9 ms·

If you want a small NAS in a similar form factor I'd recommend Helios64 5-bay NAS https://kobol.io/ https://kobol.io/. It is an Arm64 board runs mainline Armbia

If you want a small NAS in a similar form factor I'd recommend Helios64 5-bay NAS https://kobol.io/ https://kobol.io/. It is an Arm64 board runs mainline Armbian. Also comes with 2.5Gbit networking and a built in UPS battery. I don't understand why people who care about security and have linux knowledge would use Synology/QNAP. They are both proprietary, often exposed to the internet, and packed full of so many features that they are consistently full of vulnerabilities (SynoLocker/QLocker etc).

thinkmassive 5y ago
Helios64 looks amazing but they've been sold out for a while. You had my hopes up for a moment there, haha
- patentatt 5y ago
  Seems to be so common with these niche SBCs and accessories. They look so cool, but are unobtainable. People sometimes complain about the over-use of RasPis, but one thing they have going for them is that you can always find them available from many different sources.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ed25519FUUU 5y ago
The built-in UPS feature is very cool.
- icedchai 5y ago
  It's very cool, until something goes wrong with it. IMHO you are better off getting an external UPS and putting some other stuff on it.
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    It seems much more efficient with a small, DC, li-ion UPS than an external UPS which will use an AC inverter (and now you gotta decide, spring more for pure sine wave?) and heavy lead-acid batteries.
    - icedchai 5y ago
      It seems like a gimmick to me. It depends on the use case, I guess. So you have your NAS on a built-in UPS. Now what about the rest of your network? Switch? Router? Modem? You still need an external UPS.
      - kalleboo 5y ago
        It's mostly a gimmick, but for home/small business users I think it is actually pretty useful. A mobile power bank-sized battery like this can probably power a NAS like this for at least 10-15 minutes (personal experience messing around with USB-C). Most home/small business NAS usage is SMB file sharing, and SMB writes are async. Just a minute to sync writes and close the file system safely is huge for most users. As someone who has supported a small business, just being able to handle the 5 minutes between someone running the coffee maker at the same time as the fridge and then resetting the breaker is huge.
tremon 5y ago
Well, I did buy a QNAP TS-419P many years ago. It's still running mainline Debian, that was why I bought it. I would have replaced it with a newer model if the new ones were similarly open, but they're not. Seriously considering a Helios64, once they get their supply issues resolved.
- 3v1n0 5y ago
  I also got it one but it's just something I use to run a container to manage my nextcloud and other stuff...
azdle 5y ago
I _desperately_ want something like this, but in a 1U 4-drive form factor. If someone is working on something like this, _please_ let me know. It doesn't even have to be an RK3399 based system, just something that works with a mainline (or near-mainline) linux distro and will host an SMB server & DLNA server.
- mbreese 5y ago
  Why not a 1U Supermicro server? They have options that are short depth or with Atom processors. If you just want a 4 disk 1U server, those would be a good option. Or is it a question of budget? If that’s the case, what about a used server (like those from UNIXSurplus)? Or is it a question of power? If that’s the case, then... I don’t quite know in that case.
  - azdle 5y ago
    I mean power and price are a factor, but I haven't seen a hot-swap drive 1U system that that's not big and noisy. I guess part of the problem is that my rack is right next to my desk (noise) and can only support 24" of depth (I'm real drunk and somehow forgot deeper 1U hot-swap servers exist).
  - neilv 5y ago
    For other popular, affordable used short-depth 1U servers that you can get with 4 external 3.5" drive bays, there's the Dell R210 II, R220, and maybe R230. Without getting into questions of possible security implications/perceptions of where servers are designed and manufactured... I do like the simplicity of some of the Supermicro options. I currently have a short-depth 1U Atom-based one, which runs passively-cooled except for the PSU fan, which I've replaced with a soldered-in practically silent Noctua. I intentionally got a mobo without a crazy BMC with IPMI, but I still don't assume the hardware is very trustworthy. It might still be more trustworthy than a popular consumer board. (BTW, if you're looking at any quiet/cool-running server that uses an Intel Atom C2xxx or some other Atom models, make sure that either it isn't a lemon one, or it has a mitigation. [1][2] [1] https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-avr54-bug-strikes-sth/ https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-avr54-bug-stri... [2] https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/intel-atom-c2000-failures/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/intel-atom-c2...
hedora 5y ago
I use synology because I tried many alternatives, and none worked out of the box. I finally got one (SmartOS; I also tried FreeNAS) working, but I used the intel chip with a timebomb clock line for the build. Then, I gave up. 4 hours after the synology was home, I was much farther along than I’d gotten in a month on the other machine. I’d definitely pay a premium for a supported open source + hardware NAS combo that supported docker, vm’s and offsite client-side encrypted backup (with dedupe/compression) out of the box. Also, I want it to draw < 10W, excluding disks. Until then, synology wins, and isn’t a hobby project.
- gh02t 5y ago
