Testimonial: How to buy a TrueNAS mini X in 2026, outside the US

[Sara]

Recently there was a lot of talk about “bad actors” that sell TrueNAS badged systems. I am not sure if that is the actual reason for the build script changes or just an excuse, because the official reasoning changed for that step was not consistent.

Anyway, like I already said in that thread, thinking that someone would pay some 3 party instead of TrueNAS themselves sounds ridiculous to me. Either I build it myself, or I want the ease of use and support and get it from TrueNAS directly.

So to demonstrate my point, I wanted to show you guys, how poor the experience is for someone who wants to buy a TrueNAS in 2026 outside the US. I document every step an put it into a timeline.

We start at 20.03.2026 07:15.
I go to the website.

Here already there are some things that seem broken.

• Why do I need to give you a company? What if I am private user?
• Why do you need my phone number, just to give me a quoet? Just send me a mail
• What model are you interested in, there is still the XL+ model, that is not mentioned anywhere anymore on the homepage.
• Maybe update the picture to the left accordingly?

Next step:

I mean come on. From all the captcha possibilites, you choose this? As someone who wants a good stance in the open source community?

I immediately get a mail, that someone will get in touch with me.

Same day, 14:51 get this mail:

Hello Sara, and thanks for your inquiry into the TrueNAS Mini.

Would this be for your own personal or business use or will you be looking to sell it on ?

Can you advise some more details on the device you are looking for e.g.
Which Mini System is requested? - Mini X+ / Mini R
Which configuration (RAM, NIC etc.)
Empty Bays or HDDs/SSDs / read-write cache.

We sell via partners and I will loop you in with the right partner depending on your response to be able to give you your prices

Many thanks Name

I responded that I want a “normal” Mini X+, 32GB RAM, 1GBit/s NIC, empty bay.

23 march 11:23:
Reseller reached out to me, will send me a quote shortly.

24 march 10:11:
I got an offer.
TrueNAS Mini X+ with 3y warranty (Switzerland has a legal minimum of 2y, so I guess that is why they sell it only with the extended warranty) for 2550Fr. or $3237.

Sorry guys, but that is just ridiculous money. No wonder people are buying bare bones from Minisforum or HPE MicroServer instead.

But even if it were less money, asking a potential buyer to jump through these hoops, instead of just ordering it on brack.ch or digitec.ch is absurd in the Swiss environment. These two are what Amazon is to the US.

Don’t get me wrong, this workflow is fine for a +20k system. But it isn’t for a small business.

[Johnny_Fartpants]

I must agree with this

The Mini’s are very cool and Im sure like me every TrueNAS user would love to own one if only to give back somehow to the TrueNAS team but when compared to other similar products they are just not cost effective. Well at least in the UK and it would seem elsewhere.

Perhaps there could be a TrueNAS Mini ‘Neo’ version and take a leaf out of Apple’s book (no pun intended)

Personally I feel like this product range should be a loss-leader to encourage more people to use TrueNAS.

Im thinking a diskless 4 bay for sub £1000 inc VAT but you’d most likely have to lose the ECC support at that price range.

[Farout]

I think when it comes to the Minis, iX should orient themselves prise wise on the current other offerings on the market.
Asking these kind of prices for an 10 year old Atom platform just doesnt make sense.

But I guess since enterprise customers are ready to pay several 100K per maschine, increase in turnover from private individuals or small companies is not really a priority for them.

Otherwise I cant explain why they think its ok to charge 3000+ USD for something that should cost a max of 1000USD.

Especially since you can basically build a MiniX clone for a bit more than half of that !

BTW: The TrueNAS Mini X and Mini X+ are here!

what happened to the prices ?

[Sara]

@Farout

Asking these kind of prices for an 10 year old Atom platform just doesnt make sense.

I would be even fine with that! I don’t need performance in these things.
I use them for a few users or as offsite backup.

So I would be fine with asking a normal price for 10y old Atoms.
I don’t mind old hardware.
I am not fine paying twice the price for 10y old Atoms.

[Fleshmauler]

But have you stopped to consider that thanks to these extra steps, someone has found gainful employment by manually sending you an email quote?

Jokes aside, while I understand that enterprise really should work this way, I also don’t understand these steps (or prices) for single unit consumer purchases. Would also have saved the time of the rep who sent you the quote; I imagine that they have bigger fish to catch.

[SmallBarky]

I think a HPE ProLiant ML30 Gen11 would be a better system comparison due to the TrueNAS Mini having 5x 3.5 bays and 2x 2.5 bays. Mini is hot swapable. The ML30 can take 8x 2.5 (sas) drives but I don’t see hot swap listed. 4x 3.5 drives is listed specs. The price is 3112 when I look https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/hpe-proliant-ml30-gen11-intel-xeon-e-2434-32-gb-tower-server-servers-44178287

You are probably about the same prices with ordering a Supermicro server. How many units would TrueNAS have to sell to be on one of the websites you listed?

[Farout]

The Mini X + was listet at 1149 USD 6 years ago in that post from their own website.

Now its triple that.

[SmallBarky]

Compare TODAY prices. Just because you used to buy ‘a pickle for a nickle’ doesn’t make it so today.

