1.5TB Optane SSD. Now I get to figure out U.2 & how to mount it in my case that has-5 drive mounts currently free.

I’ve bought 2 Supermicro H11SSL-i’s off eBay from China (different sellers) and both have been legit.

Does overspeccing your hardware so much performance issues never come up count?

For normal people grafana & prometheus are typical good answers.

When going between SFP+ vs RJ45 10GbE switches it is mostly compared to if you already have cables ran.

The RJ45 ones cost a lot more, but they let you use preexisting ethernet cables like you have which can save a bunch of money from running new cables & the time of running said new cables.

If you were to get a SFP+ switch & get a bunch of adapters that gets much more expensive than getting a RJ45 switch (Those adapters also run HOT). The benefit is that fiber can go much farther (not needed in a home really though) & you can use DAC’s which compared with the lower switch & NIC price can be much cheaper.

If your leaning towards the MikroTik switch it is a good switch, though its nothing too fancy. It would also let you use a couple DAC cables to connect to a few boxes if you have one next to where the switch will go.