Kered124

The cheapest way is just to create a Linux VM on your machine. If you're using Windows 10, then just use Hyper-V which is built in, Oracle Virtualbox, or VMware Workstation Player. 

If you don't mind noise you can get barebone servers off ebay with 12 bays for very very cheap. FreeNAS uses ZFS which is a very resilient File System. It's reliable.

Honestly, give it time. My Ender 3 Pro has developed a random drift that looks similar to the first print shown in this video: 
3D printing is like the old Dot Matrix printers in the 80s and 90s. They're wildly inconsistent but a very cool technology and incredibly useful. They'll break or stop working as designed and you'll have to work on it to improve/repair it. It's not a smooth process. 

If you do want to setup a cloud based system, I (a college student with vary basic linux and sys admin skills) setup a few NextCloud servers for a company I worked with over the summer. It wasn't too challenging and has some cool features.
 
Side note: I would recommend adding the Collabora app onto your install of nextcloud even if you don't activate or use the collaboration functions. It adds some functionality where your nextcloud will be able to handle windows naming conventions of files, ie: you could have MyFile.txt and MyFile.pdf in Windows no problem, but without the Collabora plugin, NextCloud saves the files as MyFile on the server without the extension in the name which will cause a problem. Ironically, it still remembers the file extensions when accessing them on a Windows computer, it just doesn't use it in the name during storage so filenames can clash.
 
NextCloud is pretty cool and easy to setup. You can use it in a web format or add a network location and use the webdav protocol to access and upload data to it. They have a client too, but we didn't use it.
 
If you don't use it at work, it could be a fun project for home use too.

there is no way a file can be edited at the same time by multiple users. Stop helping him, let him go and do his own research and pay for whatever impossible feature he wants to have. The last thing you want to be, is his free lifetime personal tech support.

Transcoding (in our application) is the process of taking a video file and transforming that file to different resolutions and quality levels (colors etc) to make it more playable on certain devices. A common use case is to transcode a 1080p 20mbps file down to 1080p 8mbps to make it play better on a poor connection external to your network. Other things that are related are audio transcoding. An example would be going from 7.1 surround sound capable file to 2.1 for a common soundbar + subwoofer setup. Subtitle burn-in is also related, as I believe it re-encodes the video with the subtitles burned into the image for a cleaner look during playback.
 
For optimal playback with Plex, direct play everything you can. If you want to watch 4k movies that are HDR, make sure your playback device and TV support 4k HDR. 1080p transcoding isn't as difficult and most computers can do it fairly easily. Intel processors with the quicksync feature perform very well when transcoding plex content.

It won't, only GTX/RTX-series cards have hardware-encoding. GT-series cards don't have such.

Hi!
I thought someone besides me might be interested in getting a TeamTrees counter set up.
 
1) I created a simple shell script which retrieves the number of trees which will be planted so far:
curl -s https://teamtrees.org/ | grep id=\"totalTrees\" |egrep -o '[[:digit:]]+' | head -1 With this you can choose your way to display it, e.g. a digital screen, a notification, an widget or whatever.. I chose a MacOS notification.
 
To do this I put the script in MacOS automator application like so:

Changed the icon to a random tree found in google.
And saved it to the Applications folder.
 
2) Then to run hourly I added a plist file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents named org.teamtrees.plist
With the following content: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>org.teamtrees</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/usr/bin/open</string> <string>-W</string> <string>/Applications/Trees.app</string> </array> <key>StartInterval</key> <integer>3600</integer> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <true/> </dict> </plist>  
3) Loaded it using:
launchctl load org.teamtrees  
And now I get a notification like this one hourly: 

 
GL HF!

@hkeatmy
So FreeNAS can be used to do other things rather than sitting idle. You can do this by using Jails and Plugins. Things like running a VM, Running a torrent server, Minecraft server (i think) webserver etc.
Worth having a look in their forums for the best plugins for what you are after.

Pretty good for $40.
 
Only if you actually need it, multiple HDDs perform very well and in a lot of cases a single HDD will saturate a 1Gbps network connection. Multiple HDDs make more different kinds of workloads saturate 1Gbps and more consistent performance overall. SSDs and caching is generally only needed when VM hosting or on the very extreme end of NAS/file server performance which is actually rather rare.
 
Up to you really, RAIDZ1 will do fine as long as you keep on top of hardware health and replacements. It's likely more going to come down to why and what you will be using for NAS for.
 
Personally I'd take out the 2 SSDs, use a USB for FreeNAS install and save the money or spend it in other areas like more HDDs (if you can) or using larger HDDs.

