AIFFRO K100 SSD NAS Review – N100 Powered Flash NAS for Your Pocket?

AND ANOTHER SSD NAS has arrived on the market, this time from AIFFRO with their K100 4-Bay NVMe micro/pocket server. Nowadays, it seems like every brand and it’s subsidiary want to get in on ALL SSD NAS systems! The decreasing cost of SSDs, combined with the rising efficiency of server CPUs have all added up to a lot of brands appearing on the scene out of the East to introduce their new NAS system for Flash storage. Add to this the fact that many of them do not need to include an operating system, thanks to the rising use of the likes of UnRAID and TrueNAS, which means that they can be incredibly competitive with their pricing! But the last 12 months have been a massive spike in the development of NAS systems that have their hardware/brand routes in mini PC development. But where is the line? What sets a NAS system apart from a mini PC? Just the storage? The AIFFRO K100 blurs the lines considerably with it’s N100 CPU architecture, 4x 2280 M,2 SSD slots and 2.5GbE connectivity, arriving at $320. So, let’s review this new micro NAS, see how/if it differentiates itself well enough from a cheap mini PC and hopefully help you decide if the K100 deserves your data!

Where to Buy? Check Amazon for the Aiffro K100 NAS – HERE Similar 4-Bay NVMe NAS on AliExpress ($155)– CWWK x86 P5 NAS

Component	Details
Model	K100
Dimensions	117x112x34mm
Material	Aluminum alloy
CPU	Intel N100, 4 cores, 4 threads, 6MB cache, peak clock speed of 3.40GHz
Video Engine Processor	Intel UHD Graphics 12th
Memory	LPDDR5 8GB 4800MHz (4x2GB LPDDR4 4800MHz Micron MT62F1G32D2DS)
Storage	4 x SSD (2280 M.2 PCIe Gen3x4, downgraded to 3×2)
I/O Ports	2 x USB 2.0, 2 x TYPE-C USB3.2 Gen2 Data Only 10G, 1 x TYPE-C DC, 1 x 2.5G RJ45 Realtek RTL8125, 1 x HDMI 1.4
Ethernet	Realtek RTL8125, 10/100/1000/2500 Mbps Ethernet
LED	1 x POWER LED (Power On: Green+Red, working: Green)
Adapter	Automatic Voltage adjustment between 100 and 240V AC, 50/60Hz, 65Watts PD (20V/3.25A), 1.5 meters long Type-C cable
Support System	CentOS/Euler/Ubuntu/Win11/FreeNAS/TrueNAS
Accessory	VESA Mount (optional)

AIFFRO K100 SSD NAS Review – Quick Conclusion

The K100 4-Bay NVMe SSD NAS is arguably quite an average NAS system, but it stands out by being one of the very few compact NAS systems that arrives at under $300 with dedicated  m.2 NVMe support. There is no avoiding that very little has been done to separate it from being just a Mini PC that happens to have 4 storage slots – but at the same time, with complete NAS OS freedom, lower power consumption with USB power, good sustained performance internally (though peak performance is weak) and being genuinely pocket-sized, make this system an interesting NAS for those looking at a truly portable NAS. The single 2.5G slot is a pain though (i.e no failover and 250-279MB speed limit externally) and the fixed 8GB memory feels restrictive for TrueNAS users (let’s not even bring up ECC…), but as a first NAS from this brand on the market, it still brings competitive hardware pricing to the table. They just need to make more of a concerted effort to truly make this into a NAS system in the conventional sense. Definitely a brand to keep an eye on, but this is a system for hobbyists and homelabber’s who want something more capable than a raspberry Pi, but not for mission-critical data.

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AIFFRO K100 SSD NAS Review – Design

The K100 arrives in a predictably small, Mini PC-esque form. Given the scale of modern m.2 NVMe drives, even at the largest capacity, this system does not really need to be particularly large when focusing on this media. There is, of course, the balance between keeping things quiet and compact versus keeping things cool and smoothly running, but there are a decent number of design choices here that balance this point quite well.

The enclosure is metal on all sides. The base has ventilation holes on three of the four sides. The system features only a single internal active cooling fan that we will touch on later on, but it is all very discreet and the silver metallic finish is a nice touch.

Measuring at just a little under 12 cm by 11 cm by 4 cm, this is a tremendously small-scale NAS system that, thanks to its use of USB power delivery, means it is going to be extraordinarily low impact on your hardware environment when deploying. Likewise, weighing in at around half a kilo, it is going to be pretty easy to mount this device anywhere. The front of the system is quite nondescript and only features a single power button and no further connectivity. Given the preponderance of USB connections that we will touch on later, it would have been nice to have one of these ports front-mounted for convenient local backups or storage injection as needed.

The base of the system is a plastic panel with rubber feet that can be removed via four screws to access the internal storage bays. Overall, the design is very understated and, despite the more modest N100 architecture, the K100 still manages to be impressively small-scale.

The K100 feels very well-built and impressively put together. There is no avoiding that this chassis does look like a slightly modified Mini PC enclosure, but that is not necessarily a bad thing for those that want a service system that focuses exclusively on m.2 SSD storage. Let’s discuss the external connectivity of this device.

More so than the scale of this system, the ports and connectivity of the K100 bring back that slightly icky feeling that this is just a mini PC pretending to be a NAS. It’s not that the connections are bad, it’s just that in one very specific area an obvious feature of modern NAS is absent. But before we get to that, let’s keep things positive. The rear of the system is actually pretty densely packed with connections, and interestingly, the system even runs on a standard USB type-C power connection. You will need to deliver slightly more than your average USB-connected port, but I was able to run this system pretty well with my Sharky external battery pack and even a standard 36 W USB phone charger kept this system running. Obviously, it is recommended that you use the included PSU to run this system, but having USB type-C power certainly adds an element of flexibility once again to the deployment of this system.

Additionally, there are further USB type-C and USB type-A ports, with the former providing you with 10 GB performance with externally connected storage drives and the latter being a useful means to set up your KVM for direct access on this system with your visual output. Again, USB type-C is surprisingly rare on modern NAS devices and in this compact frame makes a lot of sense.

There are also dual HDMI outputs, which of course are going to be heavily dependent on the NAS operating system you use, but it’s still a useful thing to have here and they do output 4K at 60 frames per second. Alongside multimedia, these ports can also be used in conjunction with accessing the BIOS of the system easily to install the third-party NAS software that you want to use. So far I have tested TrueNAS Core and Unraid on this device, and both ran fine.

However, now it’s time to get a little down in the dumps and talk about the network connectivity on the K100. Despite the fact that this system supports four m.2 NVMe SSDs inside, and even arrives with a reasonably powerful, yet efficient N100 CPU, the K100 arrives with a single 2.5 GB Ethernet port. That means that all data transmissions outside of this device are going to be bottlenecked to around 250 to 270 MB per second. Although the tiniest bit of me wants to give them the benefit of the doubt and at least highlight that it is not standard boring 1GBE, there is no avoiding that alongside this port, ensuring a huge bottleneck of the performance that this system could reach, the lack of any option towards failover, link aggregation, and easy SMB multi-channel for Windows users is simply going to be impossible here.

Clearly, they have opted to prioritize m.2 NVMe storage inside this system, even going as far as to ensure that each slot has 2000 MB per second bandwidth afforded to it for those SSDs (more on that later), but a single Ethernet port of this calibre is just not going to be enough for most users who are choosing to invest a few extra dollars in SSD media over that of hard drives. Hell, even if this system was running on traditional 3.5-inch hard drives in SATA and not m.2 NVMe drives, it would still massively oversaturate a single 2.5 G NIC.

Now, it isn’t quite the end of the road in terms of network connectivity. There isn’t any kind of PCIe upgradeability present here, nor is there any external PCIe support via something like OCuLink, but depending on the NAS operating system you choose to use, there is perhaps the option to take advantage of USB to network adapters. In 2024, there are plenty of $15-20 USB to 2.5 G network adapters on the market, and even a few $60 5GBE USB adapters supported here. This does mean that you will have to spend a little more, and that you stand to lose more of those 10G USB ports, but at the very least you can still potentially add further network adapters to this system. It’s just a damn shame that you have to spend extra to do it and potentially lose out on some of your expandability.

Overall the network connectivity on this device is….fine, I guess. It certainly is not going to blow you away and it is all pretty much standard. I expect this kind of thing at this price point. Anyway, the obvious bottleneck that these ports and connections are going to serve to the potential RAID performance of those internal drives is going to be a bitter pill to swallow for some users and possibly may serve as a deal-breaker for them to look elsewhere for a NAS. But how does all of this external hardware impact or profit by the internal hardware? Let’s open this up and discuss what’s inside the K100 NAS.

Internal hardware

The base panel of the system is removed by finding four screws located under each of the rubber feet on the base of the system. Doing so exposes an internal metal dissipation plate that lives just above each of the individual m.2 slots, serving as additional heat dissipation for the SSDs during peak use in order to prevent throttling due to high temperatures.

Removing this further panel with four more screws reveals all four of the internal m.2 NVMe slots. Each one is 2280 in length, and if you purchased a device pre-populated, Bay one will be already occupied with a relatively little-known SSD branded drive. Additionally, my review unit arrived with Windows 11 pre-installed on this drive. I’m not too sure if this is what every user who purchases the K100 will receive, or this is something that perhaps a previous reviewer added during their evaluation, but I think the majority of users are probably going to wipe this drive very early in favor of more NAS-focused software shortly after.

It’s also worth highlighting that when I dug into the BIOS of this system, I was able to find out that although the hardware architecture for each of these slots is PCIe Gen 3*4, each slot has been downgraded to times 2 speed. This is something that was added to minimize SSD temperature during operation. This still means that each SSD inside, if you use Gen. 3*4 SSDs, will still be afforded somewhere in the region of 2,000 MB per second bandwidth each.

The N100 CPU that we’ll talk about in a moment is not the most powerful processor on the market, trying instead to find a better balance between performance and power consumption efficiency, so even though each of these SSDs has been afforded 2,000 MB per second of bandwidth, I very much doubt that we’re going to see this system break any records in terms of performance.

Removing this panel then exposes the internal CPU and memory configuration of the K100. This processor arrives with its own small laptop-style cooling fan and, despite its small stature, has become remarkably popular in consumer-grade NAS devices in recent years. The Intel N100 is a quad-core x86 CPU that, although has a very low base clock speed, can be boosted impressively all the way up to 3.4 GHz when needed.

With a TDP-reported power rating of just 6 W and even arriving with a moderate level of integrated graphics, there is a lot to like about this CPU choice.

I have already tested numerous systems with this processor from CWWK, Topton, and Aooster, and on every occasion, this processor architecture did not disappoint in things like 4K Plex media server, container deployment, speedy backups, and multi-user/multi-application simultaneous usage. However, on the subject of memory, things differ ever so slightly with this modest CPU also diminishing the scope for memory allocation + features.

The K100 arrives with 8GB of DDR5 memory at 4800 MHz. For a base level amount of memory on any affordable NAS system, this isn’t too bad. It’s only when you move beyond this that things become problematic. For a start, this memory is provided via four times 2GB pre-soldered memory flash cells attached to the internal PCB. There is no means to upgrade the base of your memory beyond this and therefore running services such as TrueNAS are going to be a little bit more stringent when it comes to the beefier ZFS and inline services that it includes. Additionally, this processor does not support ECC memory and therefore there will be some experienced flash server users who are going to feel less secure in this faster storage media being supported by non-ECC memory – fearing occasional data inconsistencies occurring over time.

Realistically, adding the necessary architecture to equip this system with ECC RAM would have meant changing the CPU for something a little bit more expensive and swapping out the available memory for more expensive ECC modules, so I completely understand why they opted for keeping things more simple and affordable on this smaller system for that target audience seeking entry-level SSD NAS. Nevertheless, the more modest foundations of this system are definitely going to impact overall performance. Some users are obviously going to highlight that performance was already somewhat limited by that 2.5 GBE solo port, but this CPU and memory architecture is definitely going to impact internal performance too. That is possible from those four M.2 SSDs.

AIFFRO K100 SSD NAS Review – Software and Performance

As this system runs on the fantastically modest yet capable Intel N100 (x86 Architecture, 4 Core, 4 thread, 3.6Ghz peak when needed, int.GFX), as well as running on M.2 NVMe SSD Storage, it was always going to be interesting to see what the system power consumption was going to be. When the system was at idle (i.e on, but M.2s not being accessed for 15 mins, system in a ready state, but not processing), the K100 was erring around the 10W mark – perfectly acceptable.

At peak, with all 4 SSDs being accessed and the CPU at 40-50% use, the K100 increased its power consumption up to 16W and eventually peaked at 18W (when the CPU use and SSD use was 75% and above). Again, very respectable numbers for a 4 bay NVMe SSD Flash NAS system.

Next, we can discuss noise. Many new/old NAS users (DiY or turnkey) are moving towards SSD use in their systems primarily for decreased operational noise (and, of course, the massive speed and latency benefits). Now, upon initial boot up, the AIFFRO K100’s fan spun up to maximum speed for 15 seconds, then spun down to a much quieter idle. Initially the K100 (running UnRAID on this occasion) was around the 21-23dB mark in terms of noise, but that was when the SSDs were not mounted in the storage manager. As soon as they were mounted and even vague access was made to them, the fan spun up some more (almost preemptively preparing for heat) and the system sat at around 25-27dB noise levels. Again, not to bad, and the noise would definitely be lost in a broader office ambient environment.

Heavy access however was a different story! Despite these M.2 NVMe drive being Gen 3×2 speed, the system still spun the fan up quickly to maximum and the K100 was hitting 36-38db. Upon the completion of ‘heavy access’, the system took almost 10 mins to naturally reduce it’s fan RPM and lower it’s ambient noise. It’s still a very quiet NAS, but the fan cooling seemed to be remarkably sensitive for an N100 NAS of this scale, especially when you factor in the pre-installed internal dissipation plate and padding on the drives.

Next, we need to discuss internal performance, and unfortunately, this is where we see the shortcomings of the N100 processor when dealing with flash NVMe storage hit a hurdle or two! If people are thinking about an NVMe SSD NAS system, they are already thinking about performance in the gigabytes, not the megabytes. Unfortunately, as each M.2 NVMe is 3×2, you already have a 2000MB/s bandwidth limit on each drive already. Then it became clear in testing that these 4 M.2 are seemingly sharing some internal PCIe paths and the N100 just didn’t have the umpf to keep things moving, as initial SSD Read testing (repeated 1GB file creation) sat around the 580-600MB/s mark. When we have seen similarly powered NVMe systems to this from established NAS brands (the QNAP TBS-464 or Asustor Flashstor 6, which both ran on an Intel N5105 Celeron), we have regularly seen these SSDs only hit around 750MB/s each – so I never expected the K100 to fully saturate PCIe 3×2 – but these numbers below are only a pinch above that of SATA SSD.

On a positive note, the write performance was at least largely equal to that of Read (at 590-600MB/s), which further indicated that there was an bottleneck happening internally. I would add that this performance WAS sustained in both Read and Write – which at least would mean that operations on the K100 would be very smooth and responsive. Just that the peak performance of the M.2 NVMes inside is going to be somewhat limited.

Then, the final blow! Copying data from one M.2 NVMe SSD to another clearly indicated that bottleneck, with the average 1GB file creation speed (looped) at 270-290MB/s on average – so, effectively half of what we have seen and therefore the paths were being fought over across the SSDs and sharing out the 600MB/s or so we have seen till now.

I think, at a hardware production level, there would have been an argument to play with PCIe bifurcation here and limit these M.2 NVMes to 3×1, and use some of that extra afforded resources to introduce more bays and/or improvements in the K100 NICs. Sadly, whether this was a hardware limitation, or simply that this would deviate further from the mini PC architecture (and therefore cost more in development and production), its not present here. The K100 performance feels very average, but I have to give it credit for being solid sustained performance, as well as low power consumption and largely low system noise for the majority of the testing.

