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Thanks, I've been tempted, but wasnt sure if they work 'local only' and without app, and this sounds like it dials home? Anyway seems like a long wait list for suitable HDD will save my money for now. Plus I was a little more tempted by their Arm offering.

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Ah, no -- the "watchdog" here is basically a system hardware watchdog. The OS 'feeds' the watchdog in the BIOS every X amount of time, if the dog isn't 'fed' in Y time, the computer will fully reboot itself (assuming it crashed).

Because I've installed something that can't feed the watchdog, I just turn the watchdog off.

Their OS install crap, I assume they're just trying to make sure that you can't try to put it on your own hardware (sort of like how people pirate Synology DiskStation).

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