You are absolutely right- I never even thought about putting the router in bridged mode to keep the extra port! Thank you for teaching me something!

Hey @sandhill,
I had this same issue today.
 
It Turns out that RUFUS was writing the flash drive with gpt even though it says mbr (For those who say it doesn't matter because rufus uses DD mode, I'm not sure of this after the issues I had ).
 
Use win32diskimager instead.
 
You may have to use linux to update the partition table possibly before you will see the flashdrive in windows (Disk manager showed the flashdrive but would not allow me to edit it).
 
I had tried 5 flash drives of different types so had to update the partition table on all of them again. 
 
Also, I was able to boot in UEFI mode after this as well. 
 
UPDATE: tried this again with a different version and still ran into issues so YMMV.
 
UPDATE UPDATE: so the last version that will work is 11.1-u7. From what I can find, the newer versions go to the USB as a GPT partition which for some reason will not UEFI boot on the machine that I have. 

You are absolutely right- I never even thought about putting the router in bridged mode to keep the extra port! Thank you for teaching me something!

Some Googling brought me to this. Makes sense.
 

I doubt it's kevlar... it's often steel wire, sometimes it's tinned copper....
It's sometimes called as DRAIN WIRE and it's there for better grounding of the mess/foil that wraps the twisted pairs.
 
Some cables have a RIP CORD, which is typically made of nylon - this is what is used to strip the sleeve of the cable.
 
 

I'd highly recommend PFsense- I have had awesome luck with it! Buy an access point or turn off DHCP on an old router and use it to broadcast your wireless network.

Best way to do this is with a VPN. I believe the RRAS role is available in Server essentials, so you can do it natively through that role.  
 
 

my aunt who is constantly complaining about her slow Pentium 4 computer, and when people tell her to buy a new one already, she says "no its fine."

Always remember this. You are not forced to do anything for anyone. Also don't agree when you disagree.

Ugh. I think i have the issue resolved, at least for now.
I have made an application specific profile in NVIDIA control panel for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and noticed that it had global parameter for monitor setting set to "global" which in my case happens to be g-sync (because of primary monitor, and my TV obviously does not support it). I switched it to "fixed refresh rate", also enabled ultra low latency mode and locked the FPS at 30 with Riva Tuner - now FPS stays at 30 with 33.3ms frametime like it is supposed to be. Nothing bad is happening at least for now, the 4k is on and HDR is properly detected and displayed, one of those 3 things i've made helped for sure.

FYI if your server (Gigabit) is connecting to a Router via a 100 Mbps port, then your server is effectively now running at 100 Mbps. Granted, that's still enough to handle 30 Mbps - but you should really fix that. The easiest solution is to buy a cheap Gigabit Switch (Something like a TP-Link 5-port unmanaged Gigabit switch) - connect your Server - and all client PC's, into the switch, then use one of the ports in the switch and connect it to the Router.
 
On to your problem: What device or devices are having the playback issue?

Yes. You need a small blub (pea size) on each

Never had an issue with them, not for the last 10+ years. All my servers log hardware faults directly with HPE through OneView, they call to confirm case then immediately ship the part with a technician if I request one. Sounds like you might just have problems with the contracted support company HPE uses, most of the time you're not dealing with actual HPE beyond logging the support case. We've put blocks on companies to avoid these problems, HPE contracts to a few different companies in my region but we only allow a few of them. You know you have a problem when a toaster repair man turns up with a replacement CPU for a DL580, no thanks I'll install it and you can leave.
 
Lenovo does onsite replacement, just need to purchase the correct support option when buying the product. Their support is way worse than HPE though, or was last time I had to use it, but it was actually IBM back then so...?

Read some reviews online, looks like this is very likely a scam to steal credit card info. I have changed my paypal password from their site and been checking daily for any false charges. If the drive is more than a couple of days late I'll dispute the charge and try to get my money back. I'm going to recommend against ordering from them for now, if the drive comes and is legit, I'll post about it.

You're very wise for seeking out that model, but it's about $100 short of the price it currently is on Amazon...
 
Personally, I see nothing overly sketchy about the site and would recommend the following:
 
Create a virtual card using a service like Privacy.com Set aforementioned card with a spending limit only a dollar or so above your total Use said card to purchase You will know immediately if there are further attempted withdrawls from the card, indicating a scam If such are made, they will fail. Track your shipment, and if the item does not arrive contest the charge under grounds of unreceived product  If none are made, and your shipment arrives, make sure it is a real 10TB drive If it is, buy 10 more and make a good profit selling them ~$10 below retail.