AIFFRO K100 SSD NAS Review – Conclusion and Verdict

The K100 4-Bay NVMe SSD NAS is arguably quite an average NAS system, but it stands out by being one of the very few compact NAS systems that arrives at under $300 with dedicated  m.2 NVMe support. There is no avoiding that very little has been done to separate it from being just a Mini PC that happens to have 4 storage slots – but at the same time, with complete NAS OS freedom, lower power consumption with USB power, good sustained performance internally (though peak performance is weak) and being genuinely pocket-sized, make this system an interesting NAS for those looking at a truly portable NAS. The single 2.5G slot is a pain though (i.e no failover and 250-279MB speed limit externally) and the fixed 8GB memory feels restrictive for TrueNAS users (let’s not even bring up ECC…), but as a first NAS from this brand on the market, it still brings competitive hardware pricing to the table. They just need to make more of a concerted effort to truly make this into a NAS system in the conventional sense. Definitely a brand to keep an eye on, but this is a system for hobbyists and homelabber’s who want something more capable than a raspberry Pi, but not for mission-critical data.

PROS of the K100 Flash NAS	CONs of the K100 Flash NAS
Insanely Compact 4 M.2 2280 SSDs at this scale are incredibly impressive USB-C Power is oddly rare these days! The N100 CPU is tremendously energy efficient Low noise levels Plenty of passive cooling Pre-populated storage options Complete NAS OS’ freedom Very affordable at $320 for a NVMe Flash 4x Bay system	N100 has it’s limitations in scalability A single LAN Port is a PAIN Fixed 8GB memory, and no ECC (not a big surprise) Similar architecture NAS available for less in the market (example, the CWWK x86 P5 at $155, same CPU and 4 Bays)

Where to Buy? Check Amazon for the Aiffro K100 NAS – HERE Similar 4-Bay NVMe NAS on AliExpress ($155)– CWWK x86 P5 NAS

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Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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QNAP Reveal a New (and frankly incredible) ARM NAS Series – The TS-x32X NAS Range

At the recent Computex 2024 event, QNAP introduced two new NAS models, the TS-632X and TS-432X, which are poised to be valuable additions to their network storage offerings. These devices are specifically designed to cater to small to medium-sized businesses and tech-savvy users who need reliable and efficient data management solutions. Both models are powered by the Annapurna Labs AL524, a quad-core 2.0GHz ARM processor known for its energy efficiency and capability to handle multitasking workloads. Despite being based on ARM architecture, which typically doesn’t match the performance of Intel or AMD x86 processors, these NAS devices promise satisfactory performance for their target applications. This positioning highlights QNAP’s ongoing commitment to providing practical, affordable solutions that meet the diverse needs of modern data storage environments.

What are the Hardware Specifications of the QNAP TS-432x and TS-632x NAS?

The TS-632X, with its 6-bay configuration, offers dual 10GbE SFP+ ports, providing significant bandwidth for data-intensive tasks. This makes it suitable for high-speed network environments where rapid data transmission and backup are crucial. The inclusion of two 10GbE ports enables efficient data handling and minimizes latency in data-heavy operations. Meanwhile, the TS-432X, featuring a 4-bay setup, includes a single 10GbE SFP+ port, which, although less than the TS-632X, still offers substantial improvement over traditional 1GbE connections. For those who need to connect to conventional Ethernet networks, affordable SFP+ to RJ45 copper adapters are available, allowing these NAS systems to integrate seamlessly into existing infrastructures. However, it’s important to note that while these devices boast high-speed connectivity, the actual data transfer rates will likely be lower due to the inherent limitations of ARM processors compared to more powerful x86 processors from Intel and AMD.

Feature	TS-432X	TS-632X
Model	TS-432X-4G	TS-632X-4G
CPU	Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company Alpine AL524, 4-core, 2.0GHz	Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company Alpine AL524, 4-core, 2.0GHz
CPU Architecture	64-bit ARM	64-bit ARM
Encryption Engine	Supports AES 256-bit encryption	Supports AES 256-bit encryption
System Memory	4 GB SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 4 GB)	4 GB SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 4 GB)
Maximum Memory	16 GB (1 x 16 GB)	16 GB (1 x 16 GB)
Memory Slot	1 x SODIMM DDR4	1 x SODIMM DDR4
Support ECC Memory	Yes	Yes
Drive Bay	4 x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s	6 x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s
2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Ports	2 (2.5G/1G/100M)	2 (2.5G/1G/100M)
10 Gigabit Ethernet Ports	1 x 10GbE SFP+	2 x 10GbE SFP+
PCIe Slot	1 x PCIe Gen 3 x4	1 x PCIe Gen 3 x4
PCIe Slot Dimensions	190 x 68.9 x 18.76 mm	190 x 68.9 x 18.76 mm
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Ports	2	2
Dimensions (HxWxD)	226.5 x 170 x 165 mm	226.5 x 235 x 165 mm
Weight (Net)	1.99 kg	2.5 kg
Weight (Gross)	4.8 kg	4.96 kg
Power Supply Unit	90W adapter (12VDC), 100-240VAC	120W adapter (12VDC), 100-240VAC
Fan	1 x 120mm, 12VDC	2 x 90mm, 12VDC
Software Features	AI photo management, container applications, centralized backup and snapshot protection, surveillance	AI photo management, container applications, centralized backup and snapshot protection, surveillance
Ports
Connections	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) ports
Faster USB Transfer	Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) ports with One Touch Copy support	Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) ports with One Touch Copy support
Centralized Backup	Easily back up different types of data and endpoints and create snapshots regularly to prevent ransomware threats	Easily back up different types of data and endpoints and create snapshots regularly to prevent ransomware threats
10GbE Connectivity	High-speed single-port 10GbE SFP+ connectivity	High-speed dual-port 10GbE SFP+ connectivity
PCIe Expandability	Install PCIe expansion card for 2.5/5/10GbE or M.2 SSD slots	Install PCIe expansion card for 2.5/5/10GbE or M.2 SSD slots
Performance	Quad-core for multitasking, low power consumption	Quad-core for multitasking, low power consumption

A standout feature of both the TS-632X and TS-432X is their support for ECC (Error-Correcting Code) memory, which is a rare offering in ARM-based NAS systems, particularly at an accessible price point. By default, these NAS units are equipped with non-ECC memory, but they allow users the option to upgrade to ECC memory. ECC memory is crucial for preventing data corruption by detecting and correcting errors, making it a valuable addition for users who prioritize data integrity and reliability. This feature is particularly beneficial for businesses and advanced users who require stable and accurate data storage solutions, providing an added layer of security typically reserved for more expensive, enterprise-grade systems. However, users should note that the out-of-the-box memory is non-ECC, and an upgrade will be necessary to take full advantage of ECC’s capabilities.

The expandability of the TS-632X and TS-432X is another notable aspect, particularly with the inclusion of a PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot. This slot enables users to install various expansion cards to enhance the NAS’s capabilities, such as additional network cards to increase connectivity options or M.2 SSD slots to boost storage performance. This PCIe slot provides a degree of scalability and customization, allowing these NAS systems to grow and adapt to changing business needs. Additionally, users can expand storage externally using QNAP’s TR and TL series expansion units via USB, further increasing the capacity and versatility of these NAS devices. This capability allows for significant expansion without requiring a complete overhaul of the storage infrastructure, making it a flexible and cost-effective solution for growing data storage requirements.

The TS-632X delivers impressive data transfer capabilities, with read speeds up to 2251 MB/s and write speeds up to 1082 MB/s when utilizing dual 10GbE connections under optimal conditions. The TS-432X, on the other hand, provides read speeds up to 1181 MB/s and write speeds up to 887 MB/s through its single 10GbE port. These figures reflect robust performance for ARM-based devices, but it’s important to recognize that actual speeds in everyday use may be lower due to the limitations of the ARM CPU. ARM processors, while efficient and cost-effective, generally do not perform as well in high-intensity data operations compared to their x86 counterparts. This factor should be considered by users looking for the highest possible data transfer speeds, as these systems may not match the throughput of more powerful, x86-based NAS devices.

A notable feature of these NAS systems is their scalability. Both the TS-632X and TS-432X support flexible storage configurations, allowing users to start with a minimal setup of one or two drives and add more drives as needed. This makes it possible to expand the storage capacity over time without significant upfront investment. Furthermore, the systems run on QNAP’s QTS operating system, which is based on the EXT4 file system rather than the more advanced QuTS ZFS platform. This choice is likely due to hardware limitations, as ZFS typically requires more robust hardware resources to run effectively. While QTS provides a user-friendly interface and sufficient functionality for most users, those looking for advanced features like deduplication and enhanced data integrity checks offered by ZFS will need to consider other options.

Both the TS-632X and TS-432X are slated for release in Q3 2024, with pricing expected to be consistent with QNAP’s previous ARM-powered 10GbE systems. This positions them competitively in the market, offering high-speed connectivity and robust data management features at a reasonable cost. As such, they are well-suited for users who need efficient and scalable storage solutions without incurring the higher costs associated with more powerful x86-based NAS systems. This upcoming release reflects QNAP’s strategy of providing accessible and flexible storage solutions that cater to a wide range of users, from small businesses to tech enthusiasts.

Essentially the QNAP TS-632X and TS-432X are being presented as practical and scalable solutions for those seeking reliable network storage with high-speed connectivity, but on a tighter budget! While they offer some advanced features such as ECC memory support and PCIe expandability, their performance is inherently limited by the ARM architecture. These NAS systems are suitable for users who need moderate performance and scalability at an affordable price point. As with any technology decision, potential users should consider their specific needs and performance expectations to determine if these models are the right fit for their requirements. QNAP’s new offerings at Computex 2024 underscore the company’s commitment to providing versatile, user-friendly storage solutions that balance cost and functionality.

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Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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Vous envisagez d’investir dans un NAS, mais vous hésitez face aux nombreux modèles disponibles ? Notre guide complet des meilleurs NAS 2024 est fait pour vous aider. Découvrez les modèles les plus performants, fiables et adaptés à vos besoins. Que vous soyez un particulier à la recherche d’un espace de stockage sécurisé ou une entreprise ayant besoin de solutions robustes, ce comparatif vous donnera les clés pour faire le bon choix. Retrouvez les fabricants les plus réputés du marché : Synology, QNAP, Asustor, TerraMaster, WD… Comparatif NAS (mi 2024) Pour trouver le NAS parfait, il est important de prendre en […]
Lire la suite : Guide pour bien choisir son NAS (été 2024)

What is the Synology GS Series? And Who Is It For?

Synology has been in the market for almost 25 years now, and during that time, they have rolled out numerous large-capacity solutions. However, the GS series is the brand’s most significant move thus far towards true data center-class scale storage. Last year saw the release of the HD6500 60-bay solution, and the previous year, they introduced their SA and UC3200 active-active solutions. This year, the GS Series and the GS6200 are their latest efforts to provide enormously accessible, expandable, and reliable enterprise storage.

The TL;DR About the GS (GridStation) Series, the GS6200 and the NS4825 Switch

Synology GS Series Overview

General Information:

• Product Line: GS Series
• Type: Scale-out data storage and management platform
• Key Features:
  • Highly efficient and scalable architecture
  • Supports up to 96 nodes per cluster
  • Raw storage capacities of up to 20 PB
  • Supports up to 150,000 concurrent connections for Synology Drive and Office

Benefits:

• Operational Continuity: Non-disruptive operations and data integrity
• Ease of Management: Simple and transformative management for businesses and large organizations
• Platform Compatibility: Compatible with almost all known platforms today
• Scalability: Suitable for mid to large enterprises with virtually any need

Applications:

• Collaboration suite: Drive, spreadsheets, documents, and presentations benefit from the GS series

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Synology GS6200 Specifications

Key Features:

• Management System: Powered by GSM (GridStation Manager)
• Scalability: 3 to 96 nodes per cluster
• Storage Capacity: Up to 20 PB of raw capacity per cluster

Performance:

• High Connection Performance: Supports up to 150,000 simultaneous users
• Supported Protocols: SMB, NFS, S3

Operating System:

• Design: Ensures operational continuity and data preservation
• Interface: Simple and user-friendly management interface

Advantages and Practical Applications

• Expandability: Easily expandable without losing performance
• Cost Efficiency: Optimizes resource usage and reduces maintenance costs
• Applications: Suitable for various sectors including business, education, and medical industries

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NS4825 Network Switch

Key Features:

• Preconfigured for GS6200: Supports up to 24 connected GS6200 nodes/systems
• Connectivity: Connects to up to 3 other NS4825 switches for managing a 96-node cluster via 100GbE connections
• Potential Capacity: Manages over 5 PB of storage per switch

 

Up until this point, the majority of Synology rackmount systems were designed to be used primarily as single-unit solutions, and most of them have been expandable. This means that these larger and more powerful server solutions can have additional storage bolted on via large expansion units, allowing businesses to increase their shared storage over time. This kind of scale-out storage is very effective for adding more storage to an existing solution, but not for creating large, privately managed storage areas (also known as nodes) that form one larger storage pool (known as a cluster). These solutions have a failure point in the main server that, if impacted, cannot rely on the connected expansion systems to pick up the slack or fluidly handle active connections, identities, or access. This is where the GS Series comes in.

The GS Series is a high-capacity and high-performance rackmount server (the GS6200) that provides a similar experience to other high-powered, large-scale Synology solutions. However, the GS Series is designed to be deployed alongside other GS6200 units—up to 96 units, to be exact! Although this might appear comparable to the existing NAS + expansions model in their portfolio, in the GS Series, each system is a fully-featured server solution that can run independently or in unison (the preferred and recommended method) with the rest of the GS systems in its cluster. Each system features its unit number on a digital display on the front panel. Each GS6200 is a 12-bay unit that can support Synology 20TB media, meaning each system can potentially support up to 240TB of storage capacity. Add that up across 96 individual GS6200 nodes, and you have well over 20 petabytes of storage to work with (more like 23+ PB).

This is a considerable amount of system and storage management across the entire cluster. To address this, Synology is also rolling out an enterprise switch exclusive to this service, which can also be integrated into your existing enterprise switch (Cisco, etc.). Synology does not seem to have plans to broaden their range to include network switches, but I can see the logic of rolling out their own in the GS6200 series. Unlike a traditional expansion cluster (i.e., NAS + SAS-connected expansions), there is a lot more traffic management required, and this switch will do more than just exchange packets; it will also manage and control the cluster in a considerably more native Synology way than using a third-party switch for the cluster would.

The Synology GS Series represents the company’s latest advancement in enterprise storage, designed to meet the needs of large-scale data management. With the ability to integrate up to 96 nodes per cluster and provide over 20 petabytes of raw storage capacity, the GS6200 offers a solution for organizations with extensive data storage requirements. This system is aimed at businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies that need a scalable and efficient method for handling significant amounts of data. Each GS6200 unit is capable of supporting high concurrent connections, up to 150,000 users simultaneously, making it suitable for environments with a large number of users accessing data concurrently. The system supports various protocols including SMB, NFS, and S3, which allows for flexible integration with existing IT infrastructure. This flexibility ensures that organizations can maintain their current systems while scaling their storage capabilities as needed.

The GS Series is equipped with a new operating system designed to ensure operational continuity and data integrity, even during maintenance or upgrades. The management interface is user-friendly, facilitating straightforward monitoring and management of the cluster. This design aims to minimize the complexity involved in managing large storage environments, making it easier for IT administrators to maintain system performance and reliability. To support the GS6200 cluster, Synology has introduced the NS4825 enterprise switch. This switch is designed to handle data traffic efficiently and integrate with the GS6200 systems. The NS4825 is intended to offer a more cohesive management experience than third-party switches, streamlining the scaling and maintenance of the storage cluster. This addition emphasizes Synology’s approach to providing an integrated solution for enterprise data management.

