Having used Dell BOSS S1 cards even in other Dell servers, there is firmware integration limitations to be seen. Even an R730 won't fully tolerate an R740's BOSS - those I've only seen work in the R740 and higher. The control interface for the S1 (and presumably S2) cards is integrated into a menu system in Dell's BIOS and iDRAC.
I know specifically for the BOSS-S1, there's a Startech board that has a similar form factor and uses the same SATA RAID chipset, but without the Dell firmware. That Startech board works in non-Dell servers and workstations and has mostly the same features as the S1. (I 100% used my laptop's eGPU to set them up a few times. It also definitely causes Windows to BSOD a few times because it doesn't know how to eject an entire disk controller, but that's also entirely my fault). The Startech controller has not really given me any major problems once I got it up, and has run in my R730s with near 100% uptime for a few months now.
You may look to see if Startech has an NVMe version now to find a counterpart for the BOSS-N1 - I haven't checked recently.
Something else to consider is what your RAID array will actually be doing: M.2 SATA may be fast enough to be a boot disk, while your "real" data array uses SAS or NVMe to get to the CPU. You can even elect to use something fancier like Ceph or ZFS to handle the real data disks without a hardware RAID card. If you're just booting the server hypervisor and maybe a low level agent VM or two and the real data is on another array, that Startech card may be for you. (You just need FreeDOS to re flash it to EFI mode)
Thank you for your insights and suggestions. Very glad I didn't buy anything yet. There appear to be a number of PCIe options for using both SATA or NVMe, but I've decided to get a couple of smaller, cheap 2.5 SATA SSDs just for the OS.
The plan is to just have Proxmox installed RAID1 on the two SSDs for redundancy, then the real data array is 4x12tb HGST in some ZFS configuration. Does this seem sane?
Here's an addendum with a few great episode examples which might pass my "test".
TOS: "Amok Time", (arguably) "The Galileo Seven"
TNG: "Brothers", "Lower Decks", "The Measure of a Man"
DS9: "It's Only A Paper Moon", "Improbable Cause"+"The Die Is Cast", "The Magnificent Ferengi"
Other shows also have great episodes that pass, but I want to stop here for my examples so as to avoid showing my hand (too much) and stating which show(s) I think fail.
No arguments for or against these yet? I'll nudge this part of the conversation by pointing out that TOS -- THE original Star Trek show -- seems to have a high percentage of episodes which would "fail" this silly "test".
There are so many episodes in all the series but here’s a few from Voyager:
VOY: “The Chute”, “Dreadnought”, “Learning Curve”, “Meld”, “One”, "Once Upon a Time”, “Timeless”… the list goes on. Many other episodes focus on a single member of the crew, many times with the Captain not being an important part of the story at all.
Definitely and many that fail. I wonder if it works as a measure based on percentage of the show as a whole. Then again, it really doesn't matter at all; I only noticed that I get annoyed with certain shows which overuse a single savior for the show's overall story.
I like it, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you're talking about Discovery. I've said in the past that the show should be called "Star Trek: Michael Burnham" as it would at least be more honest.
To be fair, I think every series has a lot of episodes that would fail this test, some of which were excellent, like DS9's "In the Pale Moonlight", and "Far Beyond the Stars" or TNG's "The Inner Light", but if used to assess a series, I think this could be a good metric.
The later seasons let go of some of the Burnham stuff and let characters like Adira have their own plots. I believe Paul and Hugh also had a few arcs though I never got into them myself.
I just didn't like early Burnham as a character. I didn't like most of Sisko either. That doesn't make a show bad, necessarily, but I felt like Discovery didn't offer a whole lot of B plot/secondary characters to compensate. Without secondary perspectives to offset Sisko's heavy moral/philosophical arc, I probably would've hated DS9 as well.
In the later seasons, Burnham became more nuanced by having Book as a sidekick, as well as fleshing out the crew a lot more. They were no longer hurdles in the way of Burnhams's self redemption arc/current goal in life.
