Unraid NAS: internal USB 2.0 for boot drive, MSATA SSD cache drive, 3.5" internal parity drive (or dual 2.5" for unassigned disks), and LSI-9201-16e for 16 bay DAS
PFSense box: MSATA SSD for PFSense, Dual NIC onboard (1 WAN, 1 LAN), optional Intel Pro 1000 VT for 4 more NIC
Basic Windows Desktop: More than enough power for normal windows stuff.
HTPC: It’s surprisingly quiet with the fan upgrade. A single slot GPU like GT1030 or AMD Radeon equivalent allows for seamless 4K playback, even HEVC 10. (tested to confirm working) Onboard Radeon GPU has no problems with 4K H.264, or HEVC 1080. Just need to add a displayport to HDMI cable / adapter.
I have one arriving tomorrow from FedEx and another arriving the next day from UPS. I was only getting one but panicked at the last minute and bought a second before they sold out.
Just a quick FYI to save some people from having to RTFM.
Wanted to setup “auto power on” when plugged in or recover from a power failure.
Not in the BIOS. It’s a jumper, JP15, over between the power connector and front panel connector. Its a tight squeeze, had to remove the connector power and use tweezers.
Thought I would share a problem I had with the DFI Realtek Nic.
I have one of the DFI boxes running pfsense (intel Nic for WAN and Realtek Nic for LAN). I have multiple VLANs and my switch is layer 2 (Ubiquiti US-8-150W) meaning cross VLAN traffic must go up to layer 3 (pfsense). When I would try to saturate the 1Gb/s Nic between VLANs, pfsense would give me “re0: watchdog timeout” errors and the network would completely go down.
This was resolved by simply adding a intel Nic card (i350) and moving all Lan traffic to that. Intel Nic lifer now.
I didn’t test this originally. So I put the Realtek to WAN and the onboard Intel to LAN and tried my file transfers cross VLANs (layer 3). I had no issues. So don’t use the Realtek to manage your LAN.
I’m put the WAN back to the onboard Intel and use the Intel Nic card for LAN. I just don’t trust that Realtek even as the WAN.