Is ECC worth it for a home NAS?
For a filesystem that checksums data, ECC protects the one place checksums cannot: memory between verification and write. It is not mandatory, and the honest framing is insurance whose premium is a slightly more expensive board.
Tool steps: 3 (reasoning summary, call to python, execution output)
rows = run_sql("EXPLAIN (ANALYZE) SELECT ...")
print(rows[:3])Seq Scan on events (cost=0.00..812431.00 rows=41203122 width=16)
Rows Removed by Filter: 38996878
Planning Time: 0.214 ms
Execution Time: 11842.663 msWhich drive survives a write-heavy workload?
Look at TBW rather than sequential speed. A consumer drive rated at 300 TBW dies years earlier than one rated at 1200 under the same load, and the fast numbers on the box describe bursts to cache, not sustained writes.
Performance drops after a couple of minutes of compiling.
Thermal throttling. Check the sustained clock with a monitor running, then decide between undervolting, a lower power limit that trades peak for consistency, or a cooling pad. The consistent lower clock usually finishes builds faster than the sawtooth.