They are decommisioned datacenter drives, this could be for a variety of reasons (including errors). There are many discussions online about them wiping smart data.
It depends on your use case, I have a few of their drives in a nas specifically for media. I received one bad drive that failed my burn in tests, which they exchange without issue. All of my important files are stored on a seporate ssd based store.
All depends on your risk tolerence and needs.
Do you have a higher resolution copy of that astronaught image? I like it a lot
Serverpartdeals is good. https://www.goharddrive.com/ is another option. Generally slightly more expensive than serverpartdeals, but with better warranty. Both are reputable options
You could get a Dell poweredge r210ii or similar and add a dual nic pcie card. Load up opnsense and you're good to go
In terms of slim netbooks that are Linux first?
Starbook from Star Labs
Framework 13 from Framework
Slimbook from Slimbook
With temps that high in Linux and Windows, it almost sounds like the AIO water block is falling off the CPU.
I'm using US Mobile. You can choose between using their GSM network (T-Mobile) or their CDMA network (Verizon). Their prices are fantastic and it's all prepaid, so you can limit how much personal information you give them. They've worked out a deal with Verizon so your data isn't deprioratized even though you're not a primary Verizon customer, so there's no speed penalty. I've been very happy with them
Ah fair enough
Have you looked at mumble?
I think you're going to have a lot better experience with plasma 5.27, they've done a lot of bug fixes since 5.25.
I've been running tumbleweed for a few years on a few different computers, I've only had an issue a few times, but it has a built in method to revert to a save point before the problematic update, so it's super easy to undo and wait a few days to upgrade again. You can also look at slowroll, it's tumbleweed on a slower release, though I'm not sure it's out yet. I definitely recommend it over kubuntu though, I was originally using kubuntu but switched due to wifi driver issues.
If you want to stick to an Ubuntu based system, you could try neon, but it's built on top of the Ubuntu stable releases so the packages are generally a lot older. It didn't solve my wifi problems so I gave tumbleweed a shot.
If you suspect stability issues due to newish hardware, downgrading is very rarely the way to go (unless the bug was introduced by a recent update).
Bugs get reported and fixed so you want to be doing the opposite, running a newer version of KDE and the kernel.
Have you enabled kde backports? If you're going to wipe the computer anyway, maybe give Tumbleweed a shot? It's running the latest everything while still being quite stable.
Thanks!