The GS Series, currently just the GS6200 and NS4825, aims to provide a comprehensive and scalable solution for organizations looking to expand their data storage capabilities. The system is designed to be flexible, reliable, and straightforward to manage, positioning it as a practical choice for entities requiring substantial data management infrastructure. We will be covering more of what came out of the Synology Solutions Exhibition 2024 later this week.

Alternatively, you can watch the full summary below from our YouTube Channel HERE:

 

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Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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The QNAP USB4 to 10GbE Adapter (ONA-LIC10G1T and ONA-LIC10G1SF)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: QNAP has always been the hardware innovator in the world of NAS. They introduced Thunderbolt NAS, combination 10GbE+M.2 NVMe cards, USB DAS connected NAS (51A series), and more. However, their latest network upgrade product that is in the works, if it does what they say it will, might well be one of the most universally popular yet! The QNAP USB4 to 10GbE Adapter is a USB4 Type-C connected adapter that allows you to connect to a 10GbE network over copper (10GBASE-T RJ45) or SFP+. So, why is this a big deal? What problems does this solve? And does either of the ONA-LIC10G1T and/or ONA-LIC10G1SF Deserve a place on your next IT shopping trip? Let’s discuss.

Why is the QNAP USB4 to 10G Adapter a Big Deal?

It’s a good question! Up until now, if you wanted to add connectivity to your NAS or your client OS machine (Windows, Mac, etc.), you really only had two options. 1) Buy a 10GbE network upgrade PCIe card and install it in an available PCIe slot of your machine—which a lot of devices do not actually have! Or 2) Buy a Thunderbolt to 10GbE adapter to add this connection—but this requires you to actually have a physical Thunderbolt USB-C port in the first place! So, there is a lot of room for a user to not be able to access 10GbE. However, numerous NAS devices and client machines in the last year or two have been arriving with USB4 ports (especially now that Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 are effectively merged in most modern cases).

This means that this device will make it significantly easier for a user to add 10GbE to their system. It is still yet to be confirmed if the backward compatibility/auto-negotiation of USB4 down to USB 3.2 will still be supported and mean that this adapter can be used in older systems—but never say never. It will definitely heavily rely on the USB4 PCIe bridge that is featured inside the adapter.

The QNAP USB4 10G Adapter Hardware

As mentioned, the QNAP ONA-LIC10G1T and ONA-LIC10G1SF USB4 to 10GbE Adapter arrives in versions that support copper 10G and SFP 10G. The internal hardware will likely remain largely the same between them, but it’s good that they have provided both physical forms. The system is fanless, and its entire casing acts as a form of heat dissipation when in operation. Additionally, the system is completely bus-powered (i.e., no additional cables) as USB4 provides more than enough power to keep the adapter running. Indeed, USB4 can provide an impressive 40Gb/s bandwidth, so there is more than enough to support a single 10GbE network adapter. In fact, given that abundance of bandwidth, it would not surprise me if QNAP ends up limiting the USB4 to 20Gb/s to keep it running at a lower temperature.

QNAP states that the adapter is planned to support use on both QNAP NAS systems and on Windows/Mac/Linux systems. However, whether you can attach multiple units to a QNAP NAS is yet to be confirmed.

The Future of this Product Series: 25GbE?

As mentioned earlier, USB4 provides a huge amount of bandwidth at 40Gb/s, and the single 10GbE on this new adapter is only using 25% of that bandwidth potential. So, what’s next? If QNAP has solved the internal USB4 to network controller (presumably with ASMedia or Realtek—TBC), then that leaves tremendous room to expand this series. I spoke with several people at the QNAP Computex stand about this device and was informed that development of a dual-port 10GbE and even a 25GbE FC version is being worked on, but do not expect those in 2024. It makes a lot of sense, as the USB4-10GbE unit at the show was working (on rotational performance tests), so the logic is there; it’s just making sure it is stable and that the bandwidth is effectively utilized.

Release and Pricing for the QNAP ONA-LIC10G1T and ONA-LIC10G1SF ?

Although the SFP+ and RJ45 versions of the USB4 adapter were running at the show and were definitely real, when I asked about pricing and a release date, QNAP was very hard to pin down. In fact, aside from “later in 2024,” they would not confirm. I can’t really blame them. This is a very unique piece of kit at the moment, and I cannot imagine development was cheap. Add that exclusivity to the fact that the ASMedia/Realtek chip inside is likely very ‘current,’ which means that this will almost certainly be a $150+ adapter at the very least! Chances are that QNAP will need more time to gauge interest in the device before nailing down the details further. I’ll most certainly be keeping an eye on this one!

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Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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Dans le monde numérique actuel, le stockage en ligne est devenu une nécessité. Parmi les solutions populaires, Dropbox a longtemps dominé le marché. Cependant, pour ceux qui cherchent une alternative européenne, pCloud se distingue par ses nombreuses caractéristiques avantageuses et sa conformité aux lois de confidentialité européennes. Ses offres « à vie » sont très populaires… Stocker ses données en Europe Vous le savez, la confidentialité des données est un sujet important. Il est essentiel de choisir un service de stockage en ligne conforme aux lois de protection des données en vigueur. pCloud, basé en Suisse avec des serveurs au Luxembourg, garantit […]
Lire la suite : pCloud : l’alternative européenne de stockage en ligne

The Flashstor Gen 2 NVMe NAS – Update on Performance, PCIe Lanes, Release, and More

In the two months or so since Asustor first announced the release of the new entry into their Flash NAS series, the Flashstor Gen 2, it has caused quite a buzz! This new 12x M.2 NVMe slot desktop NAS system effectively super-sizes everything we saw in the Gen 1 model but also adds dual 10GbE and ECC memory. Fast forward to now, and we got to spend some more time with the device at the Asustor stand at Computex 2024 (as well as the similarly profiled Lockerstor Gen 3) to learn more about what it can do, what it cannot do, and to explore more of its hardware profile.

Flashstor Gen 2 10GbE Performance

Asustor demoed the Flashstor and Lockerstor systems, connected to a Windows 11 PC over 2x 10GbE, using SMB Multichannel, and transferred 120GB of data. Both systems were able to fully saturate the dual 10GbE connection and, after accounting for the drag factors associated with this network protocol, achieved 1.8GB/s with sustained performance throughout.

Needless to say, this is still less than the total performance possible with the SSDs inside the Flashstor Gen 2, but it is a positive sign moving forward.

The PCIe Lanes of the M.2 inside the Flashstor Gen 2

This aspect was somewhat of a mixed bag when looking more closely at the architecture of the Flashstor Gen 2, as many people (myself included) were unsure how exactly Asustor would allocate lanes and speed across the 12x M.2 slots inside the system. The answer is… quite messily! We have to be fair here; the Flashstor Gen 2 is still a NAS that is mid-development and subject to change. However, the units on show at the event had the following breakdown of PCIe lanes/speeds detailed on its PCB and confirmed by the team:

How the 12x M.2 NVMe slots are broken down:

– Gen 4×4 = 1 Slot

– Gen 4×1 = 4 Slots

– Gen 4×2 = 3 Slots

– Gen 3×4 = 1 Slot

– Gen 3×2 = 1 Slot

– Gen 3×1 = 2 Slot

This is an unusually mixed arrangement inside a single device. Although there is a lot more performance bandwidth here compared to the 12x Gen 3×1 in the Flashstor Gen 1, there are questions about the system’s performance when creating RAID pools on the M.2 in the Gen 2 that span drives of different speeds. The reality is that most pool configurations, such as a RAID 5 or RAID 0 of drives, will have their performance capped per drive to the speed of the slowest drive in the array. For example, 12 drives in the Gen 4 and Gen 3 slots will be reduced from 2000MB/s per lane to 1000MB/s max; the same goes for x4 slots, x2 slots, and x1 slots.

At least they are trying their best to use up as much of the bandwidth as possible from that Ryzen CPU, but it is still an undeniably bizarre arrangement of slots inside a single NAS system.

PC Gaming and the Flashstor Gen 2 System

The last demo at the stand related to the Flashstor was the system connected to a modern PC system to show how the 2x 10G connections combined with the high performance and low latency of the M.2 SSDs in the Flashstor and Lockerstor. This was done by running the latest version of Cyberpunk 2077 from the NAS systems. The game was running from the gaming machine with its own GPU, etc., but the game’s data files from launch (Steam, Epic, etc.) were all running from the NAS.

There was no drop in frame rate, no poor texture pop-in, no unexpected load screens as you transitioned through the world, and no examples of poor texture swapping. Indeed, the game played like it was stored on the PC’s own storage—but it wasn’t; it was managing the game data from the Flashstor Gen 2’s storage. This was achieved using an iSCSI LUN created in the Asustor ADM Storage Manager and then mounted on the PC via the built-in Windows iSCSI initiator.

(Here is a clip from the video where the tests were shown):

Running games from a NAS system is not new, but as more games are being developed with M.2 NVMe SSD storage in mind, they are also getting bigger and bigger (notwithstanding ‘Game as a Service’ titles that will grow constantly over the years). If you have years and years of titles in your Steam library and are concerned they might one day be taken offline, you will need some serious storage to ensure you have it all! With the performance benefits of accessing multiple M.2 SSDs in a RAID configuration and the expanded storage potential of these systems compared with the limited number of M.2 slots in ma00ny systems, you can definitely see why there is a growing appeal for games to be played off a NAS.

The Flashstor is still a fair way from full release—even the name ‘Gen 2’ seems to be a matter still under debate. Last month, I recorded a User Q&A with a brand representative that covered all the questions users had about the Flashstor Gen 2 and Lockerstor Gen 3. You can watch the whole thing below in the video (chapters on the bar at the bottom)

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This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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Un membre du forum des NAS n’arrive pas à faire fonctionner son NAS Synology avec un fichier de configuration OpenVPN de NordVPN. Il n’existe apparemment pas de tutoriel récent sur le sujet. Je vous propose de découvrir comment faire, en quelques étapes avec NordVPN et ProtonVPN. Synology et OpenVPN Depuis plusieurs années, Synology propose sur ses NAS la possibilité de se connecter à un serveur VPN. Cela peut être très utile aux entreprises, mais aussi pour les particuliers qui souhaitent que leur NAS ne soit pas directement accessible sur Internet. Quelle que soit la raison, je vous propose de configurer […]
Lire la suite : Synology DSM 7.2 avec NordVPN et ProtonVPN

QNAP vient de mettre en ligne la version Release Candidate de son logiciel interne QTS 5.2. Cette nouvelle version intègre de nombreuses améliorations, mais aussi de nouveaux outils. QNAP QTS 5.2 RC QNAP a été plutôt rapide sur la phase bêta. Il n’y aura eu qu’une seule version avant le passage en RC (Release Candidate). Pour rappel, une version RC est (normalement) la dernière version avant la mise à disposition de tous de la version finale. À noter que QNAP a précédemment sorti 3 RC avant la version finale. QNAP annonce : « QTS 5.2.0 apporte de nombreuses nouvelles fonctionnalités importantes […]
Lire la suite : QNAP QTS 5.2 arrive en RC

Jonsbo Reveals New N5 NAS Case at Computex 2024

Jonsbo, a well-known manufacturer of PC cases and cooling solutions, unveiled its new N5 NAS case at the Computex 2024 event. The announcement took place at the company’s stand, where the latest addition to their product line was showcased to attendees.

The Jonsbo N5 NAS case is designed to cater to users who require extensive storage options. It supports a combination of 2.5″ SSDs and 3.5″ HDDs, allowing for up to 12 drives in various configurations. The drive bay can hold 2.5″ SSD x2 / 3.5″ HDD x12 or 2.5″ SSD x4 / 3.5″ HDD x12, providing flexibility depending on the user’s storage needs.

In terms of dimensions, the N5 measures 355mm in width, 403mm in depth, and 350mm in height. This size accommodates a range of motherboard form factors, including ITX, M-ATX, ATX, and E-ATX, making it a versatile option for various build requirements.

The case features extensive cooling options with vent panels on all sides to ensure adequate airflow. The design includes support for SFX power supplies, with the exact size to be confirmed. This is aimed at maintaining efficient power management within a compact form factor.

For users with high-performance components, the N5 supports video cards up to 350mm in length and CPU coolers up to 160mm in height. This ensures compatibility with a wide range of graphics cards and cooling solutions available in the market.

The front I/O port configuration includes a Type-C port and a USB 3.0 port, along with support for audio and mic input. This setup aims to provide easy access to frequently used ports and connectivity options.

Material-wise, the N5 is constructed with a 2.0mm aluminum alloy external cover and a 1.0mm steel internal structure. This combination of materials offers durability while maintaining a sleek and modern aesthetic.

One of the notable features of the N5 is its wooden removable (mesh vented) HDD bay cover panel. This not only adds to the visual appeal of the case but also enhances ventilation for the drives.

The case also includes 12 LEDs, adding a lighting element that can be customized according to the user’s preference. The LEDs are strategically placed to highlight the internal components without being overly intrusive. Another nice touch (and a criticism leveled at the N4 previously for skipping over a little, is that all 12 SATA connections directly go into combined SATA power+data ports on their own backplanes! 

When compared to the Jonsbo N2, N3, and N4, the N5 offers the highest number of drive bays and expansion slots. The N2 supports up to 5 HDDs, the N3 up to 8 HDDs, and the N4 up to 6 HDDs, making the N5 a superior choice for users with extensive storage needs.

Attribute	Jonsbo N2	Jonsbo N3	Jonsbo N4	Jonsbo N5
Model	N2 Black	N3 Black	N4 Black	N5
Dimensions	222.5mm(W) * 222.5mm(D) * 224mm(H)	233mm(W) * 262mm(D) * 298mm(H)	286mm(W) * 300mm(D) * 228mm(H)	355mm(W) * 403mm(D) * 350mm(H)
Material	2.0mm Aluminum alloy; 1mm Steel	2.0mm Aluminum alloy; 1mm Steel	0.7mm Steel + Wood	2.0mm Aluminum alloy; 1mm Steel
Drive Bay	2.5″ SSD1 / 3.5″ HDD5	2.5″ SSD1 / 3.5″ HDD8	2.5″ SSD2 / 3.5″ HDD6	2.5″ SSD2 / 3.5″ HDD12 or 2.5″ SSD4 / 3.5″ HDD12
Motherboard Compatibility	ITX	ITX	ITX / M-ATX	ITX / M-ATX / ATX / E-ATX
PCI Expansion Slot	1 x Low profile single slot	2	4	8
Front I/O Port	1*USB3.0 / USB3.2 Gen2 Type-C / Audio+Mic	1*USB3.0 / USB3.2 Gen2 Type-C / Audio+Mic	Type-C1 / USB3.01	Type-C1 / USB3.01
PSU Support	SFX ≤ 150mm	SFX ≤ 105mm	SFX ≤ 125mm	SFX (TBC size)
Max. CPU Cooler Height	≤ 65mm	≤ 130mm	≤ 70mm	160mm
Max. Display Card Length	≤ 197mm (Low profile)	≤ 250mm	≤ 230mm	325-350mm
Cooling System	12015mm fan*1 (built-in)	10025mm2 (optional), 8025mm2 (optional)	120mm*1 (built-in)	Vent Panels on all sides
Weight	Net 2.9kg	Net 3.9kg	3.75kg	Weight not specified

The N5 also surpasses the other models in terms of PCI expansion slots, offering 8 compared to the N2’s single slot, the N3’s 2 slots, and the N4’s 4 slots. This makes it a more suitable option for users requiring additional expansion capabilities.

Overall, the Jonsbo N5 stands out with its higher capacity and versatile design, offering more extensive support for components and storage compared to the N2, N3, and N4 models. This makes it a strong contender for users looking to build a high-performance NAS system.

