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I'd love to find a M2-only NAS in a very low profile form factor. I live in a small apartment and prefer small electronics that can hide in a cabinet, but it se

I'd love to find a M2-only NAS in a very low profile form factor. I live in a small apartment and prefer small electronics that can hide in a cabinet, but it seems like all of the NAS enclosures that I've ever seen recommended are fucking huge.

projektfu 2y ago
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5HW6W9Y https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5HW6W9Y This would give 3 M.2 slots and high speed ethernet. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N1HC88M https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N1HC88M Something like this can be used to upgrade a dual-3.5" SATA NAS into a 8x-M.2 NAS (assuming the cooling and everything work appropriately). Just some ideas.
bpfrh 2y ago
There ie the rockchip CM3588 NAS Kit but it is a non mainstream CPU which cost between 200-300€: https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/CM3588_NAS_Kit https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/CM3588_NAS_Kit there is also the asustor nas: https://www.asustor.com/de/product?p_id=80 https://www.asustor.com/de/product?p_id=80 If you just need a single nvme SSD you could also buy a banana pi 3 Router: https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3 https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3 Edit: forgot links and product
- bane 2y ago
  I've heard the Flashtor 12 is great, and can take lots of M.2s, but they end up with relatively few channels so data transmission rates aren't awesome. It can be fine as most users will be connecting over the network anyway which will be the bottleneck.
zamadatix 2y ago
I have the Flashstor 12 Pro. As the name suggests it's 12 m.2 nvme bays and it's pretty darn small considering. Pros: - It does what it says on the tin and I have 12 nvme drives in a ZFS pool - It has 10G ethernet built in. - It's pretty small, especially compared to most HDD focused NAS systems. - It's just an x86 PC and you can blast the factory OS away to install your OS of choice without issue. Cons: - Each drive only gets a 3.0 x1 connection. It's honestly not much of a problem though as 1 GB/s per drive is still a ton of bandwidth after 12 drives. - The built in ethernet is RJ45 instead of SFP+. Not the end of the world, just less power efficient. - No PCIe expansion slots for anything but m.2 2280 drives. - Single RAM slot so no dual channel and no large amounts of RAM. 32 GB works fine (I think Intel says the processor is only rated for 16). I can't remember if I tried 48 and it failed or if I never bothered. Either way 32 GB can be a bit small if you're really wanting to load it up with 4 TB or 8 TB drives and features like ZFS deduplication. - The single built in fan could have been silent had they made any reasonable design choice around it. Instead I had to externally mount a noctua fan (to the same screw holes, just the inside is not a standard mount) and feed it power via a USB adapter. Works damn silent and cool now though. - CPU (4 core Intel Celeron N5105) is very weak and the actual performance limitation for most any setup with this box. I don't regret getting it, it's a solid choice given the relative lack of premade options in this segment, but the follow up NAS build was just me getting a motherboard/CPU with lots of PCIe lanes and loading up 4 way switches. You can do that via buying used Epyc servers on Ebay (loud/chunky) or just building a low end consumer class "workstation" (things