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[JC1022]

I recently got my hands on four PCIe u.2 drives at 3.2TB for a good price and want to run them as primary flash for working files (Photo, Video, Imaging drives for friend & family and other fun hardware testing). Tried a Large M.2 with HDD for older files but hard drive is too slow when moving large amounts of data, can be noisy and prone to failure as my recent experience. Which is the main reason to convert to all SSD.
U.2 enterprise SSD may not be as power efficient as m.2 NVME but will last me a life time due to endurance rating. 2TB 970 Evo has 1200 TBW and Intel U.2 has 21850 TBW and low failure rate.
Since I am upgrading storage and backup solutions, Might as well upgrade my current system. Thus, I am looking for a power efficient solution as a file server / work station. No threadripper even though all those PCIe lanes are tempting.

Currently have SATA RAID Card running 8x lanes for 8 drives with 5.25 bay holding six 2.5 SSD hot swap bays. Need another 8x & 4x lanes for expansion.

1. Am I insane for thinking I could run this as a file server & work station? I would rather not create two computers, but need some wisdom here.

2. AMD or Intel? Currently running and replacing 9900k with GTX 1070 and 32g RAM for more power efficient solution.

Option #1:
AMD 5600G
GIGABYTE X570S AERO G with 8x,8x,4x and 4 - M.2 connections.
16GB of RAM
No GPU

Option #2:
Intel i3 12100 with potential upgrade to 13th gen

Option #3: Wait for Ryzen 7600x or go for Intel Server grade solution?

[MilzyBee]

Welcome to the forums

[wertigon]

Re: Ryzen 5 5600G vs Core i3 12100, just take the one that produces the cheapest motherboard/CPU combo. For budget builds you have four options, A520, B550, H610 and B660 - Though the H610 is basically so locked down, anyone seriously contemplating building a system out of that should reconsider. It does not even support XMP profiles.

For your use case either CPU will do just fine and they are both about the same price with slight leverage to Ryzen due to allowing A520 boards. However, B550 boards better suit your use case since you need three PCIe slots, most Alder Lake boards have a really bad lane layout even though quite a few 3x16 slots exist.

If you do not need the x8/x8/x4 and can instead settle for something like x16/x4/x2, I would probably take the B550 Aorus Pro and save myself a couple of bucks over the Aero. Your call to make though.

Unfortunately the trend for consumer PCIe is going towards less PCIe lanes and MOAR m.2.