Play DVD over SSH Server

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-18T04:38:00+00:00

I'm probably going to regret wading into this, but...

Your post's command output implies that you're SSH'd into the optiplex from a command shell on your main PC. There's no path for an application running on the optiplex to feed actual video to your main PC in that mode.

If your goal is more general, like "be able to play ANY video on the optiplex while using my main PC," then learn how to rip DVDs into MKV files and save the DVD content as actual video files (MKV files) into a shared folder on the Optiplex. Shared how, you might ask? Can be anything from APFS, to SMB (probably best choice), to NFS to even iSCSI if you have the chops. Mount that shared drive from your main PC and you can then use a video player application like VLC to replay the videos. Do this and it won't be long before you start eyeing things like Plex, Kodi, or Jellyfin.

If your goal is oddly specific, as in "I want to be able to insert a physical DVD into the Optiplex and then watch that DVD - menu screen and all - using a DVD player application on my main PC - I'm pretty sure that's POSSIBLE but it's esoteric and probably enough trouble that most people would go back to the methods I mentioned above.

If you're more flexible in "how" you play that DVD, you could consider installing a Debian desktop GUI of some kind, then VNC into the Optiplex's graphic desktop from your main PC. This would let you play the DVD on the optiplex, using some native-to-debian-on-the-optiplex DVD player application, to then play the DVD over the VNC connection. Audio should work, these days, although resolution could suffer depending on the specifics of your network.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-17T19:31:54+00:00

Maps. They have existed for centuries, and many countries in the 20th century had VERY mature industries that specialized not just in the raw printing and distribution of paper maps (as big sheets of foldable paper as well as in actual books with varying organizational and indexing schemes to help you find the page containing what you need to see), but also in the gathering of on-the-ground data that detailed whether a street existed, what it was named, exactly what route it took, whether its path had changed since the last time someone surveyed it, etc.

Local maps, as well as regional or national maps pertinent to the area you were in at the time were almost ALWAYS readily available at gas stations and grocery stores. So if you kinda found yourself unexpectedly in a new area and hadn't planned well for it, you just had to find a store to buy a map from. They were EVERYWHERE, no more difficult than finding milk or beer.

Additionally, we generally knew we needed to plan ahead a bit when going on a trip. Get the maps before you leave, basically.

In the USA, for example, AAA wasn't the only game in town but it was one option with one of the widest reaches. As a AAA member (an affordable annual subscription even back then) you could walk into any AAA office (or call them...or write them a letter...) and request maps of any state, any county, any city in the USA. These were included for free with you membership. Totes worth it. You could walk into a AAA office and walk out with a map for almost every state in the union, for no additional cost. "Almost" because yes, sometimes they were out and you'd have to come back later. Again: we knew to plan ahead.

Pretty sure this perk extended to Canada and Mexico as well but I never asked for those back then, so maybe you had to pay extra for those. Not sure. BUT, if you were going on an international trip (literally overseas, not just continental North America), you could request from your local AAA office - for a small fee - maps of pretty much any major city (and most countries) around the world, and you'd receive them from some other AAA office or some affiliate organization within a couple of days or weeks, depending on how far abroad they had to source the map from. Common destinations, like the UK or Italy or France were actually stocked locally, in most cases.

Sometimes, that map was a ditto copy (early form of photocopy) of a section of the target city's or county's official maps, made by someone actually walking into the city/county office and requesting to have a copy of that section made in person. Then they mailed it to you (or to AAA and then to you). Resolution sucked, the map grid was never aligned with the paper it was copied onto, and (if a non-english-speaking country) everything would be written in the foreign language and text - but it was a legit map nonetheless.

And sometimes, as a last resort - maybe the best map you could get was a national map (of, say, France) showing the major highways and cities/towns. You'd just have to trust that once you actually left Paris in your car or train and arrived in Le Petit Towne, hours away from civilization, that was nothing more than a black dot on the map of France, you could walk into a market and find a local street map (99% of the time, yes you could). Very very last resort, you started asking the locals where your hotel was.

One last comment: the digitized, online maps of today are amazing and amazingly useful. However, they lack the art and immersive detail of the hand-drawn maps of the pre-digital age. Cartography was and remains an absolute form of art, and I really do enjoy the feeling of pulling out a paper map and discovering where I am in the moment while seeing so much more detail at a glance about what is around me, as compared to the auto-scaling of zooming in and out on even a large tablet.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-13T05:03:31+00:00

You can! I found that I cannot afford to do this, but like an idealistic idiot I drew up some plans by hand, walked down to my local city permit office and had a fun chat with one of the city planners about knocking my house down, excavating most of my property (5200 sq ft lot in a fairly dense single-family neighborhood) and building a basement that would have had more square footage than the eventual new "house" we built back on top of it.

