Why build a second server?

With the first server built, I now have a much better idea of what a NAS is. I also spent a lot of time reading a lot of materials on the TrueNAS forums. From these readings, I realized that my setup was non-optimal. It uses primarily gamer gear and as such, it lacks ECC.

Armed with that information, I set out to make an ECC-capable system. Unfortunately, crooked Intel likes to keep ECC exclusive to their Xeon CPU’s. Fortunately for me, I found out that the Core i3 line of processors up to 9th-gen do support ECC and that’s perfect for my server.

Introduction

Prior to this, I was only familiar with building gaming rigs. One day at work, I and a co-worker were talking about the convenience of NAS for storing bulk files and backup. I was intrigued and asked for more. He revealed that he has a small, quiet, and low power NAS that was quick and easy to setup. I was sold and off I went to my first real server.

Introduction

So here we are… my first post ever. I thought long and hard on how to start this. I decided to just document my journey over the years that led us to this point and what I plan to do moving forward.

Early years

I have always been nerdy ever since I was a kid. I played a lot of video games as early as the good ol’ Atari. My first introduction to computers was with MS-DOS on a 5.25" floppy disk that actually felt floppy. But, the one that really got me hooked was Windows 95 and its GUI that allowed me to play Solitaire and Prince of Persia.