Hi all,

I’ve been thinking about picking up an N150 or 5825U MiniITX board for a NAS, but I’m wondering if there are better options given my requirements.

  • At least 2x 2.5Gb LAN
  • A 10Gb LAN, or 2.5Gb if not
  • 2x NVME
  • 8x SATA for spinning disks
  • 2x SATA for SSDs
  • MiniITX is required for the 10" rack
  • 64+ Gigs of RAM (ZFS cache) (This is not possible on an N150)

The problem I’m running into with the boards I’ve looked at is PCIe lanes, and not having ways to expand the sata or network ports without stealing from NVME.

I’ve started to look at boards with PCIe 4.0x16 slots and risers/splitters for expansion, but then I can’t find low power CPUs for them.

Thoughts?

  • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    11 days ago

    You’re not understanding what I’m saying. You’re going to spend $2,000 on premium hardware because it’s designed for a small form factor and to be power efficient, and it’s still not going to meet all of your wish-list requirements…

    The sensible choice is to upgrade your rack so you can use non-mITX boards and equipment and only spend $1,500 on equipment and actually meet your wish-list requirements.

    It’s an easy choice, if you ask me.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comOPEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      I understand you haven’t looked at what’s out there and the pricing. I can make one of those boards linked, with PCIe expansions, work for ~ $250.

      My 5 year old gaming mITX even gets most of the way there.

      • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        I build these professionally. For a living… Say what you want, but you’re going to end up buying hardware you can’t fully utilize at a premium. Period.