Configuring it for USA, today is $1909. Add $199 more for the three year warranty. $2108 total. If buying outside of the USA, use your location for comparisons.

[Sara]

@SmallBarky

How many units would TrueNAS have to sell to be on one of the websites you listed?

Looking at their other inventory, I would say 3 in two years
No seriously, is very easy, I don’t know about pricing though.

Microsoft Forms

@SmallBarky

Compare TODAY prices.

Speaking of TODAY, nobody is holding ixSystems back coming up with a recent system that is cheaper. If the prices of Supermicro 5029 gone up that much because it is no longer officially sold by Supermicro, maybe it is time to look into a new system?

[SmallBarky]

I don’t think the pricing is much off for your location if what I am seeing is correct when I bring up the only Supermicro server listed. This would get you 4 hot swap HDs. TrueNAS servers are essentially, private brand Supermicro

[numo68]

@Sara

I don’t need performance in these things

Careful, sometimes newer software requires features not present in old CPUs, because the upstream compiles it requiring that. For example, many MongoDB users were hit with the sudden requirement of AVX instructions.

[Sara]

Before this post gets derailed into a hardware discussion, let us please remember what is important and what iXsystems needs to address.

The buying experience is horrible, and the product, let’s say, is a bit pricey.
So if you are serious about net getting your cake eaten by rebadged sellers, iXsystem needs to step up their game and take it serious. Way smaller firms like decsio can offer AMD embedded boards and the like.
I refuse to belief that it would be impossible to offer some Jonsbo + AMD embedded + ECC bare bone system.
If you are really are after that market!

(I am not so sure about that one. Could very well be that this market is not profitable, and maybe that was just yet another excuse to justify this new path ixSystem is taking).

[etorix]

The point is: Consumers (and probably the lower end of Small & Medium Business as well) just want to buy a pre-built NAS on the shelf from their favourite retailer, and activate the license with iX for support.

Jumping through hoops and captchas to “get a quote” makes no sense.
And, of course, the price has to be right. From a quick search, 6-bay NAS from QNAP capable of running ZFS (QTS Hero) start just above 1000 € here.

[numo68]

@Sara

So if you are serious about net getting your cake eaten by rebadged sellers, iXsystem needs to step up their game and take it serious.

Yep. I am for example re-using an old QNAP box for my homelab, that is a bit long in the tooth already. With a reasonably priced supported low-power-when-idle box I’d be probably willing to upgrade to get the ECC and a knowledge that this same thing is running somewhere in the TrueNAS’s testlab. Such barebones are priced €1000, not €2800 here.

But yeah, everything points to this segment not being interesting for iX.

[Alexey]

@etorix

capable of running ZFS (QTS Hero)

Keep in mind it is not quite running ZFS. It’s running QZFS, which is a different kettle of fish. As far as an isolated appliance it does not matter. It crashes, you restore from backup. However, no send-receive to a regular ZFS, and Linux will not mount the pool from QNAP.

[Sara]

@Sara

Way smaller firms like decsio can offer AMD embedded boards and the like.

Sorry, I meant Deciso. Take a look at their shop and products. While you are at it, take a look at the promo video on how they do it. Notice the tone the video sets, in regards to the open source community.

[MBILC]

And factor in the Ram shortage causing RAM prices to quadruple in many cases, which also includes NVMe’s and even spinning rust drives are going up now too.

it is the same as pfsense, you can always build a box cheaper…but you do not get the warranty or support for the hardware. if that is not something you need..

Agree,. the quote screen should include the information they email you back asking about already, save time and resources with back and forth, but also consider import taxes / sales tax.

Heck I am next to the U.S and the price difference of the same equipment is usually pretty ridiculous..

• Personal or Business or Resale
• Model?
• Specs?
• Location?

Sales forms always want your phone number, because they always want to try and get you on a phone call to sell you on the products.

[ThatNAS_Guy]

wait… is this a joke?

3000 euro, for a cpu that scores 291 !!! on single core. I had to re read it multiple times, its 291. zero is not missing, yes indeed 291. and 1500 on multicore! wow thats 10x slower than basically anythying being sold today…

is anyone buying this? why? how?

wait guys do you know that pentium I scores 600 ?!!?!?!

Geekbench Search - Geekbench

Geekbench Search - Geekbench

[etorix]

@ThatNAS_Guy

is anyone buying this? why? how?

Yes, tough likely not at the stated price.
Atom C3000 CPUs still make for a perfect low power NAS, and have no obvious successor in this role.
If anything, your reaction shows that Geekbench scores are essentially useless.

[ThatNAS_Guy]

btw is it true that the parent comapny actually sold its hardware division? so hardware is really decopupled from software at the ownership level

Yes, tough likely not at the stated price.
Atom C3000 CPUs still make for a perfect low power NAS, and have no obvious successor in this role.
If anything, your reaction shows that Geekbench scores are essentially useless.

really? how? this thing is basically a calculator. you’re not hosting anything on that box. you’re barely running ZFS at this point.
ARC Cache? at that cpu speed? idk.

The way I see if, if someone needs a VERY BASIC backup solution , this is a good choice. but at 3000 eur, its baffling

at 300 eur It would make sense