@mrjpaxton Thanks for chiming in. The TerreMaster does indeed have alot in common with the Helios64, and it does have the bonus of 10gbe.
At over A$1000 (probably AUD$1100 with postage) it's it's more than double what I paid for the Helios full bundle, and the Helios was already a bit of a stretch philosophically for what a NAS adds to my life. Add to that the caveats you mentioned......
Likewise the 'build a small PC' type NAS always seemed I'd be entering into the power consumption equivalent of just leaving my main PC on 24/7 (which has plenty of sata and 10gbe already).
When the PI3 then 4 came around, it seemed like the perfect thing for a NAS. The right amount of CPU/ram, the small form factor, low power consumption, low price, easy to get OMV on it etc. Just sadly no way to get real sata on it.
With a Pi4 4GB costing me about A$100, it seemed adding *with* real sata for a modest price increase shouldn't be too much to ask for. Why doesn't someone make it I thought?
Well they did, it was the Helios board. And it was awesome. And even though I dont care much about the case for something that'l probably be out of sight (I can 3D print), the hot pink got me
Fast forward to now, when such things should be getting cheaper, TerraMaster think A$900 is appropriate to add to a raspberry pi 4 equivalent SBC to add 5 sata ports, 10gbe, and a plastic case. Not feeling any purchase urges at all.
@bunducafe
On a positive note, I've been running with your governor settings (ondemand - 4000 - 14000) and it does seem pretty stable. I've had to reset it once in 10 days, but I think I can live with that.