Yes, my idea is to install TrueNAS to an m.2 drive (I have some 16GB M10 Optane sticks laying around, might be enough). I just want to have it better than the 16 years old Synology with 256MB of ram that can’t even saturate Gb network.
That’s a valid question, I was hoping to be a bit more future-proof if I throw the proprietary system out the window from the start. I don’t care for any of the bundled services, as I just want to use the box as an actual NAS. If I do move my torrent client onto it, I’ll easily do it in an LXC (just like I have it now in PVE).
Basically, I was just hoping to find out whether I can realistically expect up to 2x 1Gb performance out of the DXP4800. And to have it work for 10 years. I don’t have the time and money for a bigger project right now. If there was a 6-bay (ish) box of similar size, cost and power requirements, then that’s the only other thing I’d be more interested in.
if you are getting 50MB/s on a 1Gbps network, something else is wrong.
Right now, i’m syncing files to a T5400 (single X5450 quad core xeon) over a 1Gbps network. I’m getting about 120MB/s. Nothing fancy here.
if you are just looking for NAS, no need for fancy hardware - my main NAS is a Dell SC440 (dual core, 4GB). I routinely get over 100MB/s on that thing, while it runs a few containers.
i looked it up and it does seem to be on the low-end.
still, i have ran nas over a wide spectrum of machines and my SC440 (dual core + 4GB) would be more than adequate. So I think you would be fine if you stay at or above that.
The highest spec I have ran my NAS severs are 14-core, 128GB and dual 1Gbps ports. Zero practical difference vs. my lowly SC440.
If I were you, I would spend that money on storage.
That picture changes drastically if your use case goes beyond just NAS.
For your current use, the N100’s performance is more than adequate. I’m using an N6000 processor, running a qBittorrent container with approximately 3,000 torrents, an OpenWrt virtual machine, and 10 other containers, including Jellyfin, ADG Home, Syncthing, and Prometheus.
With a proxy like Sing-Box enabled in OpenWrt while qBittorrent downloads at 10MB/s, CPU utilization hovers around 90%. With Sing-Box disabled, CPU utilization remains below 50% most of the time.
The N100’s performance is about one-third higher than the N6000, so CPU performance isn’t a bottleneck for you. I recommend increasing the RAM and prioritizing disk scalability.
Thank you for this! I’d like to download with more than 10MB/s, say 50-70MB/s - would the CPU be a bottleneck for that? Also what exactly eats up 16 gigs of ram on a system like that? ZFS cache I know about, but if I’m only transferring/streaming large media files… I can’t see how that benefits from caching that much.
Zfs ARC caching, which eats a lot of ram, keeps your speeds up and reduces the need to deal with spinning disks because things are coming out of ram. As we all know, ram is faster than basically any storage device, so if the box is streaming the same media file five times in a row, it’s nice to have it streaming that file from ram and not hammering on your spinning rust when it doesn’t have to.
Zfs and by proxy Truenas should get a ton of ram for this function alone, it reduces reliance on disk speed or lack thereof. When I added a silly amount of ram to my main box it actually knocked hours off my scrub times for a big pool.
Someone with more in depth knowledge of how the arc works can elaborate further but generally speaking, you want to max out your ram for best performance.
…with a possible caveat about the 40 mm fan in the PSU making a faint but unpleasant high-pitch noise. After looking for replacement PSUs, which ended up having only a minor version of the same defect, I ended up opening up the PSUs to give them the Noctua treatment.
Mine doesn’t unless the pitch is so high that my age induced loss of hearing in the higher frequencies is already kicking in. But generally I do hear quite well
The N100 CPU is often used in portable computers like the NUC, which typically come with a 1000Mbps wired network card and a WiFi 6 wireless card. Unless you have a compute-intensive network stack, such as running applications like deep packet inspection and behavioral analysis, you shouldn’t worry about CPU performance impacting network speed.
This is a typical spec for a NUC computer on Amazon. You can check out its specs page to see the N100’s capabilities: Amazon.com
I use a 12V, 29A switching power supply with a default 60x20mm built-in axial cooling fan. Because the power supply is relatively small, the fan faces significant air resistance from components like the transformer and capacitors. Furthermore, I added a filter to the air inlet to reduce dust, which resulted in considerable wind noise. (After all, these switching power supplies are mostly used in industrial applications and aren’t designed with noise in mind.)
After three attempts, I replaced the axial cooling fan with a 60x15mm centrifugal fan, which reduced the noise level to an acceptable level for me.
If fan noise is a concern and the fan size is relatively small, consider using a centrifugal fan. These can be installed at the air inlet for inward airflow (although the airflow is directional) or at the exhaust for extraction.
I saw only one comment answering OP, I’ll add mine.
I use an n150 motherboard with 16Gb of ram.
It is the same CPU with a better GPU (in short).
I have 3 SSD attached (plus boot SSD), and 5 SATA drives as well, and an integrated 10Gb Ethernet connection.
It manages to download at 6-8Gb/s, and in general, it largely delivers the maximum capacity of WiFi, and 2.5Gb/s Ethernet as well for the hard drives.
It also has some containers, and half of ram is used for services hosted by Truenas, and it works well.
So, here, OP just wants to use his NAS as a NAS without services attached.
The n100 with 8Gb is going to be weeeeeeell enough for him.
The RAM upgrade might be a plus though, so look if you can replace it later.
In short, the n100 on a 2.5Gb connection with 8GB of ram is well good for you, as long as you use it for SMB only.
For more stuff, add more ram. 16GB is the minimum. 32 is the recommended minimum.
Thank you. Tbh there was useful information among other answers too
Anyways, I ended up unlocking some additional funds to grab a really good deal on a Ugreen DXP6800 PLUS (not PRO), which is the same thing, just with an i3-1215U instead of i5-1235U. For 2 reasons mostly - because 4 bay felt a bit cramped and for a third m.2 slot (for system).
If I didn’t get the steal of a deal that I did, then I was ready to pull the trigger on a Terramaster f6-424 (non MAX), which has a n95 and only one ram socket. I’m pretty sure that would suffice as well.
My home setup uses an N100 box and an N150. I first bought an N100 motherboard (ITX) and added it to a JonsboN1 case. I have 2 HDDs in a mirror. This box is a file server for a 2 person household with access via SMB. It is also providing storage services for Frigate NVR. I have 11 containers running on this machine. It does have 16GB RAM installed. The CPU sits at about 7-8% utilised. I’m a happy camper.
I ordered another N100 2 bay Topton Mini NAS. The shipped device actually has an N150 processor. It’s only use is as a replication target for on site backups. As you can imagine, it does even less. CPU utilisation is less than 1% on average. It also has 16GB RAM.
These devices were purchased to replace a couple of ageing QNAPs. Both are wildly more powerful than the QNAPs. I’m thinking I’ll get a decade out of this setup.
My experience is that N100 boxes are ideal for a home NAS.
