I do /volumX for additional hard drives.

For most network share I use /mnt/$server.

Love it!!

I use Google chromecast for this.

There soundbars with chromecast support.

It is not 1000 it 10000.

You can try with setting g+w on pve.

I can’t say I share that experience. By biggest problem with player is lake of chromecast on IOS and half balled chromecast on Android (lake of volume level, default 10% volum, doesn’t see my speaker pair, doesn’t always discover chromecast devices).

I have not heard of Prologue and it support for Audiobookshelf (ABS).

Why would one choice Prologue over the ABS app?

Draw us a topology drawing. Please.

Agreed the PCI layout is bad. My problem is the x16 slot.

I would prefer 8 slots/onboard with PCIe5 x2 from CPU. From the chipset 2 slots of PCIe4 x2. This would probably adequate IO. Aiming for 2x25 Gbits performance.

Depending on the price I would like to use to replace my Synology, I will strip os and run standard Debian.

Sadly is very hard to repurpose an Synology.