Indeed. Sounds like in your case the i5 6500 you have is already suiting your needs, so really no need for more expense. For someone who doesn’t have something like that already though and needs to make a purchase, I’ve come around to generally recommending something like the n100 over a used older-generation processor simply because they cost very similar prices, but I feel you get a bit more with the more recent chips due to the modern HW encode/decode and low power use.

The n100 mini PCs are a fantastic choice for hosting media server software primarily because of its transcoding capabilities.

The i5-6500 you have and the N100 perform very similarly with general compute tasks (though the TDW of the n100 is 6W vs 65W for the same performance). However, the N100 comes with the full Alder Lake Quick Sync engine compared to the Skylake engine on to i5-6500. If you review the hardware encode/decode table here, you can see Skylake HW encode/decode caps out at 8-bit HEVC (HDR 4K content is typically 10 or 12-bit HEVC), whereas the N100 supports even very recent codecs like 10-bit AV1. I recently set up Plex on a N100 mini PC I got for $150 (with 8gb RAM and 256gb NVMe drive included), and it was able to simultaneously do 2x 4K HDR transcodes with tone mapping while also doing a full library scan and credits detection. Of course, if you’re picky about what clients are watching your content to ensure they always watch original quality, you may not need to transcode.

That said, the N100 mini PC I purchased only has slots for 1 NVMe drive and one 2.5" SATA drive. In my case this was perfect because all my media is on a NAS which the N100 now access using a NFS mount, and I can easily back up the minimum persistent data on the N100 PC.

But it sounds like it wouldn’t 100% satisfy everything OP is looking for on its own. If they still wanted a N100 for the transcode capabilities, they may be able to use a USB HDD hardware enclosure to add additional storage capabilities without needing a separate system, but because I already had a NAS for my dedicated storage, it isn’t something I looked into with detail.

Nginx is a lot less painful if you use Nginx Proxy Manager. You get a nice GUI and can easily get SSL certificates with Let’s Encrypt, including wildcard certs. I’m running it in front of a docker swarm and 3 other servers, and in most cases, it takes me about 30 seconds to add a new proxy host and set it up with https using my *.domain.com wildcard cert. I also use it with Authentik as a forward proxy auth for SSO (since many containers out there don’t have the best security).

It’s good to be cautious about nonprofit organizations, but in the case of DSI, they’ve been around a while, have a good reputation, and score well on third-party sites like Charity Navigator.

I’d also like to make clear that their Dark Sky Sanctuary certification isn’t a scientific one based solely on light pollution, but also that the local/state/etc governments have implemented certain policies to help ensure the area remains a dark sky area. It’s best to think of it akin to something like a designated “wilderness” or “wildlife sanctuary” area, but for starry skies. Because DSI works with governments to certify these areas, you’re right that certain regions are likely to be more represented, and some not represented at all due to geographic and political barriers.

P.S. I’m not affiliated with DSI, but have used their accreditations in the past to pick wilderness areas to visit for hiking/camping/photography.

They do accreditations internationally too, though you’re almost certainly right that some locations aren’t as represented, especially since it requires communication and cooperation with the governments for these areas.

To be fair, the add-ons are just containers installed and managed by HA. In most cases, you can install all of them as separate containers via something like Docker, but configuration takes more steps (though you also get more control).

Example: I have HA, Eclipse mosquitto, zigbee2mqtt, zwave-js-ui, node-red, Grafana, and influxdb all running as docker containers on two different devices (my main HA host wasn’t ideal for Zigbee and zwave USB dongles, so those are on a Pi 4). The other containers are accessible separately or from within HA as iFrame panels.

Technically 3.5" SSDs are still out there, but they’re massive (16-64 TB) and target enterprise use (with a price to match).

And 3.5" is still the standard for platter HDDs, which are still the more economical option if you need large amounts of storage.

Now if you meant no more 3.5" floppy disk drives, then yes, those are definitely gone. ;)

I think you may have misread OPs post. They haven’t built a PC since shirtly after they were 10-11, which was almost 30 years ago. So developments since the turn of the century are in fact relevant here, heh.

That’s a good point I hadn’t considered from a legal standpoint before. I believe there’s also some network media players out there that can load up iso files, so in theory you could have a library of iso files that you load up as if you were playing the disc, complete with menus and all.

I have no idea if this is any better from a legal standpoint though, since you’d still be using what I assume is unauthorized software to bypass the DVD and Blu-ray encryption whenever you play the iso.

Long story short, they really need to carve out a DMCA exception for this specific conflicting case (which they’ve done for other conflicting situations), but I suspect there’s some strong lobbying against it by interested parties…

That one certainly came to mind. ;)

Yup. “Buying” a movie online is a grift, since all you’re actually doing is buying a license to stream as long as they decide they want to host it. Companies can, and have, removed movies people have bought because of things like studio distribution agreements expiring.

My dream would be for UHD Blu-ray quality (or better) DRM-free digital movie purchases, much like you already can with high res music. But until that becomes a thing, I’ll be buying a physical copy of any movies or shows that I want to own (rather than rent).

Nah. I’m sure there are multiple factors, as mentioned in the article, but another big thing preserving physical media is home theater enthusiasts. With a good system, the higher bitrate video and lossless audio on a UHD Blu-ray is noticable compared to most streamed content.

Even better, have a NAS with a raid array and data scrubbing for your primary storage, and periodically make backups to off-site storage (an off-site NAS or external hard drive are good options that don’t rely on commercial cloud services).

SD cards are far worse than hard drives or SSDs for long term storage. They are useful for temporary mobile data storage and transit, but anything you want to keep long term should be transferred off relatively quickly.

In the US, my understanding is that there’s a weird catch-22 where it’s legal to make digital copies of media you own for personal use thanks to Fair Use laws, but it’s illegal to break copy protection under DMCA law. So you end up unable to exercise your right to copy DVDs and Blu-ray discs because they have copy protection, but it’s perfectly legal to copy music CDs for personal use because they don’t have copy protection.

Personally, I find it extremely unlikely you’ll get jailed or fined for ripping your discs for personal use. It’s only if you start redistributing it that you increase your likelihood of legal problems.