Mcthunda820

Nav Intel only validates their CPUs to the rating your talking about. That doesn't mean your cpu wont do higher speeds. Your motherboard's chipset supports XPM profiles. Here is how you turn it on to get your ram running at the higher speed: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?39185-Memory-Setup-Guide-For-Maximus-VI-Motherboards

What motherboard do you have? Ram max speed is determined more by the motherboard than CPU. Yes, the memory controller is in the CPU and that has some bearing, but typically you can run faster ram as long as your motherboard allows you to set options above the standard.

My home network to add to the collection.

iStarusa has some cheap options. My pfsense box currently lives in a NORCO RPC-230. Not the best case, but no real complains. Haven't found a 1u setup I liked since I had to drop the Alix platform (pc engines).

I think you could pretty much make anything work. Ive used a dual core pentium processor in the recent past to do exactly what you are doing with zero raid. Pre-transcoding was a must for this setup... I'll tell you what I did about a year ago and you can go from there. This setup could download, stream to two Tv's at a time and still had room for more- Hardware: CPU- i5 6600k overclocked to 4.1 ghz Hyper 212 evo cooler 16gb ram 8gb CF card and internal reader (for esxi OS) 2 x 120gb intel ssd raid 1 (OS disks for VMs) 4 x 4 TB WD has drives in soft raid 10 (dedicated to freenas) Atx mobo with dual gigabit nics. 4u rackmount case OS: ESXi Created 5 VMs. I like putting as few services on each VM as possible so that if something does break (or I screw it up, lol) I don't have to worry about taking everything down. Freenas VM: iSCSI and NFS services. Ubuntu VM x2: plex (NFS for video storage) Ubuntu VM: pre-transcoding and other automated file operations over NFS Ubuntu VM: VPN and Usenet/torrent client If you would like to know anything about this setup, just ask.

Just to answer the question. There is no external firewall that will specifically block windows 10 spying (telemetry) that I know of. If you want to do this the business way, you can get just about any firewall and then: 1: Look up any application/service you plan to use on your network and get the destination IP/Ports used by that application/service 2: Create a rule in your firewall to allow the traffic from step 1 3: Create a rule to block any and all other communication in or out of your network (deny all) This has the advantage of blocking not only Microsoft's spying, but anyone else so long as you don't allow the traffic in steps 1-2. If you would like specific firewall recommendation to do this, just let me know.

Unless you plan to sell to a friend as maybe a lab/learning environment, I would not recommend you do this. I do something similar to this, so I can tell you it's possible, but I also have about 15 years of experience helping me along. If you are absolutely serious about this you'll have to lay out how you plan to sell this and to who? (not specifically who, but what is the use case of the user/customer and why would they use your equipment instead of just some cheap VPS or AWS/rackspace for something more serious).

I agree with the Xeon being a bit overkill when you could get many cheaper CPUs with better performance. As far as hardware vs software raid, you need to first decide what OS and what kind of expansion you may need in the future. Hardware and software solutions can be a pain to upgrade depending on what you choose (see leadeater's comment above). I personally have two NAS systems at the house. I have a hardware raid set on one because of the speed/convenience factors of virtualizing everything on ESXi. The other is long term storage that my family also uses. It is software raided with windows storage spaces. Speed wasn't a concern with the second NAS. Main reason was I wanted something really simple to use/troubleshoot. I do this crap for a living, the last thing I want to do when I get home is google the exact command or how-to I need to restore some files me or my wife accidentally deleted... On the windows box, it's a simple drag and drop from the hot backup storage to make everyone happy again!

Really take a look at how you plan to use your time. You can get really time invested with an OS you are not familiar with. There is nothing wrong with running even windows desktop OS for a home NAS. If you are willing to tinker and want the experience, ubuntu/freenas are both good/great options. Not matter what solution you go with be sure to know the answer to these three questions: 1: how important is the data i'm storing? 2: Am I taking the proper steps to secure the data? (mainly determined by question 1) 3: Am I comfortable troubleshooting the system I've built? Remember that a backup is only as good as your ability to use it in a disaster situation. If you're just storing a bunch of movie backups that you don't care to loose? Throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Otherwise, make sure you understand the system you are using.

I have two systems with a gtx 980, one with a 4k display and one with a 144hz 1080p display. I *almost never* notice screen tearing. There are a few select games that I notice it on my 4k display, but I think with your gtx 1080 you'll be fine. At 144hz you are unlikely to notice any tearing anyway unless you have some other component giving you performance hiccups.