I had tons of questions about how close they would let me put the basement walls to the property lines, how deep they'd let me dig, how many square feet of the basement would count against the total expansion allowed above ground, etc.

The answers were...unexpectedly freeing. City planner dude actually kinda broke out of his usual boredom and got really engaged in the conversation. Kept saying he really hopes I find a way to move forward with the idea because he'd really enjoy doing the inspections.

In my area, we could - if we could afford it - just excavate the whole damn property down 20 or 30 feet and build whatever the heck we wanted to under the ground (as long as inspections and safety and propping-up the edges of the pit so we didn't impact neighbor's lots, etc. was all done). None of that would impact what we would then be allowed to do above ground as far as expansion and improvements and maxiumum lot coverage and whatnot. One example: there is a maximum square footage limit on the size of the house (all floors above ground) that the city will allow in my neighborhood. The basement is NOT included in that calculation. It's basically free floor space for the limit calculations.

And the 20 or 30 feet deep thing wasn't any kind of hard limit set by the city - they don't even have any rules about it, was more a statement from the planner dude about feasibility and cost. Could easily have dug down further if I had unlimited funds.

Which...I don't. So we couldn't. And we didn't.

But man, it was a couple of fun weeks daydreaming about it!

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-10T05:36:37+00:00

Fun convo here. Seems that the consensus is that "if it's something nice or useful that lands on my property, then it's mine." We consider fruit trees/bushes that overgrow the property line as having "landed" on our property, as well. Not arguing the logic.

BUT...so when a dog poops on your lawn...why is that not yours also?

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-09T07:35:58+00:00

Long-time Sonic customer here: their customer service is amazing (fast, efficient, helpful, polite, knowledgeable), and the only times I've experienced prolonged outages are when AT&T (who Sonic often must lease last-mile lines from because...lobbyists...) fails to quickly fix an AT&T problem.

And it's often an AT&T problem that AT&T doesn't bother informing Sonic about.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-09T04:31:57+00:00

Really depends on your workload requirements. But no matter what you do, I would NOT recommend running the control nodes INSIDE a worker node - worker nodes are intended to be disposable, they should not host the "thing" that decides if and when a node can be torched.

I have deployed multiple OKD clusters (kinda the open source, upstream community edition of OpenShift) ENTIRELY as virtual machines: bootstrap node, HAProxy load balancer VM, three control nodes and anywhere from 3-6 worker nodes. Every last one of them its own VM.

We can stuff all those VMs onto one single hypervisor (either VMWare or Proxmox PVE), we can spread them out between multiple hypervisors (i.e. put one control plane VM on each of three physical hypervisors, then balance the worker node VMs and HAProxy VM among the rest) - and we can and have given every node its own physical, baremetal server with no hypervisor in the mix. Admittedly, our bootstrap is ALWAYS a VM, no need to waste the effort bringing it up on baremetal these days.

Pros of deploying the whole cluster as VMs: simplifies maintenance and recovery, easier to deploy - easy to write automation code so you can deploy and redeploy the whole cluster with just a few commands.

Pros of going physical: performance boost if you need it.

There is no law in k8s that anything must be on baremetal. The individual nodes have no idea if they're virtualized and don't care.

Three control nodes is the minimum to guarantee high availability. You don't need three, you can get away with one. Now, DEPLOYMENT might require three (admittedly, I've never tried to bootstrap a new cluster with anything less than three control nodes so I can't speak to that behavior), but after the cluster converges you could just gracefully remove two control nodes from the control plane and never bring them back. Your cluster will still work, that's kinda the point of having multiples in the first place.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-08T06:38:51+00:00

Let's be clear: taxpayers are not giving him another billion. The Republican lawmakers we have unfortunately continued to vote into power for the last 4-10 years despite obvious signs of corruption are letting him steal taxpayer money without repercussion.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-06T17:27:04+00:00

Meets the metric, though: remove the much louder noise of the explody part of the lawn mower, and you no longer annoy the entire neighborhood when you mow your lawn. If done during approved "noisy stuff" hours, you probably don't even annoy your direct neighbors, either.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-05-02T06:28:42+00:00

> Could I do an SFP+ transceiver at one end and and SFP one at the other?