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This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

WE LOVE COFFEE

 

What Has QNAP Planned for 2024 and 2025?

QNAP unveiled a variety of new hardware and software solutions at Computex 2024, designed to cater to both personal and business users. Among the highlights is a USB-to-10GbE connectivity adapter, which promises to bring high-speed network capabilities to devices that previously required PCIe cards. Additionally, they will showcase a USB4 expansion box, providing users with more storage capacity and faster data transfer speeds. The line-up also includes a new 1U expandable rackmount, which offers flexible storage options in a compact form factor, ideal for businesses looking to optimize their server space. QNAP is also introducing an advanced 4/6 Bay NAS series, designed to meet the growing data storage and management needs of small to medium-sized businesses. In terms of connectivity, there are significant improvements in thunderbolt support in the form of SMB Multichannel being added to TB connectivity, ensuring faster and more reliable connections for users who need high-performance data transfer. These new products and innovations, scheduled for release in 2024 and 2025, demonstrate QNAP’s commitment to enhancing their storage solutions and keeping pace with the evolving demands of their users. Here is everything they showed off.

The QNAP TS-765eU Massive Flexible 1U Rackmount NAS

The QNAP TS-765eU is a compact yet powerful 1U short depth rackmount NAS designed to meet the demanding needs of modern businesses. Equipped with an Intel Atom x7405C quad-core processor, this NAS delivers impressive performance with a clock speed of up to 3.46GHz. This powerful processor ensures smooth operation for various applications, from data storage and management to virtualization tasks. The TS-765eU also supports up to 16GB of DDR5 SODIMM memory with in-band ECC, providing reliable error detection and correction during data transmission, which enhances system stability and data integrity.

One of the standout features of the TS-765eU is its flexible storage options. It comes with four 3.5″ SATA bays and three E1.S/M.2 PCIe slots, allowing users to customize their storage setup according to their needs. The included M.2 adapter supports M.2 2280 PCIe SSDs, offering high-speed storage solutions for applications requiring fast data access. This adaptability makes the TS-765eU suitable for various storage configurations, from large-capacity drives for data archiving to high-speed SSDs for performance-intensive tasks.

Connectivity is another strong suit of the TS-765eU. It features built-in dual 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, providing high-speed network connectivity out of the box. For users requiring even faster network speeds, the NAS supports expansion to 10GBASE-T through its E1.S PCIe slots using the optional OXG-ES10G1T network adapter.

This flexibility ensures that the TS-765eU can adapt to different networking environments and future-proof the network infrastructure as demands grow. Overall, the TS-765eU combines powerful performance, flexible storage options, and scalable connectivity, making it a versatile solution for businesses looking to optimize their network-attached storage capabilities.

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The QNAP USB 4 JBOD Expansion Box and Rackmount

The QNAP JBOD USB4 Expansion Box, available in models TL-D810TC4 and TL-R1210TC4-RP, is designed to enhance storage capabilities for NAS systems. With its high-capacity 8 or 12-bay configurations, this enclosure supports hot-swappable SATA hard drives, making it an ideal solution for expanding storage without downtime. The inclusion of a USB 4 port (40Gbps) ensures high-speed data transfers, significantly outperforming traditional USB 3.2 Gen 2 interfaces. This speed advantage is crucial for businesses and users handling large files, reducing transfer times and improving overall workflow efficiency.

In addition to its robust storage capabilities, the QNAP JBOD USB4 Expansion Box features intelligent fan control to protect your hardware. The system automatically adjusts fan speeds based on temperature readings to extend the lifespan of your hard drives, with an option for manual control for customized settings.

This enclosure also offers easy physical data migration, allowing users to effortlessly move the JBOD to different locations and connect it to a NAS system. The plug-and-play functionality ensures seamless and quick data migration, enhancing flexibility and convenience in managing expanding storage needs.

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QNAP USB 4 to 10GbE and 25GbE Adapters

The QNAP QNA USB 4 Type C Network Adapter series is an advanced solution designed to provide high-speed network connectivity for both Mac and Windows computers. Leveraging the power of USB 4, these adapters enable users to achieve 10GbE or 25GbE network speeds, making them ideal for applications requiring fast data transfers and low latency. This series includes five distinct models: the ONA-LIC10G1T, which offers a single 10GBASE-T connection; the ONA-UC10G1SF, which provides a single 10GbE SFP+ connection; the ONA-UC10G2T, featuring dual 10GBASE-T connections; the ONA-UC10G2SF, offering dual 10GbE SFP+ connections; and the ONA-UC25G2SF, which supports dual 25GbE SFP28 connections. Each model is designed to cater to specific networking needs, ensuring versatility and high performance.

One of the most notable aspects of the QNA USB 4 Type C Network Adapter series is its status as the first USB4 to 10/25GbE adapter on the market. Traditionally, achieving these high-speed connections required the use of PCIe cards, which often limited flexibility and portability. By bringing these capabilities to a compact, USB4-enabled device, QNAP has significantly simplified the process of upgrading network speeds, allowing users to easily integrate these adapters into their existing setups without the need for internal hardware modifications.

The fanless design of these adapters reduces noise and enhances heat dissipation through exterior groove slots on the casing, ensuring efficient operation even under heavy load. The lightweight and portable nature of the adapters, coupled with the included USB 4 C to C cable, makes them easy to set up and use on the go. It is important to note that these adapters are not backward compatible with USB 3, so users must ensure their systems have USB 4 ports.

The ONA-UC25G2SF model (STILL VERY WIP) includes two USB 4 Type C ports, one for power delivery (requiring a minimum of 27W) and one for data transfer, although a power adapter is not included. These features demonstrate QNAP’s commitment to providing flexible, high-performance networking solutions that meet the demands of modern computing environments.

QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS Devices

The QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS devices are designed for small to medium-sized businesses requiring robust and high-speed storage solutions. Powered by a quad-core 2.0GHz AnnapurnaLabs AL-524 processor, these NAS devices ensure powerful performance for various tasks. The TS-432X features four drive bays, while the TS-632X offers six, providing ample storage capacity. Both models support expandable memory up to 16GB RAM, catering to the data backup, recovery, and virtualized storage needs of SMBs. The built-in 10GbE SFP+ and 2.5GbE RJ45 ports deliver exceptional network connectivity, making these devices ideal for environments demanding high-speed data transfers.

In addition to their impressive hardware specifications, the TS-432X and TS-632X are equipped with one PCIe Gen3 x4 slot, allowing for various expansion options, including network cards and M.2 cards. The pre-installed 4GB NON ECC memory can be upgraded via a DDR4 SODIMM slot, with ECC support available for enhanced reliability.

These features, combined with the versatile connectivity options and powerful processor, make the TS-432X and TS-632X excellent choices for SMBs looking to optimize their storage infrastructure and ensure efficient data management.

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USB and m.2 AI Accelerator Cards for QTS Services

(Pictures Added Soon)

The QNAP QAI-M100 and QAI-U100 AI accelerators provide an affordable way to enhance image recognition capabilities on QNAP NAS devices. Featuring AI accelerator modules with 3 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second), these models offer USB 3.2 Gen 1 or M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 2 x1 interfaces, compatible with QTS 5.2.x and QuTS hero h5.2.x. These accelerators are designed to support lightweight QNAP AI applications, including QNAP AI Core for face and object recognition. The implementation of the QAI-M100 significantly boosts AI recognition performance, tripling the speed of tasks such as facial feature extraction on devices like the TS-464 with an Intel Celeron N5095 processor. This advancement ensures faster and more efficient processing of AI-related tasks, making it an essential upgrade for users looking to leverage AI technology on their NAS systems.

New Affordable External Network Focused Gen4 Flash NAS – The TS-h1277AFX

(Pictures Added Soon)

The QNAP TS-H1277AFX Desktop NAS is a powerful and cost-effective solution designed for high-performance storage needs. This tower NAS features 12 SATA SSD bays, making it an all-flash system ideal for environments that demand fast and reliable data access. Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7000 series processor, the TS-H1277AFX can support up to 192GB of DDR5 memory, ensuring it can handle intensive tasks and large workloads with ease. The AMD Ryzen processor offers up to 8 cores and 16 threads, with burst speeds up to 5.36GHz, providing exceptional processing power for various applications.

One of the standout features of the TS-H1277AFX is its efficient data reduction technology. The system employs inline data deduplication, which is block-based and operates before data is written to storage. This technology significantly optimizes storage usage by reducing the amount of data that needs to be stored, effectively decreasing storage capacity requirements. This makes the TS-H1277AFX not only powerful but also highly efficient in managing data, making it an excellent choice for businesses looking to maximize their storage investments.

In addition to its impressive storage and processing capabilities, the TS-H1277AFX is equipped with robust connectivity options. It includes two 2.5GbE RJ45 ports and two 10GBASE-T ports, allowing for accelerated file access and sharing across networks. The NAS also features three PCIe Gen 4 slots, providing the flexibility to install additional network cards, graphics cards, or other PCIe expansion cards to enhance system functionality and application performance. With its combination of powerful hardware, efficient data management, and versatile connectivity, the TS-H1277AFX is well-suited for office environments that require high-speed, reliable storage solutions.

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En marge du Computex 2024, Synology lançait Synology Solution Exhibition 2024 à Taipei. Le fabricant a annoncé l’arrivée de plusieurs nouveaux produits, visant à répondre aux besoins croissants des entreprises en matière de gestion et de protection des données. Étonnamment, Synology n’a pas communiqué sur les futures versions de DSM au-delà de DSM 7.2 : DSM 7.3 ou DSM 8.0. Série GS et DP Synology a fourni peu d’information sur cette nouvelle gamme : GS. On sait que la série GS (et notamment le GS6200) proposera une plateforme de gestion et de stockage des données hautement évolutive, capable de supporter […]
Lire la suite : Computex 2024 : Synology dévoile de nouveaux produits et services

Synology Launches a New Backup-Focused Server Solution – ActiveProtect and the DP Series

What is ActiveProtect and Why is Synology choosing 2024 to launch a completely new kind of solution into their portfolio? It’s a valid Q! I think it would be fair to say that Synology has been re-calibrating a lot of its solutions in the last few years, in an effort to aim a lot of its solutions towards business and enterprise users. This is not a bad idea! With pretty much all the big cloud players increasing their subscription costs at the business/enterprise level, as well as failing to improve their services accordingly (and don’t even get me started on download costs at scale!), ALOT of businesses have been looking at the current market offerings for in-house data storage solutions and Synology is looking remarkably well placed. Arriving at a lower cost compared with the hyper-scale and big unified storage players (Dell, Netapp, etc), yet being more user-friendly, providing a wide-ranging portfolio of tailored solutions and typically requiring less sys-admin in-house management by comparison!

However, despite Synology being the most acclaimed software solution in the NAS server market, I would still hesitate to call DSM truly ‘out the box’ and ‘idiot proof’. And THIS is what has clearly motivated Synology to develop the ActiveProtect platform and DP series of devices. Rather than the open use solutions in the Diskstation and Rackstation series with DSM, the DP series arrives with just 1 application/service – ActiveProtect, a development splinter of numerous applications and services that are currently available in DSM, but via a single portal. Promising genuinely fast 10-minute setup out the box, these solutions arrive pre-populated, pre-configured and actively ready to become the target storage for your multi platforms backups. Today I want to discuss this new series, what it IS, what it ISN’T and just who exactly ActiveProtect is aimed at.

What is Synology ActiveProtect?

The Synology ActiveProtect platform is a centralized portal for managing the entirety of your business backup services. Accessible locally over the network or remotely, ActiveProtect strips back a lot of the choices, services and customization that is available in DSM and it’s applications, instead streamlining the whole thing to just 1 service – BACKUPS! This might sounds a little basic/old-skool on the face of it, but there are plenty of businesses that desire a ‘shut up and do your job’ backup solution that balances stability, security, access and recovery. ActiveProteect is clearly targetted towards users that:

• Just want a secure backup target for their variety of machines (bare metal and virtual)
• Not interested in learning the complexities of network and data services
• Want easy, yet secure access to 1 user-friendly interface that allows them to see the status of their backup routines at once

ActiveProtect merges many, many of the services of the popular Synology Active Backup Suite services, as well as many modular services that form the backend of the Synology platform, into one premier backup portal. supported services are pretty huge, with all the standard client platforms currently in the market supported (with the exception of mobile).

The ActiveProtect portal allows for a complete overview of all of these backups, providing their individual status and processes at a single glance.

Individual client machine backups can have their backup services immutable stored on the targetted DP system. This ensures that backup images where lost of egregious changes cannot be tolerated are protected from everything from accidental deletion and overwrite, to ransomware and indirect modification.

When this immutable backup rule is applied, it can be adjusted later down the line if needed. Meaning that if a select backup state of a client system needs to be kept, yet later backups are less mission-critical (creating an unchangeable and undeletable primary restore point), this can be easily arranged.

Likewise, you can manage multiple DP ActiveProtect ready systems via this single portal, allowing you to monitor their individual status, adding further nodes to this backup cluster when needed. Individual ActiveProtect client scheduled backups can be amended and/or redirected as needed.

Individually ActiveProtect-enabled client machines (virtual and bare-metal) can have a specific tailored backup protection plan applied. Beyond the immutable backup choices, there are very easy to manage retention policies (i.e how many backups are kept in history and eventually overwritten), as well as familiar scheduling options, actions in the event of a backup issue, inconsistency checks, backup destinations and more.

It is still unlear the maximum number of backup operations that can be managed by a single DP system, but I imagine they scale in conjunction with each system in the initial physical/bare-metal systems accordingly.

When creating ActiveProtect backups for your 3rd party VM services (eg VMware and HyperV), there are tailored options for connecting these to the DP System you want to host your backups on. These options include all the same choices as a bare-metal/physical client machine, but also provide a couple of extra useful options available during restoration.

Say, for example, you have a VM image backup of your VMware virtual machine and you need to restore it because you need to restore something, or because the remote hosted VM is no longer accessible. What are your options?

Well, ActiveProtect not only allows you to browse the history of your individual backups (more eon that in a bit), but it allows your to choose which platform you wish to use for restoration – with the option of using the system sown internally ‘quick deployment’ virtual machine hypervisor to deploy the VM locally on the system – this is MUCH faster than attempting to reinstate an internet service based VM and especially useful if you reasons for reinstating a backup of the VM were access related in the first place!

This ultimately means that your VM images are more just backups, but also serve as a means to reinstate access to a virtual machine client that was previously internet-only accessible. I very much doubt this is a service that is afforded to all client backups, but I can imagine that (much like the VM failover services of Active Backup), the linux based or windows OS level backups can/will be supported too for this service. Likewise, options like these allow you to TEST the strength and smoothness of client system recovery without waiting for disaster to strike, using the VM deployment as a means to test backups when needed.

Continuing with the subject of restoration, depending on the OS/platform of the backup client device, ActiveProtect also allows for individual File/Folder level access of backups and restoration of individual data pieces. This is going to be enormously useful to users that do not have the time or desire to perform an entire OS-level restoration, but instead want a specific file to a previous version and/or reinstate a file deleted in error.

An interesting additional feature of Virtual machine backups in ActiveProtect is the ability to create overarching backup rules that allow the system to act in the event of rule conflicts between backups, giving priroties as needed. You would need to be running quite a densely packed VM backup client – but one could argue that kid of scale is exactly the user that is looking at the likes of the DP7400 (with its 12x20TB of storage in RAID 6+HS).