TNG also had their terrible episodes, but there were just a lot more of them. Season 1 of TNG got 26/22/26/26/26/26/26 episodes versus Discovery's 15/14/13/13/10. There was also no single overarching plot, so Picard could play a flute and live the life of an alien for a whole episode without derailing any story plans. The "monster of the week" approach also helped inspire some real good moral and philosophical debate that would otherwise never would've been written into a single story, but also some of the most cringeworthy TV I've seen.
Somewhere in the middle of DS9 and Voyager, Star Trek started aiming towards broader plot lines. At first they were multiple seasons long (though some of them had to be smuggled past Berman), but with Enterprise they became per-season. This makes it very difficult to compare old and new Trek, or even early and late seasons of the same show, because the dynamic changed.
I agree with and second many of your statements in here. Well said!
A couple specific points I want to highlight:
Paul and Hugh
I really enjoyed those plots, especially about loss.
There was also no single overarching plot, so Picard could play a flute and live the life of an alien for a whole episode without derailing any story plans. The “monster of the week” approach also helped inspire some real good moral and philosophical debate that would otherwise never would’ve been written into a single story, but also some of the most cringeworthy TV I’ve seen.
I think this is the core of the issue for what I enjoy and don't enjoy with many Star Trek shows. Surprisingly to me, Expanse does this fine whereas Trek/Who/SG-1 would trip over it and have.
In general, great reply with excellent points. Thank you!
To be fair, I think every series has a lot of episodes that would fail this test, some of which were excellent, like DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight”, and “Far Beyond the Stars” or TNG’s “The Inner Light”, but if used to assess a series, I think this could be a good metric.
Indeed, "In the Pale Moonlight" is one I thought of which fails as well. I still think it makes a good measure to see how many episodes of a show pass/fail overall. Only to see if it's really about the whole crew or mostly one character. (Arguably, early TNG comes really close to being Star Trek: Wesley while mid/late TNG comes close to Star Trek: Data.)
A fair point. However, I just think this sums up my preferences for Trek shows well and had a feeling that many would agree.
Meanwhile, other people might have an internal measure for their preferences which amounts to "is not animated", eliminating TAS and ST:LD.
To be clear, for everyone reading: I have watched every episode of every Star Trek show; I greatly and sincerely appreciate and value the time, effort, and energy of the production crew, writers, and actors of every show. These media of entertainment are impactful and deeply meaningful. Every show has a message for its current time and future audiences and it is so important that, as a fan, I hear those messages and allow myself to appreciate this art as an audience member.
It's just a thought. On further consideration I'd probably broaden it to any non-Starfleet faction. In cases where there is one involved in the plot I like it when they're portrayed in more depth than is usual.
I've seen this complaint a lot with some of the newer shows, but it doesn't really resonate with me. A good central character ought to be able to carry a show, and I don't hold Trek as being inherently different in that regard. In fact, I think the original series would have been an example of a show like that if Spock's popularity hadn't been taken into consideration by later writers. Even then, I believe it would have a pretty low "pass" rate compared to all the '90s series.
(Incidentally, since Burnham wasn't Captain until season 4, Discovery passes on a technicality for most of its run).
.... Even then, I believe [TOS] would have a pretty low “pass” rate compared to all the '90s series.
Agreed. I note elsewhere in this thread that I think TOS would struggle with this little "test" and it was THE Star Trek show when it all started.
(Incidentally, since Burnham wasn’t Captain until season 4, Discovery passes on a technicality for most of its run).
Indeed it would pass and I think the captains/crew of those seasons were well portrayed and balanced Burnham's presence as a character as well.
I’ve seen this complaint a lot with some of the newer shows, but it doesn’t really resonate with me. A good central character ought to be able to carry a show, and I don’t hold Trek as being inherently different in that regard.
As you say. And to be clear, I'm not taking this too seriously, nor is it meant to be a complaint. Just a measure I noticed in my own mind. I am still watching all the Star Trek made, whether it "passes" this measure or not.
All fair, and I appreciate how much you're trying to avoid Trekkie infighting in this thread. I'm not always so conscientious about that, but it is, after all, just a TV show.
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