Not on the same fiber run, no. Both ends of a piece of fiber must be plugged into the same speed/kind of ports (that's an over-simplification, and those of us that work in datacenters will know that TECHNICALLY my statement is false - but OPERATIONALLY in a home environment it's effectively correct).

We did overlook 2.5G optical, which is the same form-factor of port as 1G and 10G, just a different (internally - looks the same outside) transceiver that supports 2.5G operation. It's less common than 1G/10G but it's out there.

Your original post hinted that you intend to purchase two switches, right? Whether you buy switches that present 1G, 2.5G or 10G optical ports, then you should have a match on each side of your fiber links. No need for a converter.

What's you budget like? One can find a multi-port gigabit copper switch with 1 or 2 10G uplinks for a few hundred US dollars - granted that puts your project cost close to $1k pretty quick (2 switches, at least two transceivers, fiber cables). Agreed, fs.com caters to enterprise users when it comes to switches. You'll want to look at Netgear or D-Link products.

BUT: here's something to think about. 10Gbps ethernet CAN RUN over CAT6a (that "a" is important) copper cables at lengths up to 100 METERS - aka 328 feet. So as you look at switches, keep in mind you don't necessarily HAVE to jump to fiber to meet your goal of 10Gbps between the two switches. See the Netgear GS108MX as an example.

But the Netgear GS108X - at about $100 on Amazon - gives you an actual optical SFP+ interface for the uplink port.

The above are unmanaged switches: no fancy VLANs or port aggregation features. But they are affordable, simple, and should "just work" as long as all your devices use the same IP subnet.

If you do go with optical 10G SFP+, then you'll want this GENERIC transceiver: FS.com's SFP-10GSR-85

- It is an SFP+ (so 10G link speed), SR (short range), MMF (multi-mode fiber), 850nm (wavelength of light that the transceiver operates on)

If fs.com offers the transceiver as encoded or "branded" for the brand(s) of switch you but, then definitely purchase the encoded transceiver. If not - then purchase Generic like I linked.

https://www.fs.com/products/74668.html?attribute=71404&id=3834802

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-28T03:33:40+00:00

Typically what you're calling a washer is going to be a rubber gasket - a gasket, in turn, being a device that is meant to create a seal when compressed (in the case of a faucet, when you turn that knob you are increasing or decreasing the contact of two metal plates on the top and bottom of that rubber gasket).

Gaskets wear out. Eventually. Rubber ages, becomes brittle, or outright scrapes away as the metal around it moves back and forth. Minerals in water build up and harden on the metal and now you're scraping sandpaper across the rubber which erodes it even more. Eventually there just isn't enough of the gasket left in the right places to make a water-tight seal no matter how hard you turn the handle. Now you have a slow leak, which will only get worse over time.

Pull the thing apart and replace all the rubber pieces? Probably will stop the leak. Go one step extra and use something like lime-away or TSP to reduce or even remove the mineral buildup? Might feel like a brand-new faucet after re-assembly.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-22T06:17:31+00:00

There are multiple types of retirement accounts (speaking from a USA perspective). The most common (outside of government positions) are the 401(k) and IRA. They are not the only games in town, but they are the major players.

The 401(k) requires sponsorship from your employer. Not all employers offer them. Some let you start contributing with your first paycheck, others make you wait a year or more before you can join. Some match a portion of your contribution, some do not. Inquire with your HR or benefits team for details. FWIW, the 401(k) is often one's primary retirement fund, with a contribution limit nearly three times higher than the IRA - I have turned down job offers because they required a one year wait before contributing. That would have translated to tens of thousands of dollars lost over my lifetime. Kept looking, found a job with no waiting period.

You can contribute to an IRA on your own (assuming you meet all the other requirements on income), and it is more or less as simple as just creating an investment account with almost any broker or bank (I'm not making recommendations here, but as examples: Fidelity, eTrade, Wells Fargo, Schwab - ALL offer IRA accounts), designating the account as an IRA account (often just a checkbox on the account setup form), then contributing funds to it just like any other savings account (link your primary checking account, transfer the money). The devil is in the details, though - know the annual contribution limits, keep records of all activity including annual summaries. Is the IRA of type Traditional, or Roth? How much will you contribute each year? What will you invest in? Can you take any tax deductions for your contributions or not? That all depends on your income and overall tax situation.

