nas News - Page 3 of 15 - CNX Software

January 24, 2023 by Karl Johnson - 29 Comments

TerraMaster F4-423 review – A low-power 4-bay NAS tested with Unraid

Hey Karl here. The timing couldn’t have been more opportune when I was asked to review the TerraMaster F4-423 4-bay NAS. Let me explain why. I run Unraid as my OS of choice for my home lab. I have found it easy to maintain and hard to break. My old rig had a 3900X with 3 cores, 6 threads dedicated to docker containers, and the remaining cores running VM’s. It has been a fun and learning experience. I have run it with several different VM configurations over the past few years. The majority of the time I ran 2 VM’s. One personal and one work and I would RDP over to the work VM. If I wanted to game I had a third gaming VM and allocated all resources to it. It’s not super convenient and as convoluted as it sounds. But recently I moved back to my company-provided laptop […]

January 23, 2023January 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Storaxa is a 3-in-1 5-bay NAS, WiFi 6 router, and 4K media center (Crowdfunding)

The Storaxa is a multi-purpose device powered by an Intel Celeron N6005 Jasper Lake processor which works as a 5-bay SATA NAS, which also happens to take up to four NVMe SSDs, a 4K media center with HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces, and a WiFi 6 router equipped with four 2.5GbE ports. The solution is fitted with 16GB RAM, comes with four 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports and two USB 2.0 ports, and runs Proxmox VE to handle both TrueNAS SCALE and OpenWrt for the NAS and router functions respectively. Storaxa specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N6005 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with 32EU Intel UHD graphics @ 450 / 900 MHz (Turbo); 10W TDP System Memory – 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM memory Storage 128 GB SATA SSD for OS 5x 3.5-inch SATA bays 4x M.2 2280 sockets for NVMe SSDs (connected via ASMedia ASM2812X PCIe […]

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

QNAP preps Rockchip RK3588 AI NAS and Intel NAS with hot-swappable E1.S SSDs

QNAP has been teasing two potentially interesting NAS coming up soon: the TS-AI642 AI NAS leveraging the 6 TOPS NPU in Rockchip RK3588 Arm processor for image and facial recognition, and the TBS-574X NAS powered by an Intel Core i3-1220P Alder Lake CPU and taking up to five hot-swappable E1.S NVMe PCIe SSDs. Details are limited since neither device is available yet, but both NAS are equipped with relatively powerful Arm and Intel processors and offer some innovative features. QNAP TBS-574X NAS with Rockchip RK3588 Preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core 64-bit Arm processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, 6 TOPS NPU Storage – 6x SATA III bays Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.1 ports Networking – Built-in 2.5GbE, PCIe Gen 3 slot for 10GbE module The main highlight is the 6 TOPS AI accelerator that boosts the performance of the […]

November 30, 2022November 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Radxa Taco – A Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board made for NAS with 5x SATA ports

Radxa Taco Raspberry Pi CM4 NAS Carrier Board

The Radxa Taco is a carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4 and compatible system-on-modules that is designed for NAS applications with five SATA ports for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, 2.5GbE and GbE networking, M.2 sockets for expansion, and more. The new board is the successor of the Rock Pi SATA HAT designed for the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC or Raxda Rock Pi 4 single board computers and supports more SATA drives, M.2 NVMe storage, optional WiFi 6, built-in RTC support, and so on. Radxa Taco specifications: Supported SoMs Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM4 Lite Radxa CM3 based on Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor Maybe others Storage 5x SATA interfaces for 2.5-inch HDD or SSD up to 15mm thick, support for 3.5-inch drive via cables, software RAID 0/1/5 1x M.2 M Key 2280 socket for NVMe SSD MicroSD card slot Networking 2.5GbE RJ45 port Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port Optional WiFi 6 […]

October 14, 2022October 14, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Jasper Lake Mini-ITX motherboard comes with 6 SATA 3.0 connectors, 2 M.2 NVMe sockets

Topton “N5105/N6005 NAS board” is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by an Intel Celeron N5105 or N6005 Jasper Lake processor, equipped with six SATA 3.0 ports, two M.2 NVMe sockets, and four Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controllers. The board also comes with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots for up to 64GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort video outputs, and several USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces. As its name implies, it is designed for network access storage (NAS), but I could also see it used as a networked video recorder (NVR), a network appliance, or a multi-purpose machine. Topton “N5105/N6005 NAS board” specifications: SoC (One or the other) Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with 24EU Intel UHD graphics @ 450 / 800 MHz (Turbo); 10W TDP Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with 32EU Intel UHD graphics @ 450 / 900 MHz (Turbo); […]

September 10, 2022September 14, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

$60 Raspberry Pi Mini Tower NAS kit takes one M.2 SATA SSD

Last year, Michael Klements made a nice-looking DIY Raspberry Pi 4 mini server with an OLED information display and a 52Pi UPS Plus module with 18650 batteries. It also included the company’s Ice Tower module for cooling, but if you wanted one you had to make your own with a 3D printer and a laser cutter. 52Pi appears to have noticed and liked the design, as they created something similar with the Raspberry Pi Mini Tower NAS kit taking one M.2 SATA SSD instead of using the UPS module. There are also a few tweaks to the mechanical design with the OLED display at an angle for easier reading. 52Pi Raspberry Pi Mini Tower NAS kit features and content: Designed for Raspberry Pi 4 SBC (not included) 3D printed case plus acrylic covers for each side 52Pi Ice Tower for cooling 2x 0.96-inch 128×64 I2C OLED displays (but only one […]

September 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Topton N1 dual-bay NAS features AMD Athlon 3050e CPU, four Ethernet ports

Powered by an AMD Athlon Silver 3050e dual-core processor, Topton N1 (aka TP-N1) NAS comes with two SATA bays for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, as well as four gigabit Ethernet ports. The system can support up to 32GB RAM, relies on M.2 SSD storage for the OS, and can provide up to 40TB of data storage through the two SATA bays. It is also equipped with an HDMI output port, several USB 3.x/2.0 ports, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack. Topton N1 specifications: SoC – AMD Athlon Silver 3050e dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 1.4 / 2.8 GHz (Turbo) with Radeon Vega 3 graphics @ 1 GHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 32GB DDR4-2400 RAM via two SO-DIMM slots Storage M.2 2280 socket for a (PCIe 3.0) NVMe SSD 2x SATA III bay for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch driver for a maximum of 40TB data storage (based on currently available […]

September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-R3 WiFi 6 router board features MediaTek Filogic 830/MT7986 SoC

I first noticed the MediaTek MT7986 WiFi router processor in Linux 5.17 changelog. MT7986 is the codename for MediaTek Filogic 830 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor designed for Wi-Fi 6/6E routers with up to 6 Gbps bandwidth, and two 2.5Gbps Ethernet interfaces. Banana Pi BPI-R3 is a router board based on Filogic 830/MT7986A that offers an upgrade to the company’s Banana Pi BPI-R2 board powered by a MediaTek MT7623A quad-core Cortex-A7 processor or even the Banana Pi BPI-R64 board based on a MediaTek MT7622 dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 SoC. Banana Pi BPI-R3 specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with hardware acceleration engines for Wi-Fi offloading and networking System Memory – 2GB DDR RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket, support for M.2 NVMe SSD Networking 2x 2.5GbE SFP cages, 5x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1x WAN + 4x LAN) via MT7531AE 7-port switch WiFi 6 4×4 […]