Active Protect also provides scheduled and customizable options to apply Air Gap rules, to minimize access to the system outside of preset times and methods. Air-gapping is a data protection feature used to isolate and detach target storage from insecure networks, production environments, and host platforms. Air-gapped spaces are “blocked” by default and are inaccessible to applications, databases, users, and workloads on the fly. Air-gapped data storage only becomes accessible when the scheduled rules set for the air-gap are not in effect. In the case of ActiveProtect, you have a choice of three options. Two Physical Air Gap choices which can be applied to the connections or the entire system. These work by physically isolating/disconnecting the DP system from the network, ie deny all connection access and deactivated network interfaces (NICs) or powering the device off/on to a schedule.  Alternatively, you have the option to use Logical Air Gaps, which does not disable the NICs or power the system off/on, but blocks/denies any in coming data transmission. All this adds up to to even further protective measures that ensure your widespread client backup operations can be actioned at the most appropriate times, yet your backup systems will not be in an active/accessible state the rest of the time.

Next, I want to discuss some of the smaller (but nonetheless important) backend features of Active Protect that focus on data integrity, capacity management and scalability. Backups that are sent to the DP series of devices with ActiveProtect have integrity checks at multiple points, starting with ECC memory as standard, then aided by checksums conducted via BTRFS (a file system already supported on practically ALL Synology NAS systems) to avoid data corruption during writes, as well as the integrity of the backup image being verified upon completion of the backup at the destination DP system. As previously mentioned, the VM deployment feature then allows for virtual hosting of a backup image (very client OS-dependent I’m sure) if you need to periodically check/prepare the robustness of your backup restoration plans.

Another backend system process in ActiveProtect that will become increasingly more useful as the scale of your operation grows is how deduplication is managed by ‘AP’ on one or more DP systems that have been deployed. DeDuplication is a long established space-saving measure that keeps track of multiple client backups and, in the event the same data is found in multiple locations (eg operating system files and company files that tend to be the same across multiple client systems), the ActiveProtect service will only store 1 copy, but keep track of all the clients that need it. Deduplication is not new, so why the big deal?

Well, this Deduplication logic extends to multiple DP NAS nodes that form a larger cluster, allowing duplicated files on multiple backup systems to be further recognized on a larger destination backup. Example:

• A company has 5x offices globally, each has 5x team members and each location has a DP3400 NAS, backing up 5x Windows 11 systems (among other things)
• Each individual DP340 system saves space with deduplication on all the identical data that lives in each client backup. That is 25 Windows machines with deduplication in palce
• All x5 DP3400 are backed up remotely (on a system image backup level) to a larger DP7400 rackmount system in a remote location.
• The deduplication of the DP7400 ActiveProtect service, seeing that there is data that is the same on all 5 DP340 backup images, then actions that data reduction even further.

This is further improved and hastened by the fact that deduplication of data is conducted at the source site – which results in faster-completed backups and less bandwidth/system resource consumption too.

This means that even a single DP system running ActiveProtect has everything small business might need to conduct multi-client backups with ease.

But moreover, allows for future scalability of this operation as the business grows. So a company does not need to action a complete company-wide backup strategy if their budget and/or requirements for the system are not big enough – further spreading the cost of the operation over time considerably (ie you only buy and extend the scale of the solution when you need to).

One question I do have though is where client file/folder backups are in this software platform? I can appreciate that ActiveProtect brings pretty much all of the functionality of Active Backup Suite to an app that is effectively it’s own OS, as well as using some of the security, safety and integrity protection that are found in other areas of DSM in too. But, what about Synology Drive client functionality? Although a lot of businesses buy a Synology NAS for Active Backup, many of them also do so for Synology drive and its native file/folder access to their client devices, file streaming/pinning/versioning and cross-platform/site synchronization. As beneficial as ActiveProtect is as a dedicated widespread backup platform, I think users might be missing out on the Synology drive client functionality. I hope, when we have our chance to look closer at the ActiveProtect client app, that we find some of the features of Synology Drive integrated to some extent. There are already mentioned of the file/folder restoration of your ActiveProtect backups, so there is clearly a logical path where they could integrate the feature set of Synology Drive into AP.

Synology Drive Style Functionality?

All in all, the ActiveProtect platform (As long as it does not feature any native subscription services of course) is an exceptionally well-provisioned backup solution, and serves as a great expansion of the features set and capabilities of Synology Active Backup. 80% of these are of course available to a traditional Synology DSM NAS user with a comparable Diskstation/Rackstation system, but for those not looking to lose time to the hurdles of setup and just want simple, powerful and capable backups – ActiveProtect seemingly delivered this in spades. There is most certainly going to be a few business users who will not feature a DP solution in their main office, especially if they already have a DSM-ready NAS in place (more on that later), but as an offsite backup, THEN they will be interested! But what about the DP Series of server backup devices themselves? What do you get for your money?

What are the Synology DP Series of Devices?

NOTE – Further information on the specifications of the launch DP Series devices is still ‘pending’. This section will be updated further, as soon as I know more.

Here are the specifications we know so far:

	DP7400
Client Backup Scale	83.5TB
Available Storage	140TB why steal this?
Drives	10x 20TB**
Redundancy	RAID 6 + Hotspre
SSD Cache	x 3840GB (SAT5200)
Bays	12-Bay Rackmount why steal this?
Processor	AMD EPYC 7272 12 Core
RAM	64GB DDR4 ECC why steal this?
Notes	2x SATA bays occupied with 2.5″ SSDs for caching

Only the DP7400 system seemingly confirmed it’s network connectivity, arriving with a dedicated management port and two 10G-BASET ports (and room to expand with further cards, I imagine). I am not a big fan of how the storage and caching has been approached on the DP7400. I completely understand that at this scale, this system needs ALOT of redundancy and recovery, so having both RAID 6 and a hot spare in place makes a lot of sense – especially when this system might well be the offsite backup for multiple DP/ActiveProtect systems in a larger business. However, only having 10 drives in a 12 bay, because you need two drives to be used for SATA SSDs for cache, instead of providing an NVMe Cache PCIe card in the available slot (and giving the user 2 more SATA/SAS bays of storage) would make so much more sense in the long term! Aside from SATA 4TBs costing less than an NVMe alternative + card cost, I cannot see any other reason to kit the DP7400 in this profile.

The naming conventions for the DP series of devices also elude to further releases in the ActiveProtect series of devices. Alongside the Entry level desktop and Enterprise core tiers discussed, there is an additional ‘Enterprise Edge’ product tier. There is also an additional (slightly muddled) system scale classification that is broken into the number of bays and CPU tier that highlight system hardware scales that feature the V1000 AMD embedded Ryzen processors (likely the V1500B and V1780B) and an older D-1541 Xeon processor. The last detail of not is an ‘F’ classification that indicates Flash tiers of DP devices. Synology already has a long-established Flashstation range, so we can expect the DP ‘F’ class devices to be similar profiles to the FS2500, FS3410, FS3600 and/or FS6400.

Example:

DP	Product Level	Bay / CPU Level	Generation	Reserved	Drive Type
3	Tower / Entry	2 = 2 bays why steal this?	1,2,3,…	Reserved	N/A = HDD / Hybrid
5	Enterprise Edge why steal this?	3 = 4 bays			F = All flash
7	Enterprise Core	2 = V1000	why steal this?
		3 = D-1541
		4 = EPYC why steal this?	why steal this?	why steal this?

The hardware is certainly not going to blow anyone away, in so far as it is not a big change from existing RS/SA Systems – and it is not supposed to! If I was being cynical, I would say that Synology is still trying to eak out as much as they can from their existing hardware portfolio and not introduce anything too exciting/expensive into their DP NAS series. But realistically, the above choices of these systems are hardware that the brand is very experienced with AND the DP devices resources are running ActiveProtect exclusively, so that means that they will likely run that software considerably better/broader (as in # of active clients) better than the same hardware running DSM, with a handful of apps (Active Backup, Drive, VMM, Hyper Backup, etc). My only other question is going to be the cross over between systems running DSM and the ones running ActiveProtect. Businesses are definitely going to like the idea of a system that is primed and targetted towards protected backups – but they will also lose out on Surveillance Station, Synology Drive, Mail, Chat etc – all of which are also great business on site data management tools in their own right. I cannot imagine Active Protect will release as a standalone DSM app (unless Synology Active Backup rebrands to it), so it leads to the end user having to either buy two parallel systems (one with DSM and the other with ActiveProtect, hoping they can also sync) or have to miss out. Larger-scale business and enterprise won’t mind this more modular approach (having dedicated system processes towards different systems), but this becomes less clear at the smaller business level.

When Will the Synology DP ActiveProtect Series Be Released and How Much Will it Cost?

Pricing and availability will likely be detailed further at Synology’s open-day solutions event in Taipei, taking place during the Computex 2024 event. Expect Launch to be vaguely ‘later in 2024’, but pricing is going to be a little tougher to predict. I still maintain that this range needs more storage SKUs in place if they plan on launching it pre-populated exclusively. But that also affects the pricing, in particular, solutions with the SSD cache in place (and don’t even get me started on the DP7400 and its 10x Synology HAT5310 20TBs (HAT5310-20T). I will update this article as and when I know more about the pricing and launch. What do you think of the Synology ActiveProtect DP series of devices? On the whole, I think I like them, I just want to see further integration into DSM services and existing Synology NAS ecosystems.

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Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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Synology Solution Exhibition 2024 Taipei

(Article Still in Progress!)

Synology has been unusually talkative in advance of their latest launch event for 2024! All too often, they tend to hold back the bulk of their intended release plans for the year (in both hardware and software services) prior to their events, which can often lead to a lot of surprises. However, this year they went ahead and published a ‘teaser’ video that covered a lot of things well in advance. I think it would be fair to say that the bulk of what they were intending to show off was heavily targeted towards large businesses and enterprises.

This shouldn’t have proven much of a surprise, given that is the way the wind has been blowing with the brand in recent years (launching their own C2 cloud platform, their own branded storage media, a shifting focus in services designed to work in unison with SaaS and PaaS IPs, etc.). Nevertheless, the Synology Solutions showcase in Taipei (happening during the Computex 2024 event) has really doubled down on Enterprise problem-solving! From AI and hyper-scale to simplified multi-site backups and surveillance, let’s go over the big plans the brand has in the works for 2024, as well as try to see where they hope to be in the food chain of network storage next year!

The Synology GS Series

Synology is no stranger to large-scale storage. Last year, we saw the long-developed rollout of the High Density series (premiering a 60 Bay 4U Rackmount solution) and further refreshes in the Synology RS and SA series. However, it would appear that Synology has even loftier goals, with the launch of the Synology GS series – designed to massively scale up towards XX nodes (demonstrated as GS6400 rackmount devices) that, when clustered together, can scale up to an insane 20 Petabyte groups.

We are still awaiting details on the storage capacity scaling (i.e., will they arrive in pre-designated storage configurations), but they will no doubt roll out supporting the Synology HAT5310/HAS5310 Enterprise drives up to 20TB. The GS series appears to be in a slightly modified chassis (numeric LED panel and vent fascia) but seemingly will be using similar hardware/architecture to existing EPYC-powered systems already in the Synology RS/SA portfolio. Additionally, as the scale of the GS Clusters is so large, Synology are rolling out a dedicated GS Cluster switch to coordinate the whole thing. Pricing and capacity details are still TBC!

The Synology DP Series and ActiveProtect

Synology really made some noise on this one, and frankly, I can see why. The Data Protection series is a new tier of their portfolio that exclusively focuses on backup management, fast deployment, and simplicity. Arriving in rackmount hardware form (at least at launch), these systems will NOT arrive with DSM (the operating system of the majority of Synology NAS systems) but instead a dedicated backup appliance called ActiveProtect.

It appears to consolidate the features and functions of several parts of the Synology ecosystem (in particular Active Backup) in order to create a 10-minute setup backup solution for businesses who need robust and easily configurable backup management for:

• Local PC/Mac/Linux client machines
• Synology and 3rd Party Linux Server backups
• Cloud-Based Software as a Service (SaaS) data, such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
• Hyper-V/VMware virtual machines

The architecture of the ActiveProtect system also features a number of impressive restoration services built in, ranging from deploying backups of your cloud source VMs to a local VM deployed on the NAS and WORM-protected backups, to simple file/folder restoration and deduplication.

That last one is extra important, as not only does a single DP system with ActiveProtect deduplicate backed-up data in its immediate network circle, but when you deploy multiple DP systems across multiple sites in your business’ physical geography (i.e., sites globally) and have a dedicated target backup for them all, it will further deduplicate the data being sent from all those other DP systems too. You can find out more about the Synology DP series and ActiveProtect in the article below:

[Click Link to ActiveProtect Article]

Synology Unveils Its AI Integration with AI Console

This is something I think most of us saw coming! The integration of AI assistant services and AI language models into the majority of platforms we use on a daily basis has been pretty much non-stop these last 12-18 months, and it comes as no surprise that Synology is now moving into this. But to their credit, they have not rushed into this. In fact, although we saw very tentative steps and early demonstrations of where they would like it to go at their Taipei event in 2023 (see video HERE), they have not rushed into this. The Synology AI Console is their integration of AI assistant tools into a number of their collaboration tools, namely Synology Mail Plus, Office, and Chat.

These tools are designed to provide services that are tailored to these applications – not just a glossy portal/GUI with ChatGPT and other LLMs behind it. Such as the ability to provide a summary of larger email chains, provide context and proofreading of documents, craft responses to communication that are tonally appropriate, and more. Additionally, they state that the AI services will be completely optional, off by default, individually enabled, and have a framework in place that prevents sensitive information from being used in AI-generated content. The extent to how this is controlled and adapted by the system owner is yet to be fully confirmed, as is the level of control that is provided to the Synology NAS owner with regard to the AI’s reference points internally.

Video from a Synology event in 2023:

They do highlight that support of existing popular AI models that include ChatGPT, Microsoft Azure AI, and Google Gemini will be available when the service is launched (in beta, I assume), but I will be interested to see how far the brand will be willing to take AI integration (especially if they are going to allow flexibility in the AI models a user can connect with) as the ability to use AI tools with storage filing services, more creative search categorization, and analysis of system logs. We will have to wait and see… DSM 8?

Synology C2 Surveillance Station and Cloud Cameras

Although Synology has quite a few different apps and services in DSM, one of the most polished and universally praised examples is Surveillance Station. All Synology NAS systems that run DSM also include the Surveillance Station applications and the ability to add multiple cameras. However, 2 years ago, when Synology rolled out C2 Surveillance (a cloud failover and dual recording platform to be used in conjunction with SS), it was only a question of time before they went the extra step and created a ‘direct to cloud’ version of their Surveillance Station platform – C2 Surveillance Station.

This is a cloud-based UI of Surveillance Station that allows users to deploy Synology C2 cameras that record directly to the C2 Cloud. Now, there is an argument that this is something that other camera brands have always offered (i.e., a camera and a cloud subscription for recordings), and many choose Synology for their surveillance/CCTV as they have an in-house surveillance system in a DSM NAS.

However, that does not apply to everyone, and there are several different deployments that could see the benefits of a Synology surveillance system, but without deploying a Synology network storage appliance, such as:

• Building sites, where the network and PoE structure of surveillance cameras are not present
• Locations with a largely exclusive wireless network
• Mobile setups that require camera security, but have a regularly changing physical location
• Users who want the user-friendly surveillance UI of Surveillance Station, but are not interested in purchasing more than the physical cameras

Needless to say, after this initial reveal, there is still the question of pricing, i.e., will the cameras require a monthly storage subscription? Do the cameras support use for local Synology NAS Surveillance deployment as an option? We will have to wait and see closer to the physical launch.

