More TrueNAS

Installing TrueNAS on a TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus is possible, as per a couple of forum posts (1, 2).

Hints on configuring an SMB share, albeit as per FreeNAS.

Initially I'd configured the NAS as RAIDZ1.  Then I read about the problems with RAIDZ1, and decided to reconfigure: added a mirror for the boot pool, and bought another flash drive so that two drives are in a vdev, to be mirrored.  Same capacity, but better redundancy.

TrueNAS

TrueNAS seems to do a lot of what I'm looking for in a NAS appliance.  Core is the FreeBSD-based version, which would have better networking.  However, Scale has better software support since it's Linux-based.

Installation of TrueNAS isn't too bad.  It's the setup that's a challenge!  Mainly, getting Windows to recognize the SMB setup has been an exercise in frustration.

Otherwise, one issue is the dead space on the "boot pool" (forum post)--while the pool can be expanded, not sure what to use it for.  Containers, perhaps?

The other thing is, perhaps for reliability I should mirror two 1TB drives (flash...) and have a partition on those drives as a separate vdev (forum post).  It's a bit overwhelming to understand how to set up a good configuration.

Also, Youtuber "Raid Owl" has some videos on setting up NAS appliances.

Nothing Phones

Pradhan mentioned that once his iPhone SE bought it, he couldn't get a replacement with the fingerprint sensor.  As such, he bought a Nothing phone.  Looks interesting, but I don't want Android....

Atomic Filament

Not quite the same as Atomic Tactical....  One of the hard enclosure manufacturers I was looking at had a link to a U.S.-made filament company, Atomic Filament.  Of course it's 60% more expensive than Chinese filament.

Aluminum Extrusions

In poking around at 3D printers, I've become more interested in the utility of extruded aluminum for building stuff.  Some two decades ago, I'd rescued some from the scrap tub at work, and although I never used it for anything, it was sure fascinating for some reason.

There's a site 80/20 that sells components.  Their catalog is massive!