I’ve been considering setting up a NAS appliance for some time, either a Synology or TrueNAS.
TrueNAS mini sounds like the best option, but they have not been updated in a long time and use a CPU from 2017. It is the same issue with Synology, using AMD Zen cores from 2018.
Are there any other storage appliances (i.e., relatively low power consumption) you can buy new that works with TrueNAS?
Are there any signs the mini line will be updated any time soon?
The Mini’s older CPU really isn’t a problem; it’s entirely adequate to the task and still pretty energy-efficient. Other good options are pretty few and far between. The UGREEN NASync units seem decent (I’m happy with my 6800), but don’t have ECC. If you want 8 bays, the 45Drives HL8 looks pretty good, and looks better yet if you choose a different motherboard (there’s a four-bay model of this as well). I’ve heard good things about some of the Terramaster units, but don’t know that line well enough to make recommendations.
The Atoms remain unparalled in their weight class for x86 use.
I don’t work for iXsystems so I don’t know what drove the adoption of the Atom board across the product line. The older line used an AsRock Rack C2750D4I from Mini to the MiniXL, the latest lineup includes multiple motherboard choices (chosen from the same C3xxx SuperMicro motherboard family).
Can more performant systems be built in a Mini form factor? Sure! We recently had a discussion on this topic. The AsRock Rack X570D4I-2T Ryzen motherboard mentioned in that thread can run circles around the C3xxx embedded processors in the current Minis - but you’d likely need a better ventilated case depending on what Ryzen CPU is put in there.
Rolling your own system, you’d also lack the excellent support that iXsystems provides its customers. Whereas AsRock Rack B2C support can only be described as uneven, iXsystems customer support outshines even SuperMicro.
I was so glad to have iXsystems in my foxhole when the C2xxx series AVR54 bug hit the industry because they worked through multiple C2750D4I board replacement iterations until I ended up with a v1.3 revision warranty replacement that works to this day.
So, can you build more performant Mini-ITX boards? Sure. But that is not why people should buy the Mini in the first place - it is meant as a file server that quietly performs its duties while giving admins a platform to explore TrueNAS with.
I “graduated” to a different motherboard and case not because I wanted to but because iXsystems didn’t sell it. My use case and preferences are different than those of many customers, so I’m very grateful that iXsystems allows me to run their software on my current hardware rig.
A worthwhile consideration–as discussed in the topic that’s now been linked twice in this one–is that the intersection “sever-grade” and “Mini-ITX or otherwise very compact” is very small. The only really suitable Supermicro board discussed there is $1400; the AsRock X570 mentioned above is both newer and considerably less expensive.
Do you have specific requirements? We might be able to give better answers if you’d share them.
Personally, if I needed eight bays in a compact chassis, and didn’t need it immediately (because the HL8 is on pre-order), I’d be giving very serious thought to the HL8, the X570D4I-2T, and a suitable Ryzen CPU. It’s about the most compact way to do it, and iX doesn’t sell anything like it that I can see.
For four bays, it’s a harder choice. There’s a HL4 (just like the HL8, but only 4 bays), but at only $100 cost delta and only 1.5" shorter, I don’t think it’s worth it. The TN Mini systems are an option there (with 5 bays, not 4), but a bit bigger–again, I think I’d favor the HL8. A HPE Microserver, maybe? Or the UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus (you’d want the Plus model, both for its better CPU and the fact that it boots from a replaceable m.2 SSD), and sacrifice ECC.
OP never said he wanted a mini-ITX board for a home build. He seeks for a full pre-built system, and low power (so the Atom C3000 line from 2017 is still the undisputed champion).
No, but he said he wanted an alternative to the Mini, which does use such a board and is, well, mini. Whether the small form factor is of any importance, or power consumption is the only concern, is unclear. Hence:
Thanks for all the input, it sounds like the mini was a great buy when it came out, as it looks to have a 10+ year life. But if I buy it now, I fear it may become outdated soon. When did it initially come out?
If Geekbench can be trusted, an M1 is 10x the single-threaded performance of the Atom
https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/intel-atom-c3758
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020
I’d probably just run it for backup, maybe try setting up Home Assistant and other tinkering for fun, so in principle I don’t need too much power. But you never know, and more power today means a longer lifetime.
I’ve been thinking of getting a NAS for 2-3 years now (so maybe I can just wait it out), but never found a system that I’m comfortable with. (Prebuilt or otherwise)
I’m not sure what a comparison of two completely different architectures is supposed to show. TrueNAS doesn’t run on ARM, and iX doesn’t sound all that interested in changing that (though I wouldn’t be too surprised if that were an option in, say, five years).
Outdated in what way[1]? Intel x64 architecture isn’t going to go away soon. SATA isn’t likely to go away any time soon. PCIe isn’t going to go away. Ethernet isn’t going to go away. Could TrueNAS grow to the point that it just needs more horsepower? Possible, but it hasn’t happened in the last decade[2], so I don’t see any reason to believe it will in the next.
Now, I wouldn’t recommend the Mini for an app- or virtualization-heavy workload–not when it came out, nor today. That really isn’t what it’s supposed to be. If you envision wanting to do a lot of that, you should look into something with more horsepower, and be willing to pay for it in watts.
Editing to add that a lot of us are running TrueNAS on older hardware. My main NAS ran on a pair of Xeon E5-2670s (released in 2012) until about a year ago, when I replaced my motherboard and now am using a pair of Xeon Gold 6132s–which are still a 7-year-old chip. There’s really nothing in TrueNAS that needs, or even can really benefit from, the “latest and greatest.” ↩︎
Free/TrueNAS’ hardware requirements haven’t changed in 15 years or so: x64 CPU and 8 GB of RAM–though the latter has crept up a bit such that 16 GB is a better number. But in 15 years, that isn’t much of a change. ↩︎
The one major advantage of Intel is that there are fewer gotchas overall based on forum chatter vs. AMD. But AMD offers a lot more PCIe lanes, etc.
If you get a -G or GE version of Ryzen CPU that is on the motherboard QVL list then there should be minimal hardware issues and you may be able to enjoy relatively low power consumption, validated ECC compatibility, etc. even if there may be the odd software gremlin.
The 570 motherboard gets you PCIe 4.0 and up to 8 SATA or NVMe drives via Oculink. On the other hand, it also gets you Asrock Rack and they have a chequered history re customer support. That would be my biggest issue.
But the x570 board is pretty future-proof since it can run HDDs today and be converted to Flash SSDs in the future. Being able to replace CPUs is also very attractive in case your CPU workload changes.
I wouldn’t bet on that anymore though.
What the OP apparently does not understand is that there is little point in having the shiny new thing, especially so when the old one is still unparalled.
This states much more succinctly what I was trying to say. Yes, the C3xxx SOCs are kind of old–but newer isn’t necessarily better.
I bought a Zimacube and wasn’t happy with the OS, so installed Truenas Scale. The lowend model has an Intel N100, and does everything I need it to do.
I’ve got the TN mini, the cheapest version with an Atom processor. I mainly run Vaultwarden, Audiobookshelf, Jellyfin, and some other apps to keep my media library organized. It handles 1080p streaming just fine, and temps never go above 39°C. Honestly, I still think the Atom is a good choice for this kind of workload. But my needs are growing, so I’m planning to build a separate k8s cluster for heavier stuff, while letting the NAS stick to what it does best—storage.