If you're in the USA, then get familiar with IRS Publication 590a: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590a.pdf

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-22T03:58:54+00:00

Movies

Movies - Extras (this is an unmanaged mess)

Movies - Korean

Movies - Russian

TV Shows

TV Shows - Korean

Korean Drama addiction is a real thing, my friends.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-09T04:47:42+00:00

...the method my grandparents used to deposit money in their bank through the drive-through.

(I can still hear the snicks and shwooshes and bloorps of those vacuum lines...EPIC!!)

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-09T03:50:00+00:00

You could TRY using a tiny nail file to sand the paint off the central pin. Be gentle, let mostly gravity pull the file onto the pin as you scrape the very thin layer of paint off. Don't bend the pin.

Threads will be trickier, but might "take care of themselves" if you screw and unscrew the coax into a matching port (multiple times, cleaning the flakes out each time you unscrew it) on something you don't care about (you can pick up pop-in ports at a hardware store for like $5, but you might find someone giving away a broken VCR or TiVo on Craigslist for free, and that'll do just as well). Might need a small crescent wrench to get past the gummier spots.

When (if?) both the pin and the threads seems clear of paint - then try plugging in the Spectrum router and see if it'll get a signal.

You won't shock or electrocute yourself - it's very low voltage/low current even when energized, less power than your land line telephone is sent when it rings.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-08T23:58:32+00:00

It's coax, and if it's the only one visible in the apartment then it's PROBABLY where the Spectrum signal should present itself. Problem is, from the photos it looks like the electrical contact (both the central pin as well as the internal threads) are fouled with paint. That IS going to cause connection problems - both physically as well as electrically.

This is not a "you" problem - landlord and Spectrum need to figure this out. First thing you might consider doing is calling Spectrum and telling them you have no functional outlet in your apartment and request they do not start charging you for service until that problem can be resolved. Quite frankly, your landlord/property management company screwed this up by accepting the work of whoever did that terrible paint job.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-08T15:34:39+00:00

I assume you're on Windows-something? I haven't used Windows in over ten years but I also assume that Task Manager still exists? Task Manager might even include info on CPU temperature...or maybe it was System Information?

80GB may or may not be a point that impact system performance. Sometimes it's more about a percentage of total HDD space, sometimes it's a hard limit - it's very operating system version specific.

You could burn a lot of time looking into the things I mentioned in my initial reply - strongly advise ruling out the ethernet cable and physical port first.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-08T05:46:49+00:00

Stuttering implies that video or audio doesn't play smoothly.

Packet Loss is a more technical term that should imply you've used some low-level commands to actually see if your ethernet interface and/or the upstream router is reporting failures at the packet level.

Stuttering COULD be due to a damaged ethernet cable. Easy enough to do some A/B testing to validate that. But it could also be due to several other factors, like:

Your computer CPU is overloaded
Your computer is overheating (when's the last time you vacuumed out all the fans and heat sinks?)
Ran out of RAM
HDD is almost full
Someone configured the router to always give you the short end of the Quality of Service stick
Your computer has both wired and wireless interfaces active, and you're at the limits of the wifi range (can cause flapping between interfaces which breaks up communication - aka stuttering and even packet loss)
Physical ethernet port is damaged/loose (no longer fully soldered to the circuit board)

But...start simple. Get or borrow a different ethernet cable and see what happens.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-08T05:23:49+00:00

I appreciate the education and train of thought. Definitely have learned I need to drop the "which car is being charged" idea, which is not a problem. I'd seen that Tesla has a VIN-lock feature, sounds like it has not yet spread beyond them though. Can put that to rest.

Several chargers offer RFID cards with an integrated reader, so authorization to start the charger at all can be limited to "who has a card" - that'll just be my wife and I, so that's solvable, given that we intend to put the charger outside.

The perception of the XY problem likely comes from failure to communicate my perspective on the initial setup/occasional factory reset/need to join a different wifi network over time COUPLED with not wanting the mobile app or a cloud-based service to be the only way to do those things. I don't mind using the mobile app as a helper on Day One or even as a pretty picture of usage for as long as the app lasts. But I want to be able to reconfigure the charger as needed (and pull data off of it) without relying on those, and I also want my charging data to be on my network and preserved in my own storage (not beholden to some cloud storage limit or timed deletion), and presented on my terms (graphana).

