Nikolithebear

As others have said, no not really. If you're doing long file transfers of a mixed workload size it can matter. You should be fine though, plus depending on your file system (like ZFS) you can use caching drives to help buffer that.

As others have said you really only have a couple of options. If you had linux I'd recommend to use something like Cockpit and Port forward it on your router and only allow your friends IP to reach it. But, since its windows you can really only allow him to RDP remotely port forwarding wise. But, I would only allow the source from his public IP address. Leaving it open to anyone on the internet will get you hacked quickly - especially with RDP. Use a VPN, and scope the VPNs subnet only to access your game servers IP. Of course from there they can jump and see other things on your network so thats not a full solution. Move your game servers to a rented server in the cloud, a VPS (Azure, GCP, AWS Lightsale, or other game server managed providers) and share the account login credentials with him.

Normally IPMIs have 'dip' switches or pins you can bridge on the board to reset these features. Go to page 117 of this and take a look: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/841600/Intel_Server_Board_S2600WT_TPS.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiQx8aByfaTAxUaweYEHX50MKkQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1atgR_VPfKyPzSiIZnQfQQ I'd double check these details but this might get you started: Used when you're locked out entirely. Power down the server, unplug AC Locate jumper J1A4 on the board (labeled "BMC defaults" in the TPS manual) Move jumper to the reset position for 10 seconds Move it back Power on — BMC boots with factory defaults

Well, I won't try to repeat what everyone else has said, but I'll summarize my thoughts into line items below. Why? Just looking for a project, or looking to solve a problem you yourself have? What does your own storage needs look like and how do you solve them? 400TB even with 36 TB drives is about 11~ drives depending how you slice it. That's a lot of heat and vibration to take care of. You also haven't talked about power usage and how you're going to power it. Depending on your system it would be nearing 500-600 watts. For a server you'd need redundant PSUs so that's another item to think about. The 2.25inch and 3 M.2's are another thing, but thats just PCI lanes and realistate. I don't think you'll hit the 300x210x200 size spec with what you're writing up. For that much storage you might want more RAM depending on your supported and expected use file system (think ZFS). Cooling with a single 140MM fan will not do it. 2 minimum at high RPM or even 3.

I had an issue like this with my set up. I solved this by setting up a wake on lan script that automatically booted my server in the morning, and had a cron script that shut down the server before I went to bed. This cut down on my power drastically. As for use, there's lot of options available to you. You could run docker, Proxmox, linux (Debian, Ubuntu, etc) on it. Running LLMs and a local AI server like OpenWebUI would be an adventure. Just some ideas.

PI's are a good idea if you already have them. I won't try to force the idea of other options on you, but office PCs may be more economic here. Grabbing 3 mini desktops like HP Elitedesk Mini's would be around 50-80 watts for the cluster of them. From there you'd get more horse power, more control, and give you more flexibility. But, that being said if you already have the Pi's and just want to tinker more power to you.

Great question here. First off, networking is hard so don't blame yourself for getting confused. A flat network off of any consumer router (layer 3) device is normally either 10.0.0.0/24 or 192.168.1.0/24 and are on the native vlan of vlan 1 ( most of the time). A switch by default is layer 2 (layer 2 of the OSI - look up the OSI if you're interested. Layer 2 is all about frame forwarding. A layer 3 switch is a switch that can route between layer 2 vlans. VLANs are segmentation that breaks up the broadcast domain of a network (read about Unicast, Broadcast this will give a good background on that). This goes beyond the frame of the packet, and goes into reading the routing (layer 3) parts of the frame. CBT Nuggets is my go to for basic networking for beginners. https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/technology/networking/what-is-a-vlan-and-how-they-work

As ElectronicWizardy said. A handful of questions. 1. How many TB are you storing, what kind of speeds are you wanting to hit? What Storage based serves will this serve? 2. Get a seperate switch. Any Mikrotik switch will do IMO, or even a netgear dumb switch. 3. What router features do you want? What Internet speed do you have? If you're replacing your router, I assume you dont have a seperate access point (Wifi). I'd personally suggest seperately them, but that's up to you.

I'd really suggest proxmox. Proxmox has alot of cooler features you might want in the future such as containers and gpu passthrough. Its also free

Just get a used server off ebay... Trust me.. Like a Dell R410, R710 or R510. All are great cheap and awesome powerful hardware for under 400 dollars easy.

FreeNAS requires drive level access so youd have to flash the raid controller to IT mode and just use it as a HBA. But if you just want something simple you can grab 2 drives for the OS (Raid 1) and grab 2 drives for the Data Storage (Raid 1). Then either use a normal windows OS (Win10) or splurge and get a Windows Server License however they are really expensive.

128mb... Its a router. Granted mine has 8gb but its a full 1u machine.. Still.

Unfortunately hotspot is the ONLY way to go. I have an old watchguard router then I could test and flash with DD-WRT. Good idea! Testing will ensue... Thank you! More ideas still welcome

Hey all, Currently at home we're stuck with ATT 10/1 internet speeds and paying about 90 a month for it.. I know right? What we want to do is purchase a Verizon hotspot that is basically a wifi hotspot to a local cell tower to get around 15-20 down and 1-3 up. This will then be load balanced with either a PFSENSE or TP link solution to add up to a now redundant 35ish down and 5ish up. Thats still to be tested. How would I connect a wifi AP (Such as a ubiquiti AP) and hard line that to my WAN port on my router, thus making the verizon hotspot connected to my home WAN. Save me from ATT... SAVE ME. (Other ideas or solutions accepted)

Very neat! I'm defiantly going to look into that. I'm almost tempted to see how freenas works with the netapp device so I can use ZFS and implement Raid 6. I havent really used storage spaces very much. Most of my expeirence is with Windows Server 2012 and R2. Edit: Or Xpenology