New build, am I missing something?

[MrPatate]

Hi,

I've never worked with anything other than classic Windows(XP, 7, 10, 11) for my "server" and I'm planning to switch to HexOS during the christmas vacations.

If you spot something bad or have suggestions let me know please!

Also I have a few questions:

1- Do I have something to do to let Plex use the iGPU to transcode (other than selecting hardware transcoding in Plex's settings).

2- I want to mirror my boot drive for reliability (I know there's an option for it in the setup). Do they have to be the same size or I can pick two SSDs I already have laying around and I'll simply be limited by the smallest?

3- For the boot drive, the minimum is 16GB, but do I gain anything if I use a 250GB or 500GB disk? Currently I have two old SSDs 64GB and 120GB available, I have some bigger but I dont want to "waste" them if only 16GB will get used.

4- To prevent fragmentation in the pools, I've seen discussion about using a "scratch disk" or a "download disk". I have a 500gb NVME disk I'd like to use for this. Do I set it as it's own pool (I don't need redundancy for this)?  Is there a setting in the OS to set it has a temporary file drive?

5- Where are the apps (plex, home assistant, etc)  installed? The storage pools, the boot drive, a drive dedicated to them?

6- I've heard LSI cards can run hot (a lot less with the one I selected), can I monitor the temperatures of the components (cpu, mobo, LSI, etc) in the OS?

 

Specs:

CPU: Intel i3-8350k (old)

Mobo: Gigabyte Z370 HD3 (old)

RAM: 16Gb (old)

HBA: LSI 9400-16i + SAS to SATA cables (new)

Case: Jonsbo N5 (new)

2x 2.5" SSDs boot (old)

1x NVME 500GB for downloads and temporary files (old)

4x 18TB (new drives)

3x 12TB (old drives after I've transferred everything on the 18TBs)

4x 4TB (I have them laying around, might as well use them)

 

Thank you!