vandycamp

So I have a 4TB portable USB drive (no internal SATA so it can't be shucked) that I connect via Unassigned Disk. Of course every couple days it randomly disconnects on its own. I'm not looking to add this to my storage pool, I understand that is a no no. I have it connected to the blue USB port in the back (supposedly more stable?). I'm running out of storage and am not in a position to buy a nice big 20TB drive to add. I'm just looking to get a bit more space that will stay connected. I also have a 4TB Crucial portable SSD I could add as another Unassigned Disk but I'm afraid that will just disconnect as well. So basically what I'm asking is if there is any way to connect these options in a more reliable way?

We're a family of four and in the Apple ecosystem and I'm planning our Unraid build. I would love to let our two kids play some casual games, many of which are Windows-only such as Bear & Breakfast. What would be an acceptable CPU/MB combo that would be able to do a max of 4 VMs (me, wife, two kids) for light usage (not looking to play Baldur's Gate 3 or whatever, just mostly casual, farming or pixel games) Also open to running just 1 VM and installing something like Castor or Duo (Sunshine, Moonlight sort of setup). Would love recommendations and if integrated graphics will be good enough or I should plan to pick up a lower end GPU? Also planning to use the usual apps like Plex and some other Dockers. Thanks in advance! Edit: planning an ATX build in a Meshify 2 case 😀