Lolight

I hope you've already gotten all your questions answered somewhere else. Please keep in mind that your hardware choice is not that common, especially for a newcomer. Judging by your hardware selection It would look like as if you've already been experienced in the server field and understand the basics. But if you're not then it's highly advisable to start with a simple consumer platform, learn your ways around and only then move onto significantly more complex, powerful but energy inefficient hardware, if you truly need all that power.

So, new HDDs don't work in one port but work fine in others. the old HDD still works in that specific port. no M.2 drives installed. Is there a BIOS update available? I think it might be worth the try.

Does the drive show up in BIOS? If not then the SATA port might have failed.

by looking at the M.2 drive's description when shopping. The listing must mention the type - either SATA or NVMe (PCie).

A SATA port will be disabled only when using a SATA-type M.2 device in the M2_2 socket. No SATA ports will be disabled if using a NVMe M.2 drive in that socket.

Great investigative work by SpaceRex! NASCompares has also jumped into action:

How often do you swap your HDDs? IMO there are too many common disadvantages related to hot swap cases - restricted air flow and backplane reliability being the major ones. Why not to get a freer flowing case without a quick swap option? There's a good selection of those. There's even a case with an isolated 8 HDD chamber - the Fractal Node 804.

Just don't use any old leftovers or cheap SATA cables of uknown origin and you should be fine. And if that does happen a bad cable will get flagged by the drive's SMART and reported as UDMA CRC errors. It's recommended to have multiple backups of important data, preferably following the 3-2-1 strategy.

Welcome! More related to available BIOS settings and their implementation. Also depends on the quantity and individual power draw of attached devices. Maximum power savings can be achieved by allowing the CPU into the deepest possible C-state mode (at idle), disabling every unneeded circuity on the motherboard and running it with as few of attached devices as possible, including cooling fans.

That's the decision for you to make. This exact question has been asked and debated many, many times over the years. Here is a couple of relevant discussions that might help in your decision-making process. https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/6g3rap/is_ecc_ram_essential_for_a_home_server/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/gh8f7i/is_ecc_memory_really_needed/

I don't run expansion cards myself but from what I've seen it's been recommended to also look for the known quality card brands, in addition to the compatible chipsets. The card brands like Syba, IOCrest and maybe StarTech.

The Node 804 is actually significantly smaller than the R5 in overall volume - 40 liters vs 55. It's only larger in the width. If the width is the sticking point then yeah, a tower case should be a better fit. In other aspects... The windowless R5 should be quieter over the Node. The question is by how much. It has a better cable routing design and better access to HDDs. The R6 is slightly bigger but has better flowing HDD trays. The R6 has a real PMW fan hub instead of a 3 speed fan controller, The Node has better air flowing HDD sleds which are also located in their own chamber. Should keep HDDs cooler since they are fully separated from the heat generating CPU/motherboard.

Welcome to the forum! The Node 304 is a very good small NAS case. But it only accepts mini-ITX motherboards which are less common, generally more expensive and normally come with only 4 SATA ports and a single M.2 slot (as applicable to the "big 4" consumer motherboard brands). For more ports you would need to add a SATA expansion card. Also not the easiest case to work on. Other mini-ITX mobo options are available with more SATA ports but they are either much more expensive server oriented or much cheaper obscure Chinese brands - I don't think you'd want either. A real good option is the Node 804 - it's a similarly shaped, though larger and much easier to work on cube case. It has tons of space all around and designed for 8 HDDs. It also accepts more common micro-ATX motherboards that are readily available with 6 SATA ports plus a couple of M.2 slots that could be used for cache. Intel i3-12100 (non-F SKU) would be more than enough for your use case. The rest can be selected via https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ - the site checks all components for compatibility. Don't overlook the PSU - get a quality unit (at least Tier B or better, single rail, in the smallest wattage capacity you can find). https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

Yes. What kind of a hassle have you experienced with the RMA process?

Gold rated PSUs are not considered premium anymore. The Titanium rating includes a requirement for 90% efficiency at 10% of rated load. The newest ATX 3.0 compliant PSU's will have efficiency above 60% at 10W or 2% of rated load. 70% is a recommendation.

Welcome! You might want to check the dedicated to that topic thread:

You should try certain settings tweaking to achieve max power efficiency at idle. This thread might be of help:

Amazon shenanigans..

If he won't be stressing his 12100 for any significant length of time then the stock cooler might be sufficient, though potentially noisy on higher CPU workloads. If looking for aftermarket coolers:

The selected motherboard has only 6 SATA ports and on top of that 4 of those are connected to the chipset while the remaining 2 are on the ASMedia controller. Your current PSU should be enough if it's still in a good working condition and you're willing to take some chances. Otherwise look into upgrading to a proven Tier A, High-End single rail or the very least Tier B, Mid-Range single rail PSU: https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

Welcome! You can start with https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/ I'd recommend a 12-13th gen Intel (non-F SKU) with 6 cores. You will only be able to run one VM at the time without a discrete GPU. Get a compatible ATX motherboard with 8 SATA ports e.g. ASRock Z690 PG Riptide. it comes with three .M2 sockets that you could use for NVMe cache drives. I've mentioned that board as just an example. You will find other ATX boards with similar configurations. It's probably OK for 4 HDDs but when expanding to 8 you will need to replace your PSU (especially if it's been used for a while) with a more powerful unit. 8 HDDs will draw quite a bit of power during a simultaneous spin-up.

May I ask which compact case you're planning to use? 8 HDDs in a min-ITX case sounds like a very difficult task to make it work. Or is it 6 HDDs + 2 SSDs?

I bet your Platinum-rated PSU is of much better build and overall quality. PSU's are considered to be the most quality-wise overlooked component when shopping decisions are made based on wattage/price without taking into account the most important metric - quality. You won't need a big capacity UPS if you set it up as described by @Frank1940.

I think the first page is in dire need of revision. The post needs to be revised in a way that would stress out a point of possibility of getting counterfeits in any brand if shopping online. In that view singling out SanDisk doesn't make much sense. It's been mentioned numerous times on this very thread that the Sandisk drive failure cases are most likely related to the purchased online counterfeits. Was there a single documented case of recently failed legit Sandisk that's been purchased at a big brick-n-mortar store? The front page still links the remaining recommended drives to Amazon with their shady third party sellers and practice of inventory intermixing.

Assuming your drives spike up at 30W when spinning up then your overall system shouldn't be drawing more 300w at max.