New Fisheye Camera and 8MP Bullet Camera

(Article Still In Progress)

New Synology Flash NVMe and HDD Hybrid Rackmount (Still Early Development)

(Article Still In Progress)

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This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

WE LOVE COFFEE

 

 

EVERYTHING Revealed at Computex 2024

Welcome to the Computex Taipei 2024 Megathread on NASCompares! As one of the world’s largest and most influential tech trade shows, Computex Taipei is the hub for groundbreaking announcements in the data storage industry. Throughout the event, which runs from June 4-7, 2024, we’ll be providing up-to-the-minute coverage of all major reveals and innovations from top NAS brands like Synology and QNAP, as well as leading HDD and SSD manufacturers. Stay tuned to this page for comprehensive updates, detailed insights, and expert analysis on the latest advancements in data storage technology. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or a professional in the field, our megathread will keep you informed about everything you need to know from Computex Taipei 2024.

LAST UPDATED 5th June 2024 – 4PM BST / GMT+1

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The QNAP TS-765eU Massive Flexible 1U Rackmount NAS

The QNAP TS-765eU is a compact yet powerful 1U short depth rackmount NAS designed to meet the demanding needs of modern businesses. Equipped with an Intel Atom x7405C quad-core processor, this NAS delivers impressive performance with a clock speed of up to 3.46GHz. This powerful processor ensures smooth operation for various applications, from data storage and management to virtualization tasks. The TS-765eU also supports up to 16GB of DDR5 SODIMM memory with in-band ECC, providing reliable error detection and correction during data transmission, which enhances system stability and data integrity.

One of the standout features of the TS-765eU is its flexible storage options. It comes with four 3.5″ SATA bays and three E1.S/M.2 PCIe slots, allowing users to customize their storage setup according to their needs. The included M.2 adapter supports M.2 2280 PCIe SSDs, offering high-speed storage solutions for applications requiring fast data access. This adaptability makes the TS-765eU suitable for various storage configurations, from large-capacity drives for data archiving to high-speed SSDs for performance-intensive tasks.

Connectivity is another strong suit of the TS-765eU. It features built-in dual 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, providing high-speed network connectivity out of the box. For users requiring even faster network speeds, the NAS supports expansion to 10GBASE-T through its E1.S PCIe slots using the optional OXG-ES10G1T network adapter.

This flexibility ensures that the TS-765eU can adapt to different networking environments and future-proof the network infrastructure as demands grow. Overall, the TS-765eU combines powerful performance, flexible storage options, and scalable connectivity, making it a versatile solution for businesses looking to optimize their network-attached storage capabilities.

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QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS Devices

The QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS devices are designed for small to medium-sized businesses requiring robust and high-speed storage solutions. Powered by a quad-core 2.0GHz AnnapurnaLabs AL-524 processor, these NAS devices ensure powerful performance for various tasks. The TS-432X features four drive bays, while the TS-632X offers six, providing ample storage capacity. Both models support expandable memory up to 16GB RAM, catering to the data backup, recovery, and virtualized storage needs of SMBs. The built-in 10GbE SFP+ and 2.5GbE RJ45 ports deliver exceptional network connectivity, making these devices ideal for environments demanding high-speed data transfers.

In addition to their impressive hardware specifications, the TS-432X and TS-632X are equipped with one PCIe Gen3 x4 slot, allowing for various expansion options, including network cards and M.2 cards. The pre-installed 4GB NON ECC memory can be upgraded via a DDR4 SODIMM slot, with ECC support available for enhanced reliability.

These features, combined with the versatile connectivity options and powerful processor, make the TS-432X and TS-632X excellent choices for SMBs looking to optimize their storage infrastructure and ensure efficient data management.

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USB and m.2 AI Accelerator Cards for QTS Services

(Pictures Added Soon)

The QNAP QAI-M100 and QAI-U100 AI accelerators provide an affordable way to enhance image recognition capabilities on QNAP NAS devices. Featuring AI accelerator modules with 3 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second), these models offer USB 3.2 Gen 1 or M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 2 x1 interfaces, compatible with QTS 5.2.x and QuTS hero h5.2.x. These accelerators are designed to support lightweight QNAP AI applications, including QNAP AI Core for face and object recognition. The implementation of the QAI-M100 significantly boosts AI recognition performance, tripling the speed of tasks such as facial feature extraction on devices like the TS-464 with an Intel Celeron N5095 processor. This advancement ensures faster and more efficient processing of AI-related tasks, making it an essential upgrade for users looking to leverage AI technology on their NAS systems.

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The Synology GS Series

Synology is no stranger to large-scale storage. Last year, we saw the long-developed rollout of the High Density series (premiering a 60 Bay 4U Rackmount solution) and further refreshes in the Synology RS and SA series. However, it would appear that Synology has even loftier goals, with the launch of the Synology GS series – designed to massively scale up towards XX nodes (demonstrated as GS6400 rackmount devices) that, when clustered together, can scale up to an insane 20 Petabyte groups.

We are still awaiting details on the storage capacity scaling (i.e., will they arrive in pre-designated storage configurations), but they will no doubt roll out supporting the Synology HAT5310/HAS5310 Enterprise drives up to 20TB. The GS series appears to be in a slightly modified chassis (numeric LED panel and vent fascia) but seemingly will be using similar hardware/architecture to existing EPYC-powered systems already in the Synology RS/SA portfolio. Additionally, as the scale of the GS Clusters is so large, Synology are rolling out a dedicated GS Cluster switch to coordinate the whole thing. Pricing and capacity details are still TBC!

The Synology DP Series and ActiveProtect

Synology really made some noise on this one, and frankly, I can see why. The Data Protection series is a new tier of their portfolio that exclusively focuses on backup management, fast deployment, and simplicity. Arriving in rackmount hardware form (at least at launch), these systems will NOT arrive with DSM (the operating system of the majority of Synology NAS systems) but instead a dedicated backup appliance called ActiveProtect.

It appears to consolidate the features and functions of several parts of the Synology ecosystem (in particular Active Backup) in order to create a 10-minute setup backup solution for businesses who need robust and easily configurable backup management for:

• Local PC/Mac/Linux client machines
• Synology and 3rd Party Linux Server backups
• Cloud-Based Software as a Service (SaaS) data, such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
• Hyper-V/VMware virtual machines

The architecture of the ActiveProtect system also features a number of impressive restoration services built in, ranging from deploying backups of your cloud source VMs to a local VM deployed on the NAS and WORM-protected backups, to simple file/folder restoration and deduplication.

That last one is extra important, as not only does a single DP system with ActiveProtect deduplicate backed-up data in its immediate network circle, but when you deploy multiple DP systems across multiple sites in your business’ physical geography (i.e., sites globally) and have a dedicated target backup for them all, it will further deduplicate the data being sent from all those other DP systems too.

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New Affordable External Network Focused Gen4 Flash NAS – The TS-h1277AFX

(Pictures Added Soon)

The QNAP TS-H1277AFX Desktop NAS is a powerful and cost-effective solution designed for high-performance storage needs. This tower NAS features 12 SATA SSD bays, making it an all-flash system ideal for environments that demand fast and reliable data access. Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7000 series processor, the TS-H1277AFX can support up to 192GB of DDR5 memory, ensuring it can handle intensive tasks and large workloads with ease. The AMD Ryzen processor offers up to 8 cores and 16 threads, with burst speeds up to 5.36GHz, providing exceptional processing power for various applications.

One of the standout features of the TS-H1277AFX is its efficient data reduction technology. The system employs inline data deduplication, which is block-based and operates before data is written to storage. This technology significantly optimizes storage usage by reducing the amount of data that needs to be stored, effectively decreasing storage capacity requirements. This makes the TS-H1277AFX not only powerful but also highly efficient in managing data, making it an excellent choice for businesses looking to maximize their storage investments.

In addition to its impressive storage and processing capabilities, the TS-H1277AFX is equipped with robust connectivity options. It includes two 2.5GbE RJ45 ports and two 10GBASE-T ports, allowing for accelerated file access and sharing across networks. The NAS also features three PCIe Gen 4 slots, providing the flexibility to install additional network cards, graphics cards, or other PCIe expansion cards to enhance system functionality and application performance. With its combination of powerful hardware, efficient data management, and versatile connectivity, the TS-H1277AFX is well-suited for office environments that require high-speed, reliable storage solutions.

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Synology C2 Surveillance Station and Cloud Cameras

Although Synology has quite a few different apps and services in DSM, one of the most polished and universally praised examples is Surveillance Station. All Synology NAS systems that run DSM also include the Surveillance Station applications and the ability to add multiple cameras. However, 2 years ago, when Synology rolled out C2 Surveillance (a cloud failover and dual recording platform to be used in conjunction with SS), it was only a question of time before they went the extra step and created a ‘direct to cloud’ version of their Surveillance Station platform – C2 Surveillance Station.

This is a cloud-based UI of Surveillance Station that allows users to deploy Synology C2 cameras that record directly to the C2 Cloud. Now, there is an argument that this is something that other camera brands have always offered (i.e., a camera and a cloud subscription for recordings), and many choose Synology for their surveillance/CCTV as they have an in-house surveillance system in a DSM NAS. However, that does not apply to everyone, and there are several different deployments that could see the benefits of a Synology surveillance system, but without deploying a Synology network storage appliance, such as:

• Building sites, where the network and PoE structure of surveillance cameras are not present
• Locations with a largely exclusive wireless network
• Mobile setups that require camera security, but have a regularly changing physical location
• Users who want the user-friendly surveillance UI of Surveillance Station, but are not interested in purchasing more than the physical cameras

Needless to say, after this initial reveal, there is still the question of pricing, i.e., will the cameras require a monthly storage subscription? Do the cameras support use for local Synology NAS Surveillance deployment as an option? We will have to wait and see closer to the physical launch.

New Fisheye Camera and 8MP Bullet Camera

(Article Still In Progress)

---

New Synology Flash NVMe and HDD Hybrid Rackmount (Still Early Development)

(Article Still In Progress)

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[contact-form-7]
Join Inner Circle

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

WE LOVE COFFEE

 

 

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ASUS has unveiled the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000, a cutting-edge tri-band Wi-Fi 7 gaming router, during a press launch preceding COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2024. Positioned as a more affordable alternative to the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 introduced earlier in April, the GT-BE19000 boasts impressive specifications despite omitting one of the 5GHz bands found in its higher-end counterpart. This model operates on one 6GHz band, one 5GHz band, and one 2.4GHz band, supporting advanced features like 4,096-QAM and a 320MHz bandwidth (exclusive to the 6GHz band). The router delivers a remarkable maximum wireless communication speed of up to 11,529Mbps, with 5,764Mbps on the 5GHz band and 1,376Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, ensuring a robust and seamless gaming experience.

The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 also excels in wired connectivity, offering a versatile array of ports: one 10 Gigabit WAN/LAN, one 2.5 Gigabit WAN/LAN, one 10 Gigabit LAN, three 2.5 Gigabit LAN, and one Gigabit LAN. This extensive port selection facilitates the creation of a high-speed network environment, both wirelessly and through wired LAN connections. Additional key features include 256MB of flash memory, 2GB of DDR4 RAM, eight large external antennas, and support for ASUS’s AIMesh technology, enabling users to build a comprehensive mesh network. The router’s dimensions are 350.41mm in width, 220.9mm in depth, and 350.41mm in height. Although the release date and pricing are yet to be determined, ASUS plans to make the GT-BE19000 available in the domestic market, continuing to bolster its reputation for delivering high-performance networking solutions tailored for gamers.

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The QNAP USB 4 JBOD Expansion Box and Rackmount

The QNAP JBOD USB4 Expansion Box, available in models TL-D810TC4 and TL-R1210TC4-RP, is designed to enhance storage capabilities for NAS systems. With its high-capacity 8 or 12-bay configurations, this enclosure supports hot-swappable SATA hard drives, making it an ideal solution for expanding storage without downtime. The inclusion of a USB 4 port (40Gbps) ensures high-speed data transfers, significantly outperforming traditional USB 3.2 Gen 2 interfaces. This speed advantage is crucial for businesses and users handling large files, reducing transfer times and improving overall workflow efficiency.

In addition to its robust storage capabilities, the QNAP JBOD USB4 Expansion Box features intelligent fan control to protect your hardware. The system automatically adjusts fan speeds based on temperature readings to extend the lifespan of your hard drives, with an option for manual control for customized settings. This enclosure also offers easy physical data migration, allowing users to effortlessly move the JBOD to different locations and connect it to a NAS system. The plug-and-play functionality ensures seamless and quick data migration, enhancing flexibility and convenience in managing expanding storage needs.

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QNAP USB 4 to 10GbE and 25GbE Adapters

The QNAP QNA USB 4 Type C Network Adapter series is an advanced solution designed to provide high-speed network connectivity for both Mac and Windows computers. Leveraging the power of USB 4, these adapters enable users to achieve 10GbE or 25GbE network speeds, making them ideal for applications requiring fast data transfers and low latency. This series includes five distinct models: the ONA-LIC10G1T, which offers a single 10GBASE-T connection; the ONA-UC10G1SF, which provides a single 10GbE SFP+ connection; the ONA-UC10G2T, featuring dual 10GBASE-T connections; the ONA-UC10G2SF, offering dual 10GbE SFP+ connections; and the ONA-UC25G2SF, which supports dual 25GbE SFP28 connections. Each model is designed to cater to specific networking needs, ensuring versatility and high performance.

One of the most notable aspects of the QNA USB 4 Type C Network Adapter series is its status as the first USB4 to 10/25GbE adapter on the market. Traditionally, achieving these high-speed connections required the use of PCIe cards, which often limited flexibility and portability. By bringing these capabilities to a compact, USB4-enabled device, QNAP has significantly simplified the process of upgrading network speeds, allowing users to easily integrate these adapters into their existing setups without the need for internal hardware modifications.

The fanless design of these adapters reduces noise and enhances heat dissipation through exterior groove slots on the casing, ensuring efficient operation even under heavy load. The lightweight and portable nature of the adapters, coupled with the included USB 4 C to C cable, makes them easy to set up and use on the go. It is important to note that these adapters are not backward compatible with USB 3, so users must ensure their systems have USB 4 ports. The ONA-UC25G2SF model includes two USB 4 Type C ports, one for power delivery (requiring a minimum of 27W) and one for data transfer, although a power adapter is not included. These features demonstrate QNAP’s commitment to providing flexible, high-performance networking solutions that meet the demands of modern computing environments.

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The Phison PCIe Gen 5 SSD – 56 GB per second demo!

Phison has been one of the biggest players in the world of solid-state drive controllers, so it isn’t a huge surprise that they are making a significant splash at the event. Gen 5 integration has been slow but steady over the last 12 months. In previous years, we have seen Phison demo the use of their drives in bulk via PCIe storage upgrade cards, and 2024 is no exception. On display at their stand is a 16x M.2 NVMe Gen 5 x16 storage expansion card, fully populated with 12 GB per second R/W M.2 NVMe drives – pretty wild.

If you attend the Computex event, I strongly recommend heading over to their stand, as they currently have the system running on constant rotation. The speeds do fluctuate slightly with each test, but at peak, they state the test can hit 56 GB (crucially, not gigabit) per second sequential read and 54 GB per second sequential write. This is fast approaching the full saturation of the PCIe Gen 5 x16 bandwidth.

Indeed, you could probably get away with fully saturating the system with Gen 4 SSDs and edge close to these numbers. But it is only with the Gen 5 SSDs that you can achieve such saturation and sustain it.

Likewise, when it comes to 4K random IOPS, although the demonstration numbers do fluctuate a little at the top end, Phison states that this setup was able to hit 20 million 4K reads and 19 million 4K write IOPS. It’s a significant achievement, and although Gen 5 SSDs continue to be at the more expensive end of the market, it is still a nice indication that Gen 5 drives in bulk can achieve larger sustained numbers in a way that single drives struggle with over long-term use. These are, of course, synthetic tests, and real-world performance numbers will no doubt be lower, but crucially even these realistic and non-synthetic numbers will be a great deal higher than those we’ve seen previously via PCIe cards, thanks to the Gen 5 push.

