I guess this would be a good starting point for your reading:

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/start

What am I missing out on as a regular internet user by using the default equipment.

You miss an understanding about what your devices do. Including the devices you got from your provider.

As a consequence, you remain clueless when your devices get attacked and taken over.

What am I missing out on as a self-hoster by using whatever equipment metronet gives me?

You miss the chance of securing your network.

As a self hoster, you are a little bit more attractive, and there are more possibilities of attacking your devices, than a typical PC or mobile user.

My suggestion is an extra router with OpenWRT between the metronet device and all your other stuff. You will get some better understanding just by configuring your OpenWRT for the first time. Their documentation is very good.

So, which one of these handles the SAT receiver card(s)?

Using mythtv for 15 years at least. At the beginning with its own frontend, now with a Kodi frontend on an Androidtv box.

I am reading about jellyfin here frequently, but have not tried it so far. Can it even handle SAT receivers?

If I remember correctly (you’d better googel it to be sure), PWM case fans use a steady 12V supply, plus a pwm signal.

I’d buy an ESP, connect a temperature sensor, put the Tasmota firmware on it and be fine. The programming is a one liner then (in that weird tasmota rules language).

If it turns out that the fan needs a pwm “chopped” 12V supply instead, then you need to add a MOSFET and 2 resistors to create that.

P.S. that module from the other comment is better.

I guess you should simply talk to the landlord about your needs, and try to find an agreeable solution together.

Where is this happening? Which country, which laws?

NAS on WiFi works, but it is less fun than NAS on a cable.

Powerline works only with solid copper wire installed in the walls, connecting these rooms with as few interruptions as possible. Never with flexible lines.

P.S. corrected PoE to powerline

Not safe at all. I look for robustness. I prefer thinking about things that do not break easily (like ZFS and RAIDZ) instead of “what could possibly go wrong”

And I have never quite figured out how to do restores, so I neglect backups as well.

Usually I want to see the BIOS settings at least once. So that’s enough reason to carry a keyboard + monitor there.

Otherwise that network boot option with a TFTP server comes to my mind. But I have never tried it on a new, empty machine.

Do you know of any other way to make ZFS more verbose on the issue

ZFS is the wrong place to look at.

Analogy:

Imagine there is an evil teacher in grammar school. Your kids are telling you, but they are unable to explain further what exactly is wrong with the teacher.

Then you don’t wait until your kids grow up and understand it all and can explain it all to you, but you go directly to the school to find out what it is what that teacher is doing.

Take the intestines out and make a flower box.

This, so much.

ZFS itself sticks to the error stubbornly but does bot have any more info. SMART reports good drives.

This means: look elsewhere.

My real server (Nextcloud/NAS/several more vm’s) uses 28 Watts on average. In addition, there is one Pi 4B running, and I don’t even know it’s wattage.

I’m planning on replacing the real server with a new one, with lots of cores and approx. 50 Watts then.

Don’t forget to ‘export’ the zpool before moving the disks. Afterwards, you ‘import’ it on the new system. That’s all it needs.

If you use proxmox, then Truenas is kinda redundant, since proxmox can manage your zpool as well.

Interesting idea. It needs one big stepper motor, I guess. Do you know a specific type that’s strong enough?

Maybe they have what you need: https://www.athom.tech/esphome

I am more into Tasmota than esphome, and I have bought some of my devices there.

Tl;dr what is it doing?

Read about the specific features of the “WD RED” drives. There are some pretty good articles out there, and you are going to learn a whole lot reagarding your question.

I got a bunch of them in my private server. I didn’t know all these details when I bought them LOL, but they do a good job, reliable, silent, for 6 years and counting.

Curious: What’s the deal with all the transcoding on servers?

Don’t you just need some good rendering on the client? And if you need it on the server, why need it on the fly? You can do it before, and store the result, can’t you?

I see :-)