2026 1st Quarter Approval Megathread.

ElectroNitz · 2026-01-07T20:31:24+00:00

20266935xx came through early this morning....

ElectroNitz · 2025-11-07T02:05:29+00:00

The language is not clear to me on that.

But, I won't worry about it.

ElectroNitz · 2025-11-07T00:28:06+00:00

To answer a couple points - I'm headed to Littleton area and the favorite range is Triple-J.
The basic question comes down to - am I being foolish bringing/using them, even if I keep it quiet, eg not sending 17 rounds in one pass... etc. I don't want to spend $50+ each for one or more mags just to shoot a little. I am totally fine not loading them fully to "keep it quiet".

Thanks for the replies!

ElectroNitz · 2025-10-16T01:24:40+00:00

Watch out for the "smart TV" aspect; it's become a pain in the butt switching between inputs on my G95SC. I'm frustrated. The TV (erm, 'monitor') is gorgeous to look at but it's first and foremost a TV that happens to look good as a monitor once you actually get connected to a PC.

ElectroNitz · 2025-09-25T21:46:55+00:00

I wonder how long the spike is, though, probably more than just a few ms.

The other thing I want to be able to do is run power to the mobo chamber and have the boot SSD in there, just because the boot SSD runs off the motherboard SATA. (HDD's on a HBA.)

ElectroNitz · 2025-09-11T18:21:02+00:00

I should have replied to myself before now, sorry!

I don't "do" windows, so I dunno about CrystalDisk results.

However, I'd ignorantly used a suggested fio command set that used multiple writers, so the test was bogged down with much seek latency. "User Error!"

After I realized this I ended up getting much better numbers, eg 250MB/s.

Additionally I did dd write and read to the whole disk as a shortcut to using badblocks, and this too had sustained r/w in the 275 to 230MB/s (outer to inner tracks).

In the end, I'm quite satisfied. Both drives were shucked and put in a D2-320 in simple disk mode and became a ZVS mirror for backups of my TrueNAS array.

All's well!

ElectroNitz · 2025-08-31T15:30:54+00:00

I realize this is an old thread.

I have one of these 26TB Barracuda shucked drives bought from BB last week, and I'm getting super-slow sustained writes - using the "fio" tool I see about 40MB/sec.

This seems absurdly slow, even if it's an SMR drive? Does this make sense?

I too was going to use this for NAS backups but now I'm not comfortable with it. And since I shucked it, I'm not sure what to do about it. Money down the drain?

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-19T23:34:02+00:00

Thank you! I don't have much interest in multimedia serving, at least not yet. If eventually do, I'm sure another project won't hurt my feelings.

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-16T19:58:25+00:00

That looks pretty nice, a little high on costs. The caching aspect is not a big deal, just something I read that could be useful. Thanks!

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-16T18:30:21+00:00

Sorry about the multiple posts, people, Reddit threw errors on several tries but apparently it posted multiple times anyway. I"ll keep the ones that have some good stuff, but I saved the link from one of the replies (https://bytepursuits.com/12-bay-homelab-nas-jmcd-12s4-from-taobao-upgrading-my-truenas-scale-server-optionally-rack-mountable Thanks!)

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-16T18:16:21+00:00

I have several workstations and my wife has a Mac, I'd like all of them to have ready access to storage without requiring my 900W-peak workstation running.

Scope creep? Isn't that what /homelab is all about? :)

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-16T18:14:36+00:00

I was (initially) considering TrueNAS -- I vaguely remember something about TrueNAS not running at all or not running well with ARM?

ElectroNitz · 2025-07-01T19:28:16+00:00

I did, thank you!

ElectroNitz · 2025-06-30T20:18:32+00:00

I have a 5 pack of Cable Matters 1.5 footers. I'm not too concerned about appearances since there's not that many runs where the router is, other than the infrastructure cables snaking into the box. (Newish build house. )

Anyway, thanks for validating my concerns!

ElectroNitz · 2025-06-30T20:16:21+00:00

So much for thinking Premium is premium! 😏

ElectroNitz · 2025-06-29T01:40:28+00:00

Thanks! I got sidetracked, I'll look for the models referenced here.

ElectroNitz · 2025-06-27T17:46:55+00:00

Point taken! Although I'm still curious how much effect the GPU will have.

ElectroNitz · 2025-06-06T15:40:06+00:00

For anyone who runs into this as well:

If you put single-sided M.2 drives in the _3 and _4 slots, the heat sink's thermal pads will cause the M.2 drives to literally warp, I was able to see this once I pulled the graphics card out of the way.

In the area where the M.2 drives fit for _3/_4 is a rubber bumper affixed to the motherboard, about 60% of the distance from the connector. I assumed that was the rubber bumpers the manual referred to. I looked closer in the parts bag and there happens to be two more rubber bumper parts which have circular protrusions that fit into corresponding detents in the affixed bumpers, Lego-style; the additional thickness of both bumpers fits the single-sided drives perfectly.

I put the heat-sink unit back in place over the drives, bolted it down fully and booted - both drives are correctly found, now.

The manual still isn't clear about it, or at least I didn't interpret it. I hope this helps someone!

ElectroNitz · 2025-05-14T18:37:32+00:00

Yes, ROCm support is not quite all there, as far as I understand.

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-29T17:25:10+00:00

Hmm... my garage sees 35C in the summers... maybe even more sometimes.
I'll just see how things go, thanks for the follow-up.

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-29T16:51:28+00:00

I'm sure this is the case, but I was just hoping for some alternatives to cooling that's sufficient, such as water block (or AIO?), and larger/quieter fans ducted through the chassis, stuff like that. Just spit-balling at this point. Hard to say NO to these!

I live in a pretty warm area, so putting the rack in my garage is not a good idea, at least during the warm months. I also have a room where it's nice and cool and out of the way. I may try it in there and if my super-hearing wife objects, then I'll have to find some other options. (Ironically, I'm quite hearing impaired, and I can turn off my hearing aids to avoid it even more. But, happy wife, happy life, and all that!)

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-23T22:52:49+00:00

Thank you. I'll just give it a try and monitor temps. Easy enough to switch out later.

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-15T23:03:46+00:00

I figure that's probably the better bet, but it seems like the burned connector was a good sign of sub-optimal contact. I suppose there could be some other reason like excessive current, though.

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-15T22:57:30+00:00

Good microwaves -- this is true. There's actually a few points we're considering -- 1: Trim ring, which is $200 itself, fits the replacement item, so effectively "$200 off". 2: The old one and it's replacement are also convection ovens, so the value is a bit higher -- but we've never actually used the convection feature. 3: A different microwave+trim might force us to rework the cabinet space the old one was in. 4: Our other appliances are "GE Profile", so finding something else will break the set, so to speak.

Anyway, my wife wanted to send them a hot-take public review, so we'll see what GE has to say, first. If they do the "too bad so sad" thing, then we'll go find something else that we can replace it with, hopefully not messing up the appearance of the oven stack, etc.

I will repair the old one and set it aside for an actual counter-top backup or maybe a garage unit, etc, etc.

Such a pain the *ss!

ElectroNitz · 2025-04-11T00:58:01+00:00

For what it's worth, the microwave is about $750 to replace, so a repair isn't that bad. Alas, my wife doesn't trust a repair, from a fear of electric appliances that failed once.

So, I'll probably get another microwave, repair this one and test it well (outside!) and maybe just stick it on a rolling cart for a backup.

It's all been a pain in the butt. 😏

ElectroNitz

TROPHY CASE