ares35

we do that around the veggie garden, but with aol cds.

absolutely this.

it’s a hell of a lot more work and liability than just renting the server space and letting the user do ‘whatever’ with it.

smr drives are horrible. we have some here. some by accident, others for cost savings (used only for long term, large file storage)–but all of smr’s faults are really not worth it… maybe at half the price per tb it might be–for some use cases, but not at current pricing.

the last batch we got in don’t even support trim, so i guess the only way to ‘clean up’ zones is to literally dump everything off, secure_erase them, and ‘start over’.

devices on the hub share the total bandwidth to/from the host system’s usb port. data going between drives on the same hub has to travel to the host then back again.

so: transferring files to/from a single drive will go ‘full speed’, transferring files between two drives on that hub will run at about half speed, accessing data on all the drives on that hub at the same time (such as syncing a snapraid array built on externals all connected to that hub) will be painfully and brutally slow.

absolutely. turnkey retail product is the answer here.

OR, a normal windows-based (so they know how to navigate it) desktop with one or more internal drives added. set up the shares, done. i’d add stablebit drive pool and maybe cloud drive to it for pooling, redundancy, and encrypted online drives to hold a copy. no weird hardware setups, no ‘foreign’ ui, no raid arrays to babysit…

co-mingled inventory is a thing, yes, but i think you get better support from amazon for items they sell, even if from that inventory, if there’s a problem.

the shroud appears to be the same, as illustrated on p49 of each model’s service manual:
https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/poweredge-t320_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/poweredge-t420_owners-manual_en-us.pdf

if you buy off amazon, buy from amazon. buying storage from a marketplace seller is a total crap shoot.

many older ssd are actually better in terms of longevity because slc and mlc typically have/had higher endurance than newer tlc and (especially) qlc.

i found a couple vendors implying 2x32gb compatibility, one selling a 2x32gb ram kit (‘guaranteed compatible’ they say) and the other selling the pc itself (oos, though) with 64gb, for this model even though its published specs say 2x16gb max. so it might just be possible, depending on the specs of the memory modules.

buy one kit first from a vendor with a reasonable return policy and try. that’s all you can really do.

browser-based ‘clients’ with large directories and large numbers of files in a single multi-file upload are going to choke. you need binary bits on the parents’ end, such as a dedicated backup or sync utility.

if you could populate your server with their existing files using a physical drive, that would be better, and perhaps faster and easier, too–then a browser-based upload solution could probably handle the much smaller ‘updates’ of new stuff. have them consolidate all the existing files on one external (plus also on a second for a local backup). hell, you could do that bit via remote desktop and all they’d need to do is connect the drives and let you in. then somehow get one of those drives to you (ship, deliver, you pick up. whatever is feasible).

i understand they don’t want to pay, but would $12.00 for a full year be cheap enough to consider? ovh has a new customer deal going for 2gb ram/20gb storage vps. $0.97 a month for the first year, and you can add up to ten of those to a single new account.

i have cable, in the us, it goes out for awhile probably on a weekly basis. calling them is pointless.

if i really need internet–and i did a couple weeks ago when it happened (i don’t carry an internet-capable phone), my office is less than five minutes away and has dsl. the phone company has proven itself to be far more reliable than cable, even if they are scummy, greedy bastards just like cable and wireless companies.

if you’re in the u.s. check walmart for clearance desktops. we just picked up (to replace an older neighbor’s dead atom-based desktop) a new i3, 8gb, 256gb nvme, slim desktop. inside it had mount points and the cables for two sata (3.5in + 2.5in) and a slim optical (or a ‘creatively’ mounted second 2.5in). we were going there to pick it up at a bit over $300, as i had seen it there the previous day. surprise! it had just got marked down again to ~ $200. original price was $400.

how does whisper do transcribing technical documents. like for lawyers, doctors, engineers and what not? or speakers with heavy accents?

the cases i’ve got here with 5+ drive bays were all acquired used or were given to me (except for one. a $10-15 sale over a decade ago). it’s a case, big deal if it’s ‘old’, the stuff going in it, isn’t (usually). as long as the switch works, the cover fits, and there’s sufficient airflow options. i’m good. i’m not paying new prices of $150-200+ for a fancy name brand box made out of sheet metal just to hold a system nobody’s gonna see but me.

so, check the local used market for cases, or even older cheap systems with a suitable case.

hijacking dns is also my provider’s first action when you’re late paying the bill. by ip or doh or a long-lived dns cache and you’re still going, but anything looked-up via a ‘regular’ dns server goes nowhere. that gets you another 2-3 weeks until they deny the modem from even authenticating.

if you’re running batteries down often enough to need battery replacements that frequently, you may be going ‘too cheap’ (poor quality and/or not enough capacity) to begin with, and would need an upgrade not another ‘cheap’ solution.

grav is another option for what you were looking for. cli with optional web interface. run local and generate static sites or on a web server (like a traditional cms) https://getgrav.org

for a static site generator that runs locally (with local or git storage), check out https://jamstack.org/generators/ for lots of other options.