like x8 x8 from the CPU instead of x16 for the assumed GPU) and PCIe to x4 switches (not the splitter cards which assume the motherboard has bifurcation and lanes available but actual switches). If you go the Epyc route you don't have to get switches and you can go back to cheaper splitters. I went the latter via some PCIe switch cards off Aliexpress. Performance and scaling of this one was better of course, but so was cost. Since I did all of this prices for m.2 drives have actually went up quite a bit so I'm glad I did it when I did. What I would not recommend is anything non-x86 (older Ampere servers have lanes at not sky high prices but better to just go used Epyc at that point and get more CPU perf for the same dollar. SBCs are... a poor choice for a NAS on most every account but hacking factor). I'd also not recommend the Flashstor 6 as it only has 2.5 GBe connectivity and at that point what's the value in paying extra to do this all in flash.
- lysp 2y ago
  I believe there is also a gen-2 just around the corner.
- ChoGGi 2y ago
  > - No PCIe expansion slots for anything but m.2 2280 drives. You can get m.2 adapters: https://www.delock.com/produkt/64219/dokumente.html?d=467 https://www.delock.com/produkt/64219/dokumente.html?d=467
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    In general yes but in the Flashtor you're going to be hard pressed to do much with that unless you wire up a separately powered external chassis which defeats the point of getting the Flashtor.
    - ChoGGi 2y ago
      Yeah, I said that before I looked at just how small it was.
Eric_WVGG 2y ago
There’s a lot of really cool options in the replies here, but I think I’m at my limit on the number of tech hobbies I can manage. Really just waiting for a consumer grade Synology SSD NAS.
- ksec 2y ago
  Exactly. It would have been great if I was still young and studying. I have seemingly infinite of time to fiddle around with things. Once you are working and have a family, most would really prefer to having something that simply work out of the box. Unfortunately Synology have been moving towards Enterprise segment and completely forgot consumer.
walterbell 2y ago
ODROID H4 Plus Intel N97 SBC (with in-band ECC) has an option for 4xM.2 via PCIe bifurcation, https://www.hardkernel.com/blog-2/new-m-2-card-for-the-odroid-h4-series/ https://www.hardkernel.com/blog-2/new-m-2-card-for-the-odroi...
throawayonthe 2y ago
[dead]
CharlesW 2y ago
> I'd love to find a M2-only NAS in a very low profile form factor. QNAP has at least two "NASbooks": https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-464 https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-464 (2.5 GbE, USB 3.2) https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-h574tx https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-h574tx (2.5/10 GbE, Thunderbolt 4)
alsetmusic 2y ago
It's not a NAS, but you could hook it up to a low-power device and share it. I've got one connected to my primary machine and love it. Super fast storage. Side note: One of the m2 chips that I got from Amazon was an obvious fake that I might not have caught if I hadn't ordered four together and one obviously didn't match. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2
happymellon 2y ago
Even if it was 5 drive 2.5" to hold SATA SSDs would be great for me. As networked mass storage I don't always need NVME speeds.
karczex 2y ago
There is good reason for size of such NAS devices. HDDs are just better to maintain your not corrupted data when not connected, as NANDs needs to be refreshed from time to time. The best you could do is to use SSD as a fast cache.

