My apologies, I missed a few of your questions at the end.

• Yes, any USB4 rated cable can carry the TB protocol at whatever distance it’s rated for, otherwise it isn’t USB4.
• Likewise any TB3 cable should work for your application, if it’s actually TB3 rated.
• 3m is generally the max length I’ve seen. The theoretical limit may be higher but I suspect latency of the cable itself becomes a problem for PCIe tunneling, which is still a synchronous interface TMK.
• The TB controllers decide whether your cable is sufficient. They will negotiate a link if they can both verify a nominal link speed/multiple. So the lower rated USB cables won’t work for PCIe tunneling, even if your ultimate bandwidth requirements are minimal.

A few things to note if you’re shopping on places like AliExpress, eBay, Amazon, etc:

• Be wary of any long (active) TB/USB cable that’s cheaper than $30.
• Be wary of any cable that has a small connector, like one you would use to charge your phone, because the TB/USB4 connector itself must house an active signal repeater chip, making them chunkier and/or longer than usual.
• Similarly, the shielding requirements are fairly substantial, so the cable itself should be beefier than most USB cables.
• IME generally, PCIe over TB/USB can sometimes just be finicky. Of the 12 or 13 cables I’ve used with various combinations of machines, enclosures, docks and risers, there are occasionally some combinations that just don’t play nice, for whatever reason.

You may need an active TB3/4 cable. 30 cm is typically the longest passive cable you’ll see. Active cables are more expensive, though less so than they used to be, and can handle longer runs like 3 meters.

I think you can also register 10 years in advance, or maybe more depending on the registrar, which would cover all other potential snafus like expired card info.

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The refined uranium IHS doubles your clicks per minute and facilitates exfoliation.

Wait, that was your takeaway? I understand cumulative frustration is hard to reverse, but it seems pretty solid that they accepted an RMA two years after purchase, reported test results, and replaced it.

As much as I try to resist brand loyalty, I feel like that kind of support experience would probably bring me back next time.

Ah! Been there. Allocating lanes on small systems always seems to have more trial and error than I expect.

And here’s that x4 SFP+ card: https://www.trendnet.com/products/10g-sfp-pcie-adapter/10-gigabit-pcie-sfp-network-adapter-TEG-10GECSFP-v2

can’t find any SFP+ card that is x4

Pretty sure mine is x4. I’ll check.

Edit: confirmed.

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+1, also chocolatey

8GB is too much! Offer a 4GB option then we’ll talk.

Maybe yeah. Also got the sense from the strong opinions that this is a preexisting debate, presumably in the context of continuous workloads or cached arrays with minimal spindown intervals. In that context it’s true that rotational disks still often win in energy efficiency and robustness (assuming we’re comparing them to consumer SSDs and not the latest enterprise u.2 stuff that’s rated for continuous work).

Not sure what everyone is arguing about here. Clearly SSD is better for intermittent r/w, whereas HDD can be more efficient at continuous r/w (especially in terms of watts/TB)

Just looking at specs should be enough to see that. SSDs can idle in ready state at close to 0 draw (~0.05w) whereas HDD requires continued rotation to remain ready. So consider an extreme case of writing for 1 minute then maintaining ready state for the rest of the day. For that the SSD will be far more efficient, obviously.

I don’t know, but I’d guess the buffered chipset controller has more stability during certain power state transitions.

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Dammit, I came here hoping to see at least one “I have a very special set of skills.” Oh well.

Yeah I’d cut bait, rebuild from latest tapes. But also…

I’d put the corrupted backups in an eye-catching container, like a Lisa Frank backpack or Barbie lunchbox, to put on the wall in my office as a cautionary tale.

Nice, sounds like you narrowed it down.

You can leave turbo boost on and make more subtle adjustments using command line utilities like cpufreq or with GUI-based unraid plugins like this one.

Before spending time fiddling with settings though, you might try using /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/energy_performance_preference to set one of the built-in profiles like balance_power. If you do need to make manual adjustments, I would try lowering max clock speed first.

Not sure but I’d guess VRM. Would try to localize sound with a mic to be sure. If no RMA or pending FW update, would try disabling problematic c-states and/or dampening with thermal pads.

I liked the mitosis analogy. May I borrow it?