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QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS Devices

(Pictures Coming Soon)

The QNAP TS-432X and TS-632X NAS devices are designed for small to medium-sized businesses requiring robust and high-speed storage solutions. Powered by a quad-core 2.0GHz AnnapurnaLabs AL-524 processor, these NAS devices ensure powerful performance for various tasks. The TS-432X features four drive bays, while the TS-632X offers six, providing ample storage capacity. Both models support expandable memory up to 16GB RAM, catering to the data backup, recovery, and virtualized storage needs of SMBs. The built-in 10GbE SFP+ and 2.5GbE RJ45 ports deliver exceptional network connectivity, making these devices ideal for environments demanding high-speed data transfers.

In addition to their impressive hardware specifications, the TS-432X and TS-632X are equipped with one PCIe Gen3 x4 slot, allowing for various expansion options, including network cards and M.2 cards. The pre-installed 4GB Non-ECC memory can be upgraded via a DDR4 SODIMM slot, with ECC support available for enhanced reliability. These features, combined with the versatile connectivity options and powerful processor, make the TS-432X and TS-632X excellent choices for SMBs looking to optimize their storage infrastructure and ensure efficient data management.

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DRAMless Gen 5 SSDs

Last year, when we attended Computex, we touched on the fact that Phison discussed their work towards a DRAMless SSD controller for Gen 5 SSDs. Although DRAM-free SSDs are not for everyone, due to the potential throttling that can be caused by a lack of onboard RAM during intense performance, there is still demand for this style of drive. This is both because they increase affordability and because they allow for more energy-efficient systems to take advantage of the high performance offered by Gen 5. I’m pleased to say that, although last year it seemed more theoretical with the art backroom prototype, the Phison E31T controller is now a reality, with several examples on display at their stands this year. Although Phison typically does not sell their SSDs directly (though they do produce some of their own labeled drives at the enterprise level), the rollout of a DRAMless Gen 5 SSD will no doubt gain attention as other vendors hop on board. I fully expect Seagate, Patriot, and more to launch their own DRAMless SSDs in the coming months. Phison’s SSD Controller E31T is a cutting-edge solution designed to meet the demands of next-generation storage devices.

Leveraging the PCIe Gen5x4 interface and built on the TSMC 7nm process, the E31T controller offers exceptional performance and efficiency. Its DRAM-less design is complemented by a 4-channel architecture with 16 CEs, supporting up to 8TB of capacity with 3D TLC/QLC NAND. The integration of an ARM Cortex R5 CPU ensures robust processing capabilities, while Phison’s 7th Gen LDPC and RAID ECC provide advanced error correction. Additionally, the E31T supports security features such as AES256 encryption, TCG Opal, and Pyrite, making it a comprehensive solution for high-performance and secure storage. In terms of performance, the E31T controller achieves remarkable sequential read and write speeds exceeding 10,000 MB/s, along with random read and write IOPS of 1,500K. This makes it particularly suitable for applications requiring high throughput and low latency, such as data centers, enterprise storage solutions, and high-end consumer SSDs. The controller’s ability to maintain high performance with existing 3600MT/s NAND, despite different configurations and power limitations, underscores its versatility and efficiency. As the market increasingly adopts PCIe Gen5 technology, the E31T stands poised to drive the next wave of storage innovation.

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Redriver PS7162 – PCIe 6 ?

The Redriver PS7162 from Phison is designed to enhance the performance of PCIe 6.0 systems, making it a crucial component for future-proofing high-speed data transmission. Supporting an 8-channel (non-interleaved) configuration and featuring I2C mode, this redriver optimizes signal integrity and reduces pin count through 4-level I/O for EQ and GAIN settings. Its impressive 20dB max EQ boosting range and 70ps ultra-low latency ensure minimal signal degradation, crucial for maintaining high-speed data transfers. The PS7162’s package type is FCLGA, utilizing the SiGe BiCMOS process for improved performance and reliability. Additionally, the “PHiTUNE” Auto-EQ tuning tool provides automated adjustments, simplifying the optimization process for PCIe 6.0 systems.

• PCIe Gen 6.0
• 8-Channel (Non-interleaved)
• 4-Level I/O for EQ and GAIN
settings to reduce pin count
• Pin-to-pin vs. PCIe 5.0
• 20dB max EQ boosting range
• 70ps ultra-low latency
• Package type: FCLGA
• SiGe BiCMOS process
• “PHiTUNE “ Auto-EQ tuning tool
• Optimized Linearity for PCIe 6.

The Redriver PS7162’s design and capabilities make it an essential component for advancing PCIe 6.0 technology. Its optimized linearity and performance in a PCIe 6.0 (PAM4) system environment enable it to handle the increased data rates and complexities associated with this next-generation interface. By providing robust signal amplification and minimizing latency, the PS7162 ensures that systems can fully leverage the bandwidth and speed improvements of PCIe 6.0. This makes it ideal for high-performance computing environments, data centers, and any application requiring reliable and efficient data transmission at the highest speeds.

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U21 USB 4 External SSD – Go Native

The U21 USB 4 External SSD by Phison stands out as a high-performance storage solution tailored for modern data needs. With its Native USB4 (40Gbps) interface, it promises ultra-fast data transfer rates, making it ideal for tasks requiring high-speed data access and storage. Built on the advanced TSMC 12nm process, this SSD features a DRAM-less design and a 4-channel architecture with 16 CEs, supporting up to 16TB of storage capacity. It leverages 3D TLC/QLC NAND technology, which ensures high density and reliability. The integration of Phison’s 7th Gen LDPC and RAID ECC provides robust error correction, while AES256 encryption ensures data security. The U21 is also backwards compatible with legacy USB standards, making it versatile for use with a wide range of devices.

Performance-wise, the U21 USB 4 External SSD boasts impressive sequential read and write speeds of up to 4,000 MB/s. This makes it an excellent choice for users needing rapid access to large files, such as video editors, gamers, and IT professionals. Despite its high performance, the SSD maintains a compact form factor (U32C), making it a portable yet powerful storage option. Whether for professional use or personal data management, the U21 USB 4 External SSD offers a blend of speed, security, and storage capacity, setting a new standard for external SSDs in the market.

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More News will be added throughout the week of June 3rd – June 8th 2024 – Subscribe below to get alerts whenever it is updated.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
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Join Inner Circle

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

WE LOVE COFFEE

 

Alors que le Computex 2024 vient d’ouvrir ses portes, QNAP présente ses produits conçus pour répondre aux besoins complexes de l’IA, de la haute disponibilité, de l’édition vidéo… et la sauvegarde isolée (Airgap+). Sur son stand, le fabricant a dévoilé les produits suivants :  TS-h1277AFX, TS-765eU, QSW-M3224-24T, TL-D810TC4, QNA-UC10G1T/QNA-UC10G1SF et QAI-M100/QAI-U100. IA à tous les étages Tous les jours, nous voyons/lisons des articles sur l’Intelligence Artificielle : ses avancées, sa rapidité, ses nouvelles capacités… et comment elle va révolutionner notre quotidien (ou pas). QNAP n’y échappe pas. Le fabricant a mis en avant ses NAS haute performance optimisés pour les […]
Lire la suite : Computex 2024 : QNAP présente ses nouveautés autour de l’IA et la HA

Phison at Computex 2024 – What Was On Show?

Note – this is a pre-launch article based on what I saw on the setup-day of cOMPUTEX 2024 (3/6/24). A fuller update to this article will be made after the Computex Launch day on 4/6 and a YouTube Video too.

A regular veteran of Computex, Phison is once again on show here at the Taipei-based Computex 2024 event, bringing a few follow-ups on products premiered last year, as well as some brand new and exciting innovations.

The 56 GB per second demo!

Phison has been one of the biggest players in the world of solid-state drive controllers, so it isn’t a huge surprise that they are making a significant splash at the event. Gen 5 integration has been slow but steady over the last 12 months. In previous years, we have seen Phison demo the use of their drives in bulk via PCIe storage upgrade cards, and 2024 is no exception. On display at their stand is a 16x M.2 NVMe Gen 5 x16 storage expansion card, fully populated with 12 GB per second R/W M.2 NVMe drives – pretty wild.

If you attend the Computex event, I strongly recommend heading over to their stand, as they currently have the system running on constant rotation. The speeds do fluctuate slightly with each test, but at peak, they state the test can hit 56 GB (crucially, not gigabit) per second sequential read and 54 GB per second sequential write. This is fast approaching the full saturation of the PCIe Gen 5 x16 bandwidth.

Indeed, you could probably get away with fully saturating the system with Gen 4 SSDs and edge close to these numbers. But it is only with the Gen 5 SSDs that you can achieve such saturation and sustain it.

Likewise, when it comes to 4K random IOPS, although the demonstration numbers do fluctuate a little at the top end, Phison states that this setup was able to hit 20 million 4K reads and 19 million 4K write IOPS. It’s a significant achievement, and although Gen 5 SSDs continue to be at the more expensive end of the market, it is still a nice indication that Gen 5 drives in bulk can achieve larger sustained numbers in a way that single drives struggle with over long-term use. These are, of course, synthetic tests, and real-world performance numbers will no doubt be lower, but crucially even these realistic and non-synthetic numbers will be a great deal higher than those we’ve seen previously via PCIe cards, thanks to the Gen 5 push.

DRAMless Gen 5 SSDs

Last year, when we attended Computex, we touched on the fact that Phison discussed their work towards a DRAMless SSD controller for Gen 5 SSDs. Although DRAM-free SSDs are not for everyone, due to the potential throttling that can be caused by a lack of onboard RAM during intense performance, there is still demand for this style of drive. This is both because they increase affordability and because they allow for more energy-efficient systems to take advantage of the high performance offered by Gen 5. I’m pleased to say that, although last year it seemed more theoretical with the art backroom prototype, the Phison E31T controller is now a reality, with several examples on display at their stands this year. Although Phison typically does not sell their SSDs directly (though they do produce some of their own labeled drives at the enterprise level), the rollout of a DRAMless Gen 5 SSD will no doubt gain attention as other vendors hop on board. I fully expect Seagate, Patriot, and more to launch their own DRAMless SSDs in the coming months. Phison’s SSD Controller E31T is a cutting-edge solution designed to meet the demands of next-generation storage devices.

Leveraging the PCIe Gen5x4 interface and built on the TSMC 7nm process, the E31T controller offers exceptional performance and efficiency. Its DRAM-less design is complemented by a 4-channel architecture with 16 CEs, supporting up to 8TB of capacity with 3D TLC/QLC NAND. The integration of an ARM Cortex R5 CPU ensures robust processing capabilities, while Phison’s 7th Gen LDPC and RAID ECC provide advanced error correction. Additionally, the E31T supports security features such as AES256 encryption, TCG Opal, and Pyrite, making it a comprehensive solution for high-performance and secure storage. In terms of performance, the E31T controller achieves remarkable sequential read and write speeds exceeding 10,000 MB/s, along with random read and write IOPS of 1,500K. This makes it particularly suitable for applications requiring high throughput and low latency, such as data centers, enterprise storage solutions, and high-end consumer SSDs. The controller’s ability to maintain high performance with existing 3600MT/s NAND, despite different configurations and power limitations, underscores its versatility and efficiency. As the market increasingly adopts PCIe Gen5 technology, the E31T stands poised to drive the next wave of storage innovation.

Redriver PS7162 – PCIe 6 ?

The Redriver PS7162 from Phison is designed to enhance the performance of PCIe 6.0 systems, making it a crucial component for future-proofing high-speed data transmission. Supporting an 8-channel (non-interleaved) configuration and featuring I2C mode, this redriver optimizes signal integrity and reduces pin count through 4-level I/O for EQ and GAIN settings. Its impressive 20dB max EQ boosting range and 70ps ultra-low latency ensure minimal signal degradation, crucial for maintaining high-speed data transfers. The PS7162’s package type is FCLGA, utilizing the SiGe BiCMOS process for improved performance and reliability. Additionally, the “PHiTUNE” Auto-EQ tuning tool provides automated adjustments, simplifying the optimization process for PCIe 6.0 systems.

• PCIe Gen 6.0
• 8-Channel (Non-interleaved)
• 4-Level I/O for EQ and GAIN
settings to reduce pin count
• Pin-to-pin vs. PCIe 5.0
• 20dB max EQ boosting range
• 70ps ultra-low latency
• Package type: FCLGA
• SiGe BiCMOS process
• “PHiTUNE “ Auto-EQ tuning tool
• Optimized Linearity for PCIe 6.

The Redriver PS7162’s design and capabilities make it an essential component for advancing PCIe 6.0 technology. Its optimized linearity and performance in a PCIe 6.0 (PAM4) system environment enable it to handle the increased data rates and complexities associated with this next-generation interface. By providing robust signal amplification and minimizing latency, the PS7162 ensures that systems can fully leverage the bandwidth and speed improvements of PCIe 6.0. This makes it ideal for high-performance computing environments, data centers, and any application requiring reliable and efficient data transmission at the highest speeds.

U21 USB 4 External SSD – Go Native

The U21 USB 4 External SSD by Phison stands out as a high-performance storage solution tailored for modern data needs. With its Native USB4 (40Gbps) interface, it promises ultra-fast data transfer rates, making it ideal for tasks requiring high-speed data access and storage. Built on the advanced TSMC 12nm process, this SSD features a DRAM-less design and a 4-channel architecture with 16 CEs, supporting up to 16TB of storage capacity. It leverages 3D TLC/QLC NAND technology, which ensures high density and reliability. The integration of Phison’s 7th Gen LDPC and RAID ECC provides robust error correction, while AES256 encryption ensures data security. The U21 is also backwards compatible with legacy USB standards, making it versatile for use with a wide range of devices.

Performance-wise, the U21 USB 4 External SSD boasts impressive sequential read and write speeds of up to 4,000 MB/s. This makes it an excellent choice for users needing rapid access to large files, such as video editors, gamers, and IT professionals. Despite its high performance, the SSD maintains a compact form factor (U32C), making it a portable yet powerful storage option. Whether for professional use or personal data management, the U21 USB 4 External SSD offers a blend of speed, security, and storage capacity, setting a new standard for external SSDs in the market.

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Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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Aujourd’hui, nous vous proposons de découvrir un produit du fabricant GL.iNet. Il s’agit d’un mini routeur WiFi très complet : le GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX). Comme nous allons le découvrir ensemble, ce boitier cache de nombreux atouts, notamment ses dimensions, son poids, le Wi-Fi 6, le multi-Gig… et son prix. En effet, il faut bien l’avouer, le tarif annoncé de 82€ nous a plus que surpris au regard des caractéristiques techniques. Mais que vaut réellement ce boitier ? Quel système est embarqué à l’intérieur ? Comment se déroulent les mises à jour ? Combien d’appareils peuvent s’y connecter ? Quelle couverture […]
Lire la suite : Prise en main du routeur de voyage GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX)

CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – SUPER COMPACT NVMe NAS?

Have you noticed just how diverse the world of DiY NAS has become? I’m old enough to remember when ‘Do It Yourself’ or Build Your Own’ (BYO) in the server world would mean converting an old PC case. Then things got SMALLER! The Rasperry Pi, the Mini PC and eventually we started to see consumer and hobbiest kit in NAS that was smaller than most domestic appliances and client hardware! But there has always been a trade-off with minimalization. Maybe it’s CPU power, CPU architecture, maximum memory or just plane old storage potential. This is where the CWWK x86 P5 steps into things. Build as a 64bit x86 alternative to Raspberry Pi devices, this architecture is not exactly new. Indeed, there are a slew of DiY/Open-Source ready Routers on the market built towards Pfsense and the like for years now, so what makes the CWWK x86 P5 something different? Well, it’s because this device shifts gears from being primarily about network management, and towards NVMe SSD Flash-based SSD storage. Running on an Intel N100 4-Core processor (N200 and N305 versions also available) that is rated at just 6W, the P5 supports up to 32GB of DDR5 memory and FOUR M.2 Gen3 SSD slots and 2 SATA drive connections (more eon that later). This all adds up towards a fantastically low power-consuming but highly capable system! Built with those with a DiY attitude, the system is a semi-bare board that is just ready to be scaled up and built into your next custom server setup with the likes of UnRAID and TrueNAS. But, is the P5 actually any good? Let’s discuss it in today’s hardware review.

