With the end of support for Windows 10 in November 2025, I started looking to replace "The Trump." That configuration had served me well but in the summer of 2024, I was thrown a curve. Drobos started to fail and I discovered that Drobo had closed their doors. While I didn't suffer any failure, I started looking for alternatives.
"The Trump" had mirrored 2TB drives that had been faultless. So I looked at even bigger drives for this decade's server. I chose mirrored 4TB CMR drives still using Windows Storage Spaces.
This meant that I needed 2 3.5" internal drive bays. I still like to have a DVD burner. I always look for lots of USB ports, now with USB 3.0. With "The Trump", I had to use an SSD just sitting loose so this time I was looking for an M.2 bay or two.
I found an HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Tower for $364. I populated it with 32GB of DRAM for $66, 2 Western Digital 4TB drives for $150, an Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD for $64, and an HP Slim CD/DVD RW for $30.
It came with Windows 10 Pro which I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro.