  iXSystems, the company that develops FreeNAS (now called TrueNAS), makes their own hardware for it with full support and decent prices. TrueNAS has also come a very long way in the past couple of years, before it used to be a bit rough around the edges but it's now a very solid competitor especially running on their hardware. The one potential downside is it's not as beginner friendly as Synology or QNAP UI-wise, but I actually like that about it as I'm not a fan of the UI on either.
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    The major downside to ZFS-based systems like TrueNAS is that for a home or small business user you can't expand the storage with a new drive when you're running low on space. It's designed for data centers where you can afford to build a whole new array when you need more storage. With Synology you go "oh, I'm down to 1 TB free, well there's this deal on a 10 TB drive, pop it in, now I have 11 TB free"
    - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
      This isn't really true: you can add new vdevs at any time: when you start running low, you just buy two drives and install them.
      - kalleboo 5y ago
1MachineElf 5y ago
I'd have bought a dozen by now if they'd double the RAM and make it ECC.
- highpost 5y ago
  It uses ECC memory. https://kobol.io/helios4/ https://kobol.io/helios4/
  - Aissen 5y ago
    This is not the same product.
    - tecleandor 5y ago
      Yep. They were planning on adding an ECC option to Helios64, but it's not available yet.
manigandham 5y ago
Synology is proprietary UI but it’s just using Linux raid. That’s how you can recover if anything happens to the hardware.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Does that apply to SHR as well?
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    Yes. SHR is just a friendly gui to automatically juggle mdraid arrays to fit when you have different-sized disks (e.g. if you have 2x8 TB disks and 2x10 TB disks, SHR will create one 4-disk 8 TB mdraid array and one 2-disk 2 TB mdraid array and append them to a single volume). The one proprietary bit Synology has is a way to use mdraid parity to fix checksum errors detected in BTRFS.
boromi 5y ago
Wow very cool. I wish there was an optional 10gbe interface. Otherwise, I wonder how they are able to make this soo affordable.
fonkyyack 5y ago
I personally have a qnap Nas because I wanted something cheap. I did not enabled all the fonction and I will definetly not enable all the "internet functions".
ksec 5y ago
Thank You, never heard of it before. The bundle price is really good for a 5-Bay, Battery UPS NAS. Unfortunately I only want 2 Bay.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Many 2 bay NAS cost close to that figure, so it's still convenient, and more bays are never enough. The only two problems with the Helios, which I monitor since last year, is that it appears to be not 100% stable yet, although most problems reported in the forums seem related to excessive clock speed (which can be throttled down), and being always out of stock. It's a revolutionary product given the price and features (how many noticed it also has a small UPS on board?), therefore as soon as a new production batch is ready it goes away almost immediately.
  - ksec 5y ago
    I think the 4 Bay Size ( The 4S ) fits me better. I just prefer something taller wider than taking lots of ground space. I dont have the luxury to live in a large flat. Although the 4S is now discontinued? I dont quite understand "excessive cloud speed". Assuming I am only using it for file transfer and nothing more would it still be a problem? Or is it something to do with Filesystem. I haven't checked out if the default support something like ZFS or BTRFS.
    - squarefoot 5y ago
      It's excessive clock speed, not cloud speed. Might be causing the CPU overheating so users throttled down its speed which seems to solve the problem.
      - ksec 5y ago
        >It's excessive clock speed, not cloud speed. It was obviously a typo.
- JeremyNT 5y ago
  There's also U-NAS, which makes a 2-bay mini itx system. They'll sell you either a chassis or an entire prebuilt (Intel) system [0]. [0] https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17695&category_id=250 https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_...
paol 5y ago
That seems perfect spec-wise. Would you mind giving a quick review of the acoustic characteristics of the case? I'm looking to move away from a QNAP box, and one of the driving reasons is the horrible "hard-plastic hard-mount everything" design that couldn't amplify hard drive noise any more if they'd done it on purpose. (The other reasons are that I'd rather manage ZFS myself, and the need for more than gigabit ethernet)
xattt 5y ago
Another suggestion for QNAP owners is to simply replace the firmware with a regular Linux distribution. This is what I’ve done and haven’t looked back.
- JeremyNT 5y ago
  Is this commonly possible? I know some of their devices can run a normal distribution, but when I looked into this recently I didn't see confirmation for current models.
  - xattt 5y ago
    I have a 4 bay TS-453 Pro (Celeron J1900). I swapped out one of the HHDs for an SSD with the distro install and created a ZFS array with other three drives. In my experience, BIOS/EFI comes up if you mash F2 with a HDMI monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse attached. Your mileage may vary. A few niggly bits: the LCD says “System Starting” until LCDd/lcdmon starts and there is no control over the HDD activity lights. Fan Control is sufficient to quiet the fans to a tolerable level once Smart Fan is disabled in the EFI. Perhaps I should document this somewhere …
zmix 5y ago
Nice box, but "Out of Stock". And no IPMI, as it seems.

