Jimulak

Question 1: If I want a windows / linux-desktop box around anyway, does it make more sense to get something like an i5-13400 for the server and use some of the cores for a VM, or to get an i3 (or lower if I can get the sata ports) and just get an old win11 minipc? Here I'm asking about 40% cost but 60% pain-in-the-ass day to day. Question 2: Assuming something lga1700, is a w680 motherboard (ie https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/workstation/pro-ws-w680-ace/ ) worthwhile for an almost-exclusively-media box with a 10 year lifespan, or just sort of silly overkill? Explanation: Existing "server" is the living room gaming box from 10 years ago. i3-4160 running win10 and 3x8tb drives in a storage spaces "raid5." A nearby lightning strike fried the onboard networking years ago, it's got a busted usb header, it owes us nothing and is begging for the sweet release of death. It's in a Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 with room for 8 or 9 drives in drive cages and another 4-6 in adapters in the four 5-inch bays. Goals: Plain serving files for kodi, or jellyfin server, and for the machine to be useful / not-too-annoying to deal with for 10 years. Endgame is to have at least our favorite movies stored as 4k/hdr rips/remuxes. Just two of us, just local use, max use case would be transcoding two 4k/hdr remuxes down to 1080p/sdr for phones/tablets. Budget is under $1K excluding hard drives, guideline is "what's going to be the smartest to keep for ~10 years?" Building a new pc is fun, setting up is fun, maintaining and reconfiguring is actively anti-fun. Timeline is just sometime in the next year or so, probably getting triggered by either redoing the floor in our family room or finally getting a fiber install availamable. Not very interested in *arr stack. Currently interact with "server" by remote-desktop-ing in, that works well enough for me and my special schmoopy that I want to continue. Also I'll almost certainly want a windows or linux-desktop machine or vm around for stuff like calibre that seems to be a mild pain to fully integrate into unraid. Machine lives in extra bedroom until it gets exiled to the basement after network rejiggering for fiber install. No need for it to be silent, just for it not to be too annoying to be around. This server is almost exclusively media; we use a separate synology nas for personal files, treasured home movies, etc that gets backed up to backblaze. Plan: Get probably 3 or 4 10-16tb used enterprise drives. Install 1 or 2 to current box to copy existing files from storage space array. Remove parts, clean case, replace all fans. Remove front doors from case. At least look into turning the drive cages sideways for better airflow over drives. Swap out PSU if new one will pay for itself in less than 5 years. Replace guts, install unraid + jellyfin, enjoy.