Thanks for the awesome reply
Here is what I am on about:
For years I used a 4 bay QNAP NAS with a reasonably powered CPU (in it’s day) and upgraded the RAm to 32G I think it was a 470Pro or something like that quite a powerful machine in it’s own right in the day (maybe 15years old now)
I ran 4K HDMI direct outta that sucker for several years on Kodi - an app they once supported. I think it ran around 45-60W (maybe a bit more) power so not all that bad streaming and loaded with HDD’s.
Now I know how to use and build a TrueNAS machine (I learnt that repairing an old Supermicro server) I want to replace that QNAP experience with a quieter faster machine I can leave on 24/7 in my home theatre (without it been seen on my power bill) - so my partner doesn’t nag me all the time! - heck it’s 15 years on!.. And she pays the power bills!
But here is the thing
4 bay QNAP NVMe is already here at $1000-1250
However it;s not ECC
And as you right;t pointed out 10GB/sec NIC is the bottleneck heck it might even only be Gen3??
But most of all QNAP have pretty much dumped Kodi and HDMI HCDP 2.2
Neither are supported anymore.
The lack of HDCP2.2 thing is not a problem for actually playing files… it becomes a problem with HDMI handshake if you leave it on 24/7 attached to your video/audio playing device
In summary I want to replicate this experience with an NVME based device running around 25-30W max idle.
I propose to use Jellyfin (will replace Kodi) as I am lead to belive you can run Jellyfin in TrueNAS Scale (CE) now.
Cheers
I Only buy those Cheap Xeon (X79 and X99) ALiexpress MoBos.
I just checked:
This Mobo has 2x PCIe16x Slots, that are able to do 4x4x4x4x Bifurcation.
It can handle 4x32GB DDR3 ECC RAM. (it costed 60EUR)
A "top of the line, E5-2697 V2 CPU is like 30 EUR on ebay
The most expensive part is proper LGA2011 CPU cooler.
Which is real pain in the lower part, if you want to put all this into a 1U case.
I also bought this one:
It is only a Gen3, but totally passive card, so with the MoBo above, you can have 8+1 (on the MOBO) NVMe drives in your system
All this for about 200 EUR (plus case, plus PSU, plus the drives)
- It does not have any GPU – but you can buy one for 10EUR on ebay for installing the OS. (however for Jellyfin transcoding, you need something in the ~100EUR VGA)
- It does not have IPMI – but, if you use Proxmox, youcan manage the system conveniently, except for the BIOS.
- My current system under test (memtest 11 from an USB drive) draws about 86W (E5-2650L (4 cores/8threads enabled in BIOS)+128GB DDR3 ECC, An nVIdia Quadro K2000 GPU on a Corsair RM1000e PSU)
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Try VLC instead of Kodi.
My SONY Bravia TV had Kodi as the default video player, but it was really bad. (It refused to see any SMB shares, however everything else in the house did se everything without a problem)
I uninstalled it, installed VLC, and it works as a charm.
If this is your only problem, it might solve is free of charge…
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Cool. Very similar to a previous incantation of my lab. I hope you like your build so far, the biggest criticism I have of those boards is they lack memory slots (you can only install 4 DIMMs instead of 8).
I’ve bought alot of AliExpress stuff, but never whole boards. Though, they seem to be popular recently.
You can buy boards with 8 slots too. They are rare, but exist.
Also, usually, 128GB is enough isnt it?
(Last time I only bought the full 128GB, because it was so God Damn cheap, like 60EUR for 4x32GB)
I really missed the VGA output from those boards before. However, you can live without them. Since, I discovered Proxmox, I am content with that.
The X79 platform got REALLY cheap recently…
Also, I was really lucky, because could catch an offer, like a MoBo+E5-2680V4+2x8GB DDR4 ECC, for like 32 EUR.
This seems reasonably priced:
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I pivoted to a AMD Ryzen with the ASRock Rack B650D4U-2L2T/BCM
Thanks for all the help everyone 
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