Sonic

@ubergeek, een excellent video. A lot good advice! To add on that. A more general advice. Before you start buying hardware, define what you need and what you want to do with your NAS / server. If you find this difficult or you don't want to spend time on reading and investigating, then it's better to for a more out of the box ready product. @ubergeek shows a lot of options, but you have to decide what fits best.

Competition: Zima Cube pro price barebone price is $1099 including memory and ssd Terramaster F6-424 Max $900 Ugreen DXP6800 Pro 6-Bay $1199 Synology DS1621+ for $900 which is 4 years old now Minisforum N5 pro (not on the market, guestimate of $600-$900 on Reddit) The AOOSTAR WTR PRO AMD Ryzen 7 5825u 4 Bay Nas Mini PC is $399 My guess is that it'll be between the Minisforum N5 pro and WTR 4 Pro 4 bay AMD. I think that should be reasonable. The competition uses more expensive Intel CPU (Except Minisforum) Remark: I am more familiar with the prices in Europe. I used Amazon.com for the dollar prices. But perhaps you can get a better bargain somewhere else. @Dylan, what do you think?

The three SSDs are cooled with a separate fan, so that should be fine. One thing to keep in mind is to buy SSDs that don’t consume too much power and therefore don’t generate as much heat. For example, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus is an SSD that stays relatively cool. Other brands also possible. There are plenty of SSD reviews available, such as on ServeTheHome.com. One more thing—the MS-01 has both 10 GbE and 2.5 GbE network connections. However, the 10 GbE port is SFP+, which is something to keep in mind.

btw: "If I understand correctly, you can't install HexOS on the array itself, so for that we'd opt omitting the wifi card in favour of a 2230 NVMe SSD. " --> this is correct

Hi Antares, You can definitely run HexOS on the MS-01. Personally, I don't think the MS-01 is the ideal NAS device. You can indeed add extra SSDs via PCIe to M.2, but cooling will become a challenge. The MS-01 is widely used as a server in many homelabs. I have one myself—it's truly a brilliant device! Minisforum did develop a prototype expansion card with four SSDs, but it was never released due to heat issues. The great thing about the MS-01 is that it packs a lot of performance into a small case—actually too much for a NAS. At the same time, it has just too few expansion options for storage to be an ideal NAS solution. But don't get me wrong—you can definitely run HexOS on an MS-01. With the setup you’re proposing, you’ll be good to go!

@Dylan, the WTR pro specs looks promissing (still rumors) 🙂. 6 HDD bays, 6 nvme, 10 gbe and 2,5 gbe network and an AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU. I have seen on the AOOSTAR facebook page that they expect the release in Q1 2025. I am afraid that I also will spend some extra money on hardware this year.

@Mobius created a nice setup. An alternative could be a machine like the WTR pro N100. @Dylan, what is your experience with running Plex on a N100? Another alternative could be running HexOs on NAS devices from QNAP, Terramaster or Ugreen. See nascompares.com for guides. For a full selfbuild NAS the Jonsbo case is great. And the hardware on the list of Mobius is more then sufficient.

Network: 2,5gbe is more furture proof and works also with a 1 gbe switch. (You can upgrade your switch later) hdds: you can start with 3 hdds of 4 TB in raidz1. Then you will have 8tb of storage and you can expansie with extra HDDs videocard: given your budget and also with power efficiency in mind, it’s best to use a iGPU. (Integrated gpu in the CPU). Intel cpu’s are the better options for hardware based transcoding. (Needed for Plex or Jellyfin.

@Insanittyx, you can build a NAS from many different types of hardware, and you can use that NAS for many different purposes. There is no generic answer. To give you a good response, you’ll need to be more specific about what you want (as @Mobius also asked). Choosing hardware is always a trade-off between component cost, performance, power consumption, and form factor. Here are some questions to consider: What do you want to use the NAS for? (Which apps, storage needs, etc.) What are your GPU requirements? (Do you plan to use Jellyfin or Plex?) How much storage do you need? How big/small should the case be? What network speed do you require? How important is power efficiency?

Here is also an alternative for the Jonsbo N5. Then you have something to choose 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr5MjhgPz_c

@ubergeek, can you share your experience? You moved HexOs already to a new device.

@Mobius said it all. The Jonsbo is a great case. And it’s 6 sata vs powerdraw.

I also like to beta test. My test setup is ready for it!

You are absolutely right!

I use 5400 RPM HDDs and I setup HDD spindown in the TrueNas interface without any problems. It saves a lot of energy

Haswell based cpu’s are indeed not bad a all. In the past I didn’t pay attention to energy usage. But in Europe this energy prices increased dramaticly. So for me it has become relevant.

What I mentioned is that later generations processors use much less power when idle. For comparisson, I have a system with 4 bays and a AMD mobile processor. Without HDDs I tweaked it down to 5.2 Watt in idle. A system with a Intel I7-4790K could easy draw 100 watt in idle. For testing purposes is not really a problem, but 24/7 for several years is more expensive. To be clear, I don’t say you have a problem. You really created a nice system. I like your creative approach. A quick win good be to use only the iGPU. And perhaps changing Some bios settings (underclocking).

It really a worthy investment. ServeTheHome tested a lot of switches for homelab / home use. See: https://www.servethehome.com/category/networking/ Personally, I like working with Mikrotik switches—they offer great value for money. However, the management interface is geared towards professionals, making it quite complex, but also very flexible. That said, there are many other brands offering affordable switches, such as Ubiquiti, QNAP, TP-Link, Netgear, and ASUS. The cheapest option would be Chinese no-name switches, but I’m not a big fan of those—especially if they lack proper certifications.

It's a nice build! Is there a possibility to upgrade the NIC's to 2,5 gbe of 10 gbe? 2,5 gbe networking is nowadays not expensive anymore.

I like your approach! Very creative!. If you at some point want to run Plex/Jellyfin you'll with the iGPU, you want a newer CPU with h265 support on the iGPU. But if not then it's fine. But you are using the Quadro P2000, so that's OK. The only thing I can think of is that this is not the most energy efficient server. But it's a pretty cheap solution, so I guess you have some money left to pay your energy bill. 🙂

HexOS is not yet as feature-rich as QTS, but you’ll be part of an exciting journey! 🙂 It's good to keep that in mind when setting your expectations.

I don't have experience with this specific device, but maybe my answers can point you in the right direction. In any case, here’s a useful guide: TrueNAS Scale on a QNAP NAS - Installation Guide questions: Are there any known compatibility issues with this hardware? TrueNAS / HexOS should be able to run on this QNAP. You can always give it a try. I would remove the HDDs and install HexOS on the SSD first. Then, check if everything works. If it does, you can install the HDDs as well (make sure to back up your data!). If it doesn’t work, you can easily revert to QTS. Would it be best to install HexOS directly on the NVMe, or should I use one of the SATA drives instead? Directly on the NVMe. I’d recommend installing a second NVMe of the same size and setting them up in a mirror configuration. Any special steps needed for migrating away from QTS and setting up HexOS properly? Check out this guide: TrueNAS Scale on a QNAP NAS - Installation Guide Any potential gotchas with the networking setup, considering the integrated managed switch? No idea. 🤷‍♂️

HexOs is still beta software. At least create a good backup. I also hope that there is a clean update path, but with beta software a reinstall is also possible.

@gingerling, it’s really run to read! And I have never Seven a Pink and Green case, 😂 Very original. And @Dylan is right. Ask your questions, a lot of people are willing to help.

I like this option