDisk. Every popular brand has its share of counterfeits floating around. Therefore It's been recommended to only shop at big Brick-n-Mortar electronics stores in order minimize chances of getting a counterfeit USB drive. Or even better, use one of the recommended industrial grade USBs. There's no need to complicate this thread. Fake USB drives are unreliable and prone to failure. But you won't invalidate your license in any way, only introduce some downtime and an inconvenience of replacing the failed drive (hopefully with a real one this time) and transferring your license and configuration to a new USB drive with a different GUID. The USB drive market has always been plagued by cheap counterfeits featuring redundant GUIDs, with many "victims" all over the world using them without a slightest suspicion that they've been scammed. As opposed to users of Unraid where every USB drive must be checked for a unique, never used up with Unraid GUID. Doesn't mean that Unraid has a unique ability to detect fakes. It just cross-references the new drive GUID against the previously registered ones. Makers of fakes don't bother to issue a unique GUID to every USB they produce. That's how multiple fakes end up with batches of the same GUID. Which still won't preclude Unraid from issuing a license to the first one to be registered out of that GUID batch. But it will render the remaining ones unusable for Unraid. You might want to test one out of your 3-pack to see how it performs: https://whatsoftware.com/how-to-check-and-test-usb-flash-drive/ Also wonder what info is displayed in summary: https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

"Researchers at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany published a study revealing that tens of thousands of container images hosted on Docker Hub contain confidential secrets, exposing software, online platforms, and users to a massive attack surface." https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/thousands-of-images-on-docker-hub-leak-auth-secrets-private-keys/

Should be OK. https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/ You might also want to check the linked in the prior post power consumption thread, the last page, where they discuss PSUs that are found to be the most efficient at idle (in highly optimized systems).

Sorry, know nothing about Audio Workstations and their processing abilities and requirements. Are they designed and capable of taking advantage of all available to a VM cores? That's something that you'd need to look into specifically without making assumptions. You haven't mentioned that software in your original post hence my understanding that you don't plan on anything particularly intensive. If you plan on stressing your CPU to the fullest, with minimal acoustical noise then yeah, the use of AIO would be justified. btw, modern HDDs when in use can also generate quite a bit of noise on their own. Also, no need for an expensive multi-rail PSU (be quiet! straight power 11)

Way over the top for your use case - there's no need to overspend on powerful components. If power consumption is a priority, then you might want to visit the below-linked thread for references and general trends on power saving settings and component selections. AIO water cooling is neither recommended or needed for a quiet home NAS. The vast majority of power-consumption estimators are designed to mislead by grossly overstating power consumption requirements.