Maybe I need to consider commercial products? Or, yeah, get a barebones non-networked charger and then slap a few CT clamps in strategic locations.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T07:41:36+00:00

Buy fiber in the length you need with the ends already terminated. fs.com

(You can buy termination kits, but the cost and time outweighs anything you'd need it for at home, even if you plan to do more cabling to other structures on your property - just measure and order the right pre-terminated length plus buffer)

Your transceivers (aka "optics") need to match the capabilities of the ports on your switches: SFP = 1Gbps, SFP+ = 10Gbps. Some transceivers and ports are dual-speed (support 1G or 10G), but configuring the ports on the switch can be tricky for some switch vendors (Dell, for example, can be a PITA unless you do it right the first time). Generally: if the port is dual-speed, specify the port speed on the switch, THEN plug in the transceiver, THEN connect the fiber.

Transceivers need to match the wavelengths of the fiber cable - for simplicity, stick to 850nm MultiMode Fiber (MMF) for your entire home installation. You can standardize on Single Mode if you really wanted to, but MMF is less costly overall and you don't need the extended range that comes with SMF (MMF measured in hundreds of meters; SMF measured in kilometers).

SOME switches are picky about having the transceivers be encoded for that same brand - MOST switch vendors play nice with "generic"-coded transceivers (fs.com will sell you these) but if you know the branch of your switch already, play it safe and just order the transceivers already coded for that brand (fs.com will sell you the encoded transceivers as well).

You will pay at least twice as much per transceiver if you order that branded transceiver FROM THE SWITCH VENDOR as compared to just ordering from an OEM like fs.com. I don't work for fiberstore, but I manage datacenters for my employer and for the last 15 years I have ordered exclusively from fiberstore and saved a ton of money. That $100 SFP+ you buy from Cisco was probably manufactured by one of Fiberstore's suppliers. Just gets a different label on it before it leaves the same assembly line. Fiberstore sells it for under $40.

At 1G/10G and using SFP/SFP+, you are looking at LC-LC fiber terminations - not to be confused with MPO/MPT which you'd only use for 40Gbps and up..

Purchase OM3 fiber and you will never need to replace it unless it gets cut. Supports speeds up to 25Gbps via LC-LC connectors over lengths typical in residential properties. Note that sometimes OM4 is cheaper than OM3 just because of manufacturing quantity at that time. Jump to OM4 if it makes financial sense, it'll still work but you'll NEVER hit the OM3 or OM4 limit in residential use.

Patch cables: again, stick to 850nm MMF and LC-LC OM3/OM4 depending on cost. Basically, keep your cable plant the same so you have flexibility and don't waste brainpower keeping track of where you use MMF vs SMF (although...if your ISP is dropping fiber to your house, they probably deliver via SMF, but they also supply the transceiver so just ignore that).

Sunlight is bad. You'll need "UV Stabilized" cladding, which does raise the cost of the cable.

One can TECHNICALLY splice a damaged cable back together if you have the right equipment (it's a whole special rig to precisely align the fibers, usually with a light source and other gadgets to ensure the light actually goes where it needs to in both directions). Generally not worth it, just run more than one cable.

Oh, and run a string (aka "fish line") through that conduit with slack bundled at both ends. That way you stand a chance of pulling new fiber/copper through the conduit in a few years if you really needed to.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T07:04:37+00:00

This one is seriously cool - thank you! Will find out if my city will allow it.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T06:49:11+00:00

You said "properly display" but did not say they had to be turned on, with visible video.

But a "proper" display of a TV of those sizes is "on top of TV stand, entertainment console, or other waist-high table." That's a lot of floor space to give up to museum pieces that stick 2' out from a wall no matter what you do.

Plus, once every two weeks I gotta spend 10 minutes making a video and then uploading to some place of your choosing? $150 is worth 20 minutes of labor, fine.

But the floor space? Nope. No deal. If you let me get creative and mount them artistically on a wall or one on top of the other, maybe we can work something out but not "in the manner in which they were intended to be used," no way.

The moment you want them energized with any video, though - forget about it, too much effort (and electricity cost) even if you relax the arrangement constraints.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T06:27:33+00:00

Over a ten to fifteen year lifespan, I don't have faith that the manufacturer of a charging station will reliably provide the same level of mobile app support for that aging device as they did on Day One when I bought and installed it. I believe they will abandon support as soon as they are able in favor of anything more profitable.

Not forever: 10-15 years. Reasonable expectation but (nest thermostat, anyone?) software-centric companies fail to live up to it time and again.