Component	Details
Brand	CWWK
Model	x86 P5
Processor	Intel N100
Clock Speed	Base: 800Mhz – to 3.6Ghz
Memory	DDR4 SO-DIMM slot, up to 32GB 4800Mhz
Storage SATA	2x SATA-to-12pin
M.2 Slots	4 x M.2 NVMe slot
Network Interface	2 x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports
USB Ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10G)
Display Outputs	2X HDMI 4K 60FPS
Power Supply	12V DC input
Operating System	Supports Windows 10/11, Linux distributions, and FreeNAS/TrueNAS
Additional Features	Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 for data redundancy and performance, OS Dependant
Cooling	Passive heatsink, supports additional fan VIA INCLUDED KIT
BIOS	UEFI
Audio	Realtek ALC662 5.1-channel audio codec
Accessories	SATA cables, power adapter, user manual

 

Where to Buy? CWWK x86 P5 NVMe NAS Board ($155 AliExpress) – HERE CWWK x86 P5 Barebones + Case ($239 Amazon) – HERE

CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – Quick Conclusion

It is INCREDIBLY difficult to find fault with the CWWK x86 P5 NVMe SSD NAS Board when you boil it down to the $150 price tag. The P5 is by no means a perfect device and it is insanely niche in its appeal to DiY homelabbers and those looking for a new ‘plaything’ SSD server, but for what you are getting here for the money (up to and including the PSU, fan kits and SATA-to-12pin cables) just kinda dissolves any of the shortcomings of the device, as it seems obvious that at this value, compromises need to be made. With the diminishing cost of M.2 NVMe SSD storage and the growing market for affordable M.2 SSD NAS solutions in the market, the P5 is a great first choice for those looking to dip their toe into private server ownership without breaking the bank. The base level hardware of the N100/N200/N305 processor, 4x Gen 3 m.2, 2×2.5GbE and ability to still add 2x SATA drives is a great foundation, especially when you look into the lower power consumption of this hardware too. There will be those that will complain about the base model not including memory, but at this price point CWWK would have had to opt for fixed flash memory, which would have been overall limited long term – so better to give a flexible SODIMM to scale up to 32GB at your own choice/budget. The performance of the P5 is not exactly going to blow you away of course, and I would definitely recommend investing in a little more active/passive cooling if you plan on running this 24×7, but overall for the $150, this is an absolute BARGAIN!!!

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CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – Design & Hardware

Despite the marketing materials for the x86 P5 heavy highlighting how the device is ‘barebones’ and ‘a NAS Board’, I think they are doing themselves something of a disservice here. It’s ALOT more complete than a lot of the NAS enthusiasts have been offered in recent years. It arrives with the CPU already in place, already fitted to an huge heat sink, it includes an external PSU, SATA-to-12 pin cables and even a fan mounting and desk kit. There is no included memory or storage in the base model (though there are options listed on their site) and you are definitely going to want to buy heatsinks for those m.2s (more on that later), but as a ‘barebones’ purchase, it’s pretty insanely good value at a little over $150.

The included mounting fans ARE optional and if you only plan on low-moderate daily use, you may not even need theM, but I am nonetheless impressed that these are included when many other brand would have put these are optional extras. The retail kit is pretty well protected, 2 layers of foam, a cardboard frame internally, accessories in their own bags and the unit itself is in a robust antistatic bag.

Right now, the only alternative product to this in the market of a similar 1 board architecture would be the likes of the Zimaboard/Zimablade from IceWhale. A a quick ‘aside’ the video below outlines that product, what was good and what was not:

The top mounted metallic heatsink is HUGE and it pretty much exclusively there to draw heat from the Intel N100/N200/N305 CPU, as the SSDs are mounted on a sister/riser board (more on that later). There is no active cooling by default (though you have those fan mounting kits included) but this heatsink is pretty great for the N100/N200, though I do wonder about the 8-Core N305-i3 model at peak use.

The device does not feature any included NAS Operating system (no OS drive included in the $150 option), but running TrueNAS r UnRAID was incredibly straight forward and I can confirm that all storage (both the M.2 and the SATA over 12pin) were visible in both of those popular NAS OS. However, it is worth mentioning once again that heatsinks or even just heatshields for those M.2 NVMe SSD bays are pretty essential if you are aiming for sustained use. I had the device running for 30 mins of relatively light tests on each drive and, even after a brief reboot to recalibrate, all four drives were throwing me 65-70+ degree warnings in UnRAID pretty quickly.

When looking a little more about the default configurations, you can see that CWWK have not missed a trick! With scaled memory versions all the way up to 32GB and fully populated SSD options on the table. I am unsure which brands of SSD or Memory you would receive, but given my experience with reviewing solutions like this, I would expect Samsung Memory, but unbranded/lesser-known SSD drives. You will pay penny’s for them, but their durability and reliability is up for question! It’s your call!

Another small grip is regarding the external PSU. On the one side, it’s a decent quality 36W PSU that has international clip replacement – and these clips are like 4 for a $1 on Aliexpress, so you will have easy global connection for  this device with ease. Plus USB to Barrel adapters are pretty common too these days, so the option to deploy the P5 with a USB power connection is pretty easy to do too (see my video here on how to run a consumer NAS on a USB Battery Pack on YouTube). Running on a 6W TDP rated CPU and 4 M.2 massively reduces the potential power consumption, so all good so far, right?

HOWEVER! It is 2024… why is this device not arriving with USB-C Power? It would be so, so much more convenient and there are plenty of affordable/domestic USB-C PSU devices in the market that would allow for further eWaste!

Next, lets discuss the means to attached two SATA drives to the system. Adding SATA support to such a microboard with a CPU that only has 8/9 PCI Lanes to play with was always going to be tough! Adding a physical SATA-to-PCIe controller would have been the easiest way, but might not have been the most efficient. Instead (again, drawing comparisons to the ZimaBlade and ZimaBoard) the P5 has two 12 pin connectors and includes 2x SATA-to-12pin cables for attaching two drives.

I can also confirm that when I connected a SATA SSD, it appeared without any additional power needed (it was delivered to the dual SATA POWER + DATA cable). I do have questions about the extent to which it would power something beefier (a 24TB HDD for example), but I did not have these in place in time for this review – I will be returning to this later in a follow-up video on the YouTube Channel soon.

The four M.2 NVMe SSD slots are located on the other side of the P5 device and its a very clean layout. Supporting up to 2280 length M.2 NVMe SSDs, there are no thermal pads or heatsinks included with the CWWK x86 P5 NAS kit.

Each M.2 connector has moderate clearance from the base PCB and appear to be PCIe 3×4 (going by the board print), however, there are mixed messages on different sites listing the CWWK P5, with some stating Gen 3×2, or 3×1 on the SSD slots and others saying 3×4.

Digging into the terminal, we can see that although they ARE physically 3×4, they have been downgraded to 3X1. Not a massive surprise for this architecture – for reasons of efficient resource distribution, lane distribution and/or heat. But A little closer look physically at the device under the M.2 PCB shows a little something…

The M.2 Board seems to be fed into a separate pinned m.2 2280 board that, in turn, is connected into a m.2 located on the CPU/Memory PCB.

Unscrewing the M.2 PCB reveals that it sits on this sister 2280 m.2 board (not unlike a M.2 to SATA-MULTI-PORT card. This is an interesting approach and would definitely make the 3×1 on each m.2 slot a lot understandable when you know that the base M.2 is handling them all.

This adapter is definitely a custom-specific board for this system, to allow it to add to the initial board design (which is often used in those custom pfsense ready routers/gateway devices from CWWK and topton).

And the m.2 allocation does not stop there. Under THAT card there was a further small scale m.2 for a WiFi adapter card. I am surprised that CWWK did not include an Intel WiFi 6/6e adapter in their bundles (these are crazy cheap). That said, this would also mean that you would have to factor in the antenna – and things are already pretty crammed in here!

Unscrewing this board further reveals the CPU and top massive ehatsink connection. One detail it would have been easy to miss is that the massive heatsink has a small copper panel directly on the CPU (with thermal paste). This is a nice extra touch and one that most users will likely never even know about, adding heat conduction and dissipation.

I also wanted to highlight that another small detail that it would be easy for users to never notice is that the heatsink has been cut to ensure it has clearance for several conductor components, as to ensure they are not negatively impacted by the heatsink. It’s a very, very small detail, but does show that a decent degree of thought has gone into this plate and it’s specifically designed for this micro board layout.

The N100/N200/N305 CPU you find under this panel will differ in cores, threads, power and TDP, but all three are SoC/Mobile processors that are designed to run tremendously efficiently – which in a 24×7 NAS setup is pretty bloody important, especially with rising costs of electricity globally in 2024.

With the system fully populated with 4x M.2 NVMe SSDs, 1x SATA 2,5″ SSD, an 8GB DDR5 4800Mhz memory SODIMM module and the CPU at 50% utilization for 20 minutes, the CPU peaked at 22-23W. This is a pretty impressively low, even if we factor in that this is an exclusively SSD-focused system in my test. In idle, without the SSDs being access, this dropped to a little over 10W

One thing that might annoy a few of the SSD NAS veteran users is the lack of ECC memory on the P5. This is going to be a massive debating point for many, but given the $150 pricetag and it’s a large focus on keeping things compact and efficient, it’s not a huge surprise that CWWK has opted for a much more affordable and low energy-consuming CPU – which unsurprisingly does not support ECC. This is NOT a system built for ‘integral business data’ and that is not the target user either. Maybe if CWWK extend this system architecture and logic towards some of the AMD emb.Ryzen processors, then ECC might arrive, but for now you can install up to 1x 32GB DDR 4800Mhz SODIMM module in the P5.

Given the scale and price point, you cannot really fault the CWWK x86 P5 – as a more powerful alternative to a raspberry pi, that also has tremendous M.2 NVMe SSD NAS storage and SATA scalability, there is simply nothing out there for this price point! The lack of ECC is going to put some users off and the 3×1 lanes per SSD might be too limiting of some, but at $150+, it’s a hard case to make! Let’s discuss the ports and connections.

CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – Ports and Connections

Give the scale of the CWWK x86 P5, you will not be surprised to know that there are not exactly a tonne of ports on show here. That said, they still do manage to squeeze in a decent amount, though there is no means to scale things up (beyond a USB hub or USB NIC), as there is no PCIe slot accessible (as you might find in the Zimaboard and Zimablade). In terms of network interfaces, there are two 2.5GbE network ports, as well as (depending on the NAS OS you choose to install) the option to attach USB-to-2.5G and USB-to-5GbE network adapters.

There are also two HDMI 4K 60FPS outputs (no DP) which will have a varied degree of utility, based on your NAS OS of choice.

As the system uses an external power button, there is a physical LED power button too. As the P5 is a modification of the hardware logic of the custom pfsense/router scene, this button is in a fixed location and not really movable with ease. This will make custom micro case installations a little troublesome.

The system does come with extendable ‘legs’ that allow you to stand the P5 on a desk horizontally, with the M.2 SSDs at the top, case-free. I cannot help by feel like this design, though not great, is still the best option of plenty of bad ones!

You could mount the device on a cage, attaching SATA drives into the SATA cage cavities, but this all still feels very ‘coffee cup’ dangerous! As an ‘add on’ module to an existing encased homelab, I like this, but as a standalone system, I wish it afforded a little more protection out of the box (optional plastic/metal casing included with the kit for like $5 more). Let’s discuss the architecture of the x86 P5.

CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – PCIe Layout / Performance

When it came to checking out the bios (this is a great deal clearer in the video review) CWWK have pretty much opened everything up to customization, with little ‘hard’ pre-set in place. For a system destined for massively diverse 3rd party installation use, I respect this greatly!

In terms of performance, those SSDs on Gen 3×1 lanes each became pretty clear (also, add to that the efficiency-focused N100 Processor in this review unit). I was hitting around 784MBs read performance on repeated/sustained 1GB tests on a single drive, and hit 1.3-1.4GB/s on the 4 drives in a RAID 5 array. Obviously, this was internal performance, as by default you cannot exceed 550-579MB/s on 2×2.5GbE (maybe with a couple of USB-to-5G adapters at $70-90 a pop, you might get closer).

However, write performance was much more disappointing and quickly diminishing, starting at around the 600MB/s and heading down as low as 250-300MB/s upon sustained 1GB write tests (see below). The SATA connected SSD comfortably hit 470MB/s Read over 425MB/s Write on avg.

However, probably the most damning performance number was when I actioned 1GB of data to be copied between single-disks. This would rarely exceed 150MB/s and after a couple of minutes descended into double digits! How much of this was caused by oversaturation on those 4 M2 Gen3x1 drives having to be negotiated by that m.2 mounted sister board is hard to say. The CPU worked VERY hard during this comparatively modest procedure and the drive temps crept up very fast!

All this added up to the fact that the x86 P5, though very good at short-term use and sporadic activity with ease, it struggled under heavy sustained write actions. Also, the shortfalls of feeding those 4 M.2 SSDs into a single into a single adapter bring into question how a larger RAID array on them would perform over a great deal of time and/or a RAID rebuild. Not ‘bad’, but it definitely demonstrated one of the compromises in architecture that needed to be made to hit the $150 price tag.

CWWK x86 P5 NAS Review – Conclusion & Verdict

It is INCREDIBLY difficult to find fault with the CWWK x86 P5 NVMe SSD NAS Board when you boil it down to the $150 price tag. The P5 is by no means a perfect device and it is insanely niche in its appeal to DiY homelabbers and those looking for a new ‘plaything’ SSD server, but for what you are getting here for the money (up to and including the PSU, fan kits and SATA-to-12pin cables) just kinda dissolves any of the shortcomings of the device, as it seems obvious that at this value, compromises need to be made. With the diminishing cost of M.2 NVMe SSD storage and the growing market for affordable M.2 SSD NAS solutions in the market, the P5 is a great first choice for those looking to dip their toe into private server ownership without breaking the bank. The base level hardware of the N100/N200/N305 processor, 4x Gen 3 m.2, 2×2.5GbE and ability to still add 2x SATA drives is a great foundation, especially when you look into the lower power consumption of this hardware too. There will be those that will complain about the base model not including memory, but at this price point CWWK would have had to opt for fixed flash memory, which would have been overall limited long term – so better to give a flexible SODIMM to scale up to 32GB at your own choice/budget. The performance of the P5 is not exactly going to blow you away of course, and I would definitely recommend investing in a little more active/passive cooling if you plan on running this 24×7, but overall for the $150, this is an absolute BARGAIN!!!

PROS of the CWWK x86 P5

CONs of the CWWK x86 P5

Cannot argue with the price 4x M.2 NVMe is impressive for scale The N100/N200/N300 Balance power, ability and consumption very well scalability of memory up to 32GB TWIN 2.5GbE and ability to add 2x more 2.5G/5G with adapters (OS Dependant) Kit includes PSU and Fan kit Complete in-house design = well-made heatsink with hidden details Two SATA drives can be connected, which can be overlooked easily WiFi M.2 Adapter slot Included

Lack of USB-C Power Gets HOT SSD Write performance and Drive-to-Drive copying has poor sustained numbers!

Where to Buy? CWWK x86 P5 NVMe NAS Board ($155 AliExpress) – HERE CWWK x86 P5 Barebones + Case ($239 Amazon) – HERE

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This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. [contact-form-7] TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

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