thinkmassive 5y ago

Helios64 looks amazing but they've been sold out for a while. You had my hopes up for a moment there, haha

patentatt 5y ago
Seems to be so common with these niche SBCs and accessories. They look so cool, but are unobtainable. People sometimes complain about the over-use of RasPis, but one thing they have going for them is that you can always find them available from many different sources.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ed25519FUUU 5y ago

The built-in UPS feature is very cool.

icedchai 5y ago
It's very cool, until something goes wrong with it. IMHO you are better off getting an external UPS and putting some other stuff on it.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  It seems much more efficient with a small, DC, li-ion UPS than an external UPS which will use an AC inverter (and now you gotta decide, spring more for pure sine wave?) and heavy lead-acid batteries.
  - icedchai 5y ago
    It seems like a gimmick to me. It depends on the use case, I guess. So you have your NAS on a built-in UPS. Now what about the rest of your network? Switch? Router? Modem? You still need an external UPS.
    - kalleboo 5y ago
      It's mostly a gimmick, but for home/small business users I think it is actually pretty useful. A mobile power bank-sized battery like this can probably power a NAS like this for at least 10-15 minutes (personal experience messing around with USB-C). Most home/small business NAS usage is SMB file sharing, and SMB writes are async. Just a minute to sync writes and close the file system safely is huge for most users. As someone who has supported a small business, just being able to handle the 5 minutes between someone running the coffee maker at the same time as the fridge and then resetting the breaker is huge.

tremon 5y ago

Well, I did buy a QNAP TS-419P many years ago. It's still running mainline Debian, that was why I bought it. I would have replaced it with a newer model if the new ones were similarly open, but they're not. Seriously considering a Helios64, once they get their supply issues resolved.

3v1n0 5y ago
I also got it one but it's just something I use to run a container to manage my nextcloud and other stuff...

azdle 5y ago

I _desperately_ want something like this, but in a 1U 4-drive form factor. If someone is working on something like this, _please_ let me know. It doesn't even have to be an RK3399 based system, just something that works with a mainline (or near-mainline) linux distro and will host an SMB server & DLNA server.

mbreese 5y ago
Why not a 1U Supermicro server? They have options that are short depth or with Atom processors. If you just want a 4 disk 1U server, those would be a good option. Or is it a question of budget? If that’s the case, what about a used server (like those from UNIXSurplus)? Or is it a question of power? If that’s the case, then... I don’t quite know in that case.
- azdle 5y ago
  I mean power and price are a factor, but I haven't seen a hot-swap drive 1U system that that's not big and noisy. I guess part of the problem is that my rack is right next to my desk (noise) and can only support 24" of depth (I'm real drunk and somehow forgot deeper 1U hot-swap servers exist).
- neilv 5y ago
  For other popular, affordable used short-depth 1U servers that you can get with 4 external 3.5" drive bays, there's the Dell R210 II, R220, and maybe R230. Without getting into questions of possible security implications/perceptions of where servers are designed and manufactured... I do like the simplicity of some of the Supermicro options. I currently have a short-depth 1U Atom-based one, which runs passively-cooled except for the PSU fan, which I've replaced with a soldered-in practically silent Noctua. I intentionally got a mobo without a crazy BMC with IPMI, but I still don't assume the hardware is very trustworthy. It might still be more trustworthy than a popular consumer board. (BTW, if you're looking at any quiet/cool-running server that uses an Intel Atom C2xxx or some other Atom models, make sure that either it isn't a lemon one, or it has a mitigation. [1][2] [1] https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-avr54-bug-strikes-sth/ https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-avr54-bug-stri... [2] https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/intel-atom-c2000-failures/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/intel-atom-c2...

hedora 5y ago

I use synology because I tried many alternatives, and none worked out of the box. I finally got one (SmartOS; I also tried FreeNAS) working, but I used the intel chip with a timebomb clock line for the build. Then, I gave up. 4 hours after the synology was home, I was much farther along than I’d gotten in a month on the other machine. I’d definitely pay a premium for a supported open source + hardware NAS combo that supported docker, vm’s and offsite client-side encrypted backup (with dedupe/compression) out of the box. Also, I want it to draw < 10W, excluding disks. Until then, synology wins, and isn’t a hobby project.

