Lolight

It should be fine as long as you get the one without a power disable feature. The part number indicates it doesn't have one. It seems some vendors might be selling old stock, with a suspect handling/storage history and maybe even mixing part numbers.

Just came across a guide write up regarding SMR: https://unraid-guides.com/2021/07/21/can-unraid-use-smr-hard-drives-the-smr-vs-cmr-debate/

Nvidia Quadro would surely defeat your goal of maximum reduction in power consumption. You haven't mentioned how many trans-coding streams you plan to handle and at what resolution... But depending on those factors the 9th-10th Gen Intel processor's built-in graphics might be a power-saving solution.

It's generally recommended to add a SSD cache drive to your system. Just about all newer motherboards have at least a single M.2 socket. The NVMe M.2 SSD drives are very cheap now. You don't need a large one - a 250 GB drive would suffice for your usage. Here's Spaceinvader One on cache:

Shoot for the drives designed for NAS - best and the most expensive option, but be aware of WD Reds. At least some of the WD Red drives are built on the SMR tech. Avoid!!! Instead opt for the WD Red Plus drives if you choose to stay with WD. Those are built on the desirable CMR tech. All of the Seagate NAS drives are fine (CMR tech). You can also go with cheaper Non-NAS drives. In that case the only safe option would be to go with a 10 TB or larger Seagate. Smaller Seagates are SMR drives.

Are you really sure you wanna go the rack-mounted server setup?

It might be a prudent idea. But it's unlikely that any of your old PSU's will fail within the next few years considering their operational loads. And even less likely that they will damage other components if the failure does happen. You might consider opening them up to dust off the internals while checking for bulged capacitors. -

A 24 drive system (as opposed to a consumer-grade 12-14 drive one) would be a big jump in complexity and likely noise. It wouldn't be advisable to start at that level If you're not an IT-pro. That's probably why there were no other responses to your question. I think it would make more sense to start with a 12-16 drive system pictured in this thread:

What is your current NAS system?

Can you clarify why you need the HBA?

I suspect It's gonna be a long while before those start showing up in retail (more than 6 months). And even then I don't think that the 20 TB versions are gonna be a similarly great deal compared to their 10-18 TB brethren (as with the Expansion externals) if Seagate switches in those back to the SMR tech. At least I haven't heard of them making any noises of developing SMR versions in the 10-18 TB range.

The selected motherboard won't fit into the Node 304 case. It's designed to accept mini-ITX boards. MSI B460M-A PRO is a larger micro-ATX. On another note, the thermal qualities of both of those cases don't seem to be all that great. Have you considered the Node 804 case? It's designed to accept micro-ATX boards and has superior thermals (to keep HDD's as cool as possible).

EVGA 500 White is a low quality PSU - Avoid!

Nothing to do with discounting and everything to do with lower levels of taxation, inefficiency and retail greed.

Hear ya! But in the case with the hard drives it was clearly the Chia mining hype and nothing else. Now that the disk buying panic related to Chia is over, the prices have started to slowly come down. Doesn't mean that they will return back to the pre Chia levels. Not until a sizable number of the Chia miners completely loose interest in expanding their "farms" and stop buying new disks.

Welcome! Please keep it in mind that probably even more people are using consumer grade boards, especially when they're just starting. Because it's a much cheaper and simpler approach to building a home server.

Seems like it's about to change with the hardware acceleration support being worked on: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/8451-emby-server-with-hardware-transcoding-in-xu4hc1hc2-armbian-stretch/?do=findComment&comment=113019

I run the N2 on Coreelec as a client. Sorry, don't use Emby. This long thread might be of interest: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/75-server-or-media-client.2581649/page-16

EVGA 500W White is a low quality PSU - avoid.

Odroid C4 Odroid N2+ Odroid XU4

I'd take the newer processor. In addition to the much faster RAM and newer GPU, it's also cooler running and more efficient (14 nm vs the older 22 nm lithography)

Only hardware accelerated transcoding allows the lowest possible power consumption. Plex doesn't support hardware transcoding on AMD. You'll need Intel's QuickSync for that.

The failed PSU model? Year? The replacement PSU model?

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