That makes a lot of sense and pretty much nails it for the Lian Li for me.
Not to turn this in to a build thread (please direct me to go start a new one if necessary) but some thoughts...we currently live in a 27ft Airstream and travel full-time so this machine will be a workhorse multipurpose computer. It will be a NAS that streams movies and music, a backup destination for our MacBooks (since we can’t always count on being able to back up to the cloud due to variable connectivity issues with wifi and cell), a VM that can maybe run decent modern games via HDMI in the cabinet that goes to our 32” TV (since the server will be in an overhead cabinet I’ll want wireless keyboard and mouse, any issues?). And maybe other fun things I’m forgetting ? Based on that, this is what I’m thinking for parts:
Case: Lian-Li Q25
Power supply: SILVERSTONE ST45SF-G 450W SFX12V
Motherboard+CPU
this is my big open item because I think what I need is a combo that can support 6 SATA ports plus an M.2 cache drive. The ASUS Mini ITX H97I-PLUS seems like a good fit but I would like 6 SATA ports on board since I was considering a basic license and would prefer not to add a card to expand the number of ports. Thoughts?
Cache drive: Samsung 850 EVO - 250GB - M.2 SATA III Internal SSD
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB Kit (8GBx2) 1600 MHz Clock Speed DDR3
GPU: I don’t need to start with one but I wouldn’t mind so the system can be “done-ish” on day 1, would love recommendations in the $150 range.
Drives: Seagate 8TB Archive HDD