gh02t 5y ago
iXSystems, the company that develops FreeNAS (now called TrueNAS), makes their own hardware for it with full support and decent prices. TrueNAS has also come a very long way in the past couple of years, before it used to be a bit rough around the edges but it's now a very solid competitor especially running on their hardware. The one potential downside is it's not as beginner friendly as Synology or QNAP UI-wise, but I actually like that about it as I'm not a fan of the UI on either.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  The major downside to ZFS-based systems like TrueNAS is that for a home or small business user you can't expand the storage with a new drive when you're running low on space. It's designed for data centers where you can afford to build a whole new array when you need more storage. With Synology you go "oh, I'm down to 1 TB free, well there's this deal on a 10 TB drive, pop it in, now I have 11 TB free"
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    This isn't really true: you can add new vdevs at any time: when you start running low, you just buy two drives and install them.
    - kalleboo 5y ago

1MachineElf 5y ago

I'd have bought a dozen by now if they'd double the RAM and make it ECC.

highpost 5y ago
It uses ECC memory. https://kobol.io/helios4/ https://kobol.io/helios4/
- Aissen 5y ago
  This is not the same product.
  - tecleandor 5y ago
    Yep. They were planning on adding an ECC option to Helios64, but it's not available yet.

manigandham 5y ago

Synology is proprietary UI but it’s just using Linux raid. That’s how you can recover if anything happens to the hardware.

Hamuko 5y ago
Does that apply to SHR as well?
- kalleboo 5y ago
  Yes. SHR is just a friendly gui to automatically juggle mdraid arrays to fit when you have different-sized disks (e.g. if you have 2x8 TB disks and 2x10 TB disks, SHR will create one 4-disk 8 TB mdraid array and one 2-disk 2 TB mdraid array and append them to a single volume). The one proprietary bit Synology has is a way to use mdraid parity to fix checksum errors detected in BTRFS.

boromi 5y ago

Wow very cool. I wish there was an optional 10gbe interface. Otherwise, I wonder how they are able to make this soo affordable.

fonkyyack 5y ago

I personally have a qnap Nas because I wanted something cheap. I did not enabled all the fonction and I will definetly not enable all the "internet functions".

ksec 5y ago

Thank You, never heard of it before. The bundle price is really good for a 5-Bay, Battery UPS NAS. Unfortunately I only want 2 Bay.

squarefoot 5y ago
Many 2 bay NAS cost close to that figure, so it's still convenient, and more bays are never enough. The only two problems with the Helios, which I monitor since last year, is that it appears to be not 100% stable yet, although most problems reported in the forums seem related to excessive clock speed (which can be throttled down), and being always out of stock. It's a revolutionary product given the price and features (how many noticed it also has a small UPS on board?), therefore as soon as a new production batch is ready it goes away almost immediately.
- ksec 5y ago
  I think the 4 Bay Size ( The 4S ) fits me better. I just prefer something taller wider than taking lots of ground space. I dont have the luxury to live in a large flat. Although the 4S is now discontinued? I dont quite understand "excessive cloud speed". Assuming I am only using it for file transfer and nothing more would it still be a problem? Or is it something to do with Filesystem. I haven't checked out if the default support something like ZFS or BTRFS.
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    It's excessive clock speed, not cloud speed. Might be causing the CPU overheating so users throttled down its speed which seems to solve the problem.
    - ksec 5y ago
      >It's excessive clock speed, not cloud speed. It was obviously a typo.
JeremyNT 5y ago
There's also U-NAS, which makes a 2-bay mini itx system. They'll sell you either a chassis or an entire prebuilt (Intel) system [0]. [0] https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17695&category_id=250 https://www.u-nas.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_...

paol 5y ago

That seems perfect spec-wise. Would you mind giving a quick review of the acoustic characteristics of the case? I'm looking to move away from a QNAP box, and one of the driving reasons is the horrible "hard-plastic hard-mount everything" design that couldn't amplify hard drive noise any more if they'd done it on purpose. (The other reasons are that I'd rather manage ZFS myself, and the need for more than gigabit ethernet)

xattt 5y ago

Another suggestion for QNAP owners is to simply replace the firmware with a regular Linux distribution. This is what I’ve done and haven’t looked back.

JeremyNT 5y ago
Is this commonly possible? I know some of their devices can run a normal distribution, but when I looked into this recently I didn't see confirmation for current models.
- xattt 5y ago
  I have a 4 bay TS-453 Pro (Celeron J1900). I swapped out one of the HHDs for an SSD with the distro install and created a ZFS array with other three drives. In my experience, BIOS/EFI comes up if you mash F2 with a HDMI monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse attached. Your mileage may vary. A few niggly bits: the LCD says “System Starting” until LCDd/lcdmon starts and there is no control over the HDD activity lights. Fan Control is sufficient to quiet the fans to a tolerable level once Smart Fan is disabled in the EFI. Perhaps I should document this somewhere …

zmix 5y ago

Nice box, but "Out of Stock". And no IPMI, as it seems.