Hi,
I was recently taking a good at the upcoming NAS from the brand Minisforum called the N1 Pro, a NAS computer with a bunch of slots for HDDs and SSDs, and seemingly pretty high end specs, and I’m wondering if this would be a good buy as a “general purpose” computer, rather than strictly a NAS with “NAS use cases” alongside another computer. What I want is a relatively cheap desktop Linux computer that will be able to drive 1 or 2 high resolution displays without chugging a lot in the UI and while being an enjoyable to use device, and the processor that will go into the N1 Pro seems to be more than good enough for that. Now my question is, is there a reason that most people seem to build separate computers for their NAS “operations” in terms of things like stability and reliability, instead of having one device to do everything on, or is it more due to more generic PCs not having enough slots and bays for storage devices, or something else? Because to me it always felt like purchasing separate computers for separate tasks always felt like an inefficient use of space and money, so I’m curious to learn if there’s something I’ve been missing and I shouldn’t consider a device like the N1 Pro as a main computer.
Things I want to do on this computer:
-General purpose computing (office, web, content manipulation)
-High res image and video viewing
-Virtual machines for experimenting with Linux
-Light to moderate-load gaming
To add, the I/O on the N1 Pro is another question. It seems to have 2 USB4 ports and an HDMI 2.0 port (if I haven’t missed anything else), but it’s unclear what the DisplayPort compatibility for those ports is like and if it’s completely missing (would be nice if it wasn’t). And displays being compatible with USB4 could also be a whole other can of worms. If I could drive 2 displays off of the USB4 ports, that would certainly make it look like an even more appealing device for me.
I wouldn’t get anything with built in graphics for any gaming tasks. Even top of the line still like Ryzen AI 370 - 395 are still only really capable of 1080p medium graphics settings and that is a big improvement over all the older stuff. So you will probably want a dedicated GPU like an AMD 9060XT which would blow the iGPU away in performance for $300.
Full virtual machines you will want cores and RAM, but 8 cores/16 threads should be fine. RAM though id be looking at 48-64GB. If you plan to have multiple VMs running at once then Id say more like 64-96GB, maybe even 128GB. If this was something more like kernel virtual machines that aren’t really using full desktop experiences and running the same kernel as the host OS you won’t need as much RAM, but I don’t really know what you are intending to do here.
For these tasks the CPU in that NAS would be perfect. You will probably be overpaying due to the NAS form factor, but if you effectively want a “mini PC” with the capability for a few drives attached for mass storage that “NAS” used as a PC would be great. It would basically be a regular PC in the smallest form factor possible. Another way to do it would be to get a mini PC and attach a Sabrent direct attach drive unit that connects over USB3.2 or USB4, which is basically a PC and a “DAS”. Though this method still doesnt have a GPU capable of any real gaming.
I have a separate Nas box. Reason is I had a power supply self distruct taking out:
The motherboard
a graphics card
a nvme drive
A wd 8tb drive
A 5950x processor
and something else I can’t remember right now
So if my Nas was in that machine, i would have lost all data on the Nas.
Edit:
This is why I don’t run a home lab off on (proxmox, qubes, qemu, etc) server with a bunch of vm’s / containers (. Nas, pfsense, windows with GPU pass though etc) . 1 hardware problem and everything is down
That’s exactly what I want. I’m still not clear on the I/O situation on this NAS, however. Putting my plans aside, depending on what use cases Minisforum have foreseen for this PC they might not have bothered supporting DisplayPort on the USB4 ports, which would definitely hinder my ability to use this PC how I envision it. But I will also be considering the ‘mini PC + DAS’ solution.
Truthfully the reason I’m more partial to these APU solutions is that I’m more in favor of unified memory and the GPU having access to higher amounts of memory than what’s typically on a dGPU, although I guess in the worst case the GPU can always fall back to the system memory. But if there was a version of this NAS with Strix Halo I think that would be the closest to what I’m looking for.
I gave a small write up on how I feel about mini pcs/diy nas solutions in general including a few different nas type boxes here
I should really add, yeah I have not had the best experiences as with anything YMMV and you may have no issues at all.
You also have miniforum’s newest N5 Pro shown here which at least supports ECC memory and a more Pro Ryzen type cpu for hopefully better workstation type NAS purposes, well certainly a lot better then their MS series nas boxes.
But again I would throw some caution in here, goodness knows how its thermals cope or any cpu throttling or other possible hardware issues we wont know till the reviews. If you do go mini pcs or miniforums, perhaps purchase from amazon since miniforums support is pretty bad with lots of ignored emails and rejected rma/repairs (check reddit) with amazon you have some form of support and law at least.
I would personally opt for a mini itx build or better full atx build. A good post is here, worth a full read of that post.
What utility are you trying to buy by using this for all that computing? What question do you answer, that wouldn’t be answered by a $50 3rd-gen i7 with a 1050ti or something thrown in there?
My 10yo son’s running a 3770 w/ rx580 and 16gb DDR3 and it would have no problem running all my VMs, or any of the stuff you mention. Can’t transcode for shit, but you don’t say anything about needing that. Might struggle a bit on the win10 VM, but that has only been needed a couple of times.
Cause that is the one I see that Minisforum just launched pricing for and releases soon. It looks like this has Oculink, so you could buy this and then an eGPU dock with power supply and get your gaming needs met as well. Though this looks like a very expensive solution to me at those prices they show.
IMO you are better off either buying a mini PC with an AI 370 APU in it ($750-900), a Sabrent or Terramaster 4-5 bay USB drive enclosure ($175-275), and an eGPU docking bay with oculink ($130), along with a PSU and a 9060XT GPU. That would get you everything, but spread out over 3 enclosures and save you money over the NAS+eGPU setup.
Or just built a mini ITX system and cram a full desktop set of parts in it so you take up less space overall and it is all just 1 unit.
Thanks for your input. I agree that in terms of raw compute, the specs you listed could probably meet 90% of my needs. However there are some advantages you get with newer gen hardware aside from the compute throughput increase. For example if I wanted to decode or encode a newer video format such as AV1 the lack of hardware support will cause the process to fall back to the CPU, which especially if it’s an older CPU won’t be an enjoyable process. I also wanted to drive 1 or 2 displays that are 4K 120Hz or above, which anything older than HDMI 2.1 won’t cut. Although, the displays part isn’t ‘necessary’ for a NAS, just for entertaining the idea that I wanted my NAS and