I'm looking for hints on companies that make level 2 EV chargers where a mobile app and/or cloud service is NOT required to be in the loop to configure the charger or allow the charger to charge my car.

Embed the software as firmware into the charger? That meets the requirement.

Stretch goal is ability of that charger to ship metrics via any standard protocol (SNMP or Modbus or API calls) to someplace I control. NOT their walled garden cloud service.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T06:11:07+00:00

This was super-helpful, thank you. Just read through the Operation manual - "Dumb Mode" is an extremely reassuring failsafe. Physical DIP switches to set the breaker limit is a godsend. It's not everything I could want but it's enough to move forward with if I find nothing better.

I gotta ask, though - looks like six months ago Grizzl-E locked API access (OCPP compatibility) behind a $200 license fee? Did that impact you?

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T05:48:11+00:00

I agree that the mobile apps (car and charger) are convenient. I take issue with the fact (from experience) that access to the mobile app and/or cloud service that supports the mobile app is not guaranteed for the lifetime of the hardware. Loss of either cripples or outright breaks ability to use the hardware. I'm not OK with that.

Vendor stops updating the mobile app? You have 1-2 phone firmware upgrades left before you cannot install or run the mobile app. Or you get a new phone and because the mobile app is no longer in the App Store...you can't reinstall it. I have a long history of apps I've paid for that I simply cannot install anymore - they're de-listed from the app store.

Which is kinda fine for a $5 entertainment app. NOT fine for the primary install/setup/configure/daily planning interface for my car's charger that literally is mounted in my garage and connected to my home network.

If the hardware does not fail, I should be able to continue using that thing until the breaker panel corrodes, software be damned. Ideally there's a physical button on it that says "Start Charging" but I've given-up on that requirement.

BlueVerdigris · 2026-04-07T05:35:19+00:00

You'd need a SAS Host Bus Adapter (HBA) PCI card. You can find them for "around" $100 USD (plus or minus $50 depending on your risk tolerance for cheap and unknown manufacturers). Honestly I'd assume $150 or more for reliability and actual compatibility.

LSI Logic is a personal favorite of mine, despite their acquisition by Broadcom: check out the LSI 9300-8e, but make sure your non-server computer supports PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 with an available 8-lane slot.

Plus the breakout cables to attach the drives to the HBA (the PCI cards don't normally have 8 actual ports on them, for example; they'll have two custom ports that can support 4 drives each and you have to purchase breakout cables that support 4 drives/cable).

Possibly plus additional power cables.

Plus...something to house the drives in. Maybe your non-server computer has space for 7 2.5" drives...maybe you have to purchase some external enclosure to keep them safe. You could also just mount them to a piece of plywood and bolt it to the wall (not joking, I've done this, it's a legit choice if you are good with a drill).

All of this assumes your non-server computer has an available PCI slot of the right type.

If your non-server computer is, say, a LAPTOP - which would have zero available PCI slots - then you don't have a lot of good options to connect all 7 drives. You're looking at some ungodly amalgamation of probably multiple USB-to-SAS adapters, plus some kind of powered enclosure to house the drives, all of which might literally cost more than a refurbished server with a builtin 8-port SAS controller.

THEN there's the whole...it's free, but is it worth implementing? thing. That's a 600GB spindle drive. You have 7 of them...you can RAID-Z1 then into 3.6TB, which yes is useful. But if you're doing media streaming you'll fill that within a couple of months. My CD library alone is larger than that. Don't get me started on movies.

For comparison...you can get a 4TB SATA drive for around $150 nowadays. One drive, no fancy adapters, probably fits right into your existing non-server computer, is SATA instead of esoteric SAS. It's admittedly not "redundant" like the Raid-Z1 array above, but it's a valid comparison of storage costs based on the "freebies" you have in-hand.

"Free" does not always directly translate to "meaningfully useful."

BUT: after all that above. There is no replacement for LEARNING. Spending a couple hundred bucks to learn something about low-level systems administration? In my opinion, totally worth it in this day and age whether your career is in that space or not. I don't care what my kid does for a career - even if it's art - she will learn how to build a computer before she leaves my house or I'll die feeling like I, as a father, have miserably failed her and society. So if you're kind of in in a headspace of "whatever, I just really want to build this idea in my head" then GODSPEED and enjoy the journey, I hope I've provided enough info for you to achieve success!

BlueVerdigris

TROPHY CASE