projektfu 2y ago

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5HW6W9Y https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5HW6W9Y This would give 3 M.2 slots and high speed ethernet. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N1HC88M https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N1HC88M Something like this can be used to upgrade a dual-3.5" SATA NAS into a 8x-M.2 NAS (assuming the cooling and everything work appropriately). Just some ideas.

bpfrh 2y ago

There ie the rockchip CM3588 NAS Kit but it is a non mainstream CPU which cost between 200-300€: https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/CM3588_NAS_Kit https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/CM3588_NAS_Kit there is also the asustor nas: https://www.asustor.com/de/product?p_id=80 https://www.asustor.com/de/product?p_id=80 If you just need a single nvme SSD you could also buy a banana pi 3 Router: https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3 https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3 Edit: forgot links and product

bane 2y ago
I've heard the Flashtor 12 is great, and can take lots of M.2s, but they end up with relatively few channels so data transmission rates aren't awesome. It can be fine as most users will be connecting over the network anyway which will be the bottleneck.

zamadatix 2y ago

I have the Flashstor 12 Pro. As the name suggests it's 12 m.2 nvme bays and it's pretty darn small considering. Pros: - It does what it says on the tin and I have 12 nvme drives in a ZFS pool - It has 10G ethernet built in. - It's pretty small, especially compared to most HDD focused NAS systems. - It's just an x86 PC and you can blast the factory OS away to install your OS of choice without issue. Cons: - Each drive only gets a 3.0 x1 connection. It's honestly not much of a problem though as 1 GB/s per drive is still a ton of bandwidth after 12 drives. - The built in ethernet is RJ45 instead of SFP+. Not the end of the world, just less power efficient. - No PCIe expansion slots for anything but m.2 2280 drives. - Single RAM slot so no dual channel and no large amounts of RAM. 32 GB works fine (I think Intel says the processor is only rated for 16). I can't remember if I tried 48 and it failed or if I never bothered. Either way 32 GB can be a bit small if you're really wanting to load it up with 4 TB or 8 TB drives and features like ZFS deduplication. - The single built in fan could have been silent had they made any reasonable design choice around it. Instead I had to externally mount a noctua fan (to the same screw holes, just the inside is not a standard mount) and feed it power via a USB adapter. Works damn silent and cool now though. - CPU (4 core Intel Celeron N5105) is very weak and the actual performance limitation for most any setup with this box. I don't regret getting it, it's a solid choice given the relative lack of premade options in this segment, but the follow up NAS build was just me getting a motherboard/CPU with lots of PCIe lanes and loading up 4 way switches. You can do that via buying used Epyc servers on Ebay (loud/chunky) or just building a low end consumer class "workstation" (things like x8 x8 from the CPU instead of x16 for the assumed GPU) and PCIe to x4 switches (not the splitter cards which assume the motherboard has bifurcation and lanes available but actual switches). If you go the Epyc route you don't have to get switches and you can go back to cheaper splitters. I went the latter via some PCIe switch cards off Aliexpress. Performance and scaling of this one was better of course, but so was cost. Since I did all of this prices for m.2 drives have actually went up quite a bit so I'm glad I did it when I did. What I would not recommend is anything non-x86 (older Ampere servers have lanes at not sky high prices but better to just go used Epyc at that point and get more CPU perf for the same dollar. SBCs are... a poor choice for a NAS on most every account but hacking factor). I'd also not recommend the Flashstor 6 as it only has 2.5 GBe connectivity and at that point what's the value in paying extra to do this all in flash.

lysp 2y ago
I believe there is also a gen-2 just around the corner.
ChoGGi 2y ago
> - No PCIe expansion slots for anything but m.2 2280 drives. You can get m.2 adapters: https://www.delock.com/produkt/64219/dokumente.html?d=467 https://www.delock.com/produkt/64219/dokumente.html?d=467
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- zamadatix 2y ago
  In general yes but in the Flashtor you're going to be hard pressed to do much with that unless you wire up a separately powered external chassis which defeats the point of getting the Flashtor.
  - ChoGGi 2y ago
    Yeah, I said that before I looked at just how small it was.

Eric_WVGG 2y ago

There’s a lot of really cool options in the replies here, but I think I’m at my limit on the number of tech hobbies I can manage. Really just waiting for a consumer grade Synology SSD NAS.

ksec 2y ago
Exactly. It would have been great if I was still young and studying. I have seemingly infinite of time to fiddle around with things. Once you are working and have a family, most would really prefer to having something that simply work out of the box. Unfortunately Synology have been moving towards Enterprise segment and completely forgot consumer.

walterbell 2y ago

ODROID H4 Plus Intel N97 SBC (with in-band ECC) has an option for 4xM.2 via PCIe bifurcation, https://www.hardkernel.com/blog-2/new-m-2-card-for-the-odroid-h4-series/ https://www.hardkernel.com/blog-2/new-m-2-card-for-the-odroi...

throawayonthe 2y ago

[dead]

CharlesW 2y ago

> I'd love to find a M2-only NAS in a very low profile form factor. QNAP has at least two "NASbooks": https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-464 https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-464 (2.5 GbE, USB 3.2) https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-h574tx https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tbs-h574tx (2.5/10 GbE, Thunderbolt 4)

alsetmusic 2y ago

It's not a NAS, but you could hook it up to a low-power device and share it. I've got one connected to my primary machine and love it. Super fast storage. Side note: One of the m2 chips that I got from Amazon was an obvious fake that I might not have caught if I hadn't ordered four together and one obviously didn't match. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2

happymellon 2y ago

Even if it was 5 drive 2.5" to hold SATA SSDs would be great for me. As networked mass storage I don't always need NVME speeds.

karczex 2y ago

There is good reason for size of such NAS devices. HDDs are just better to maintain your not corrupted data when not connected, as NANDs needs to be refreshed from time to time. The best you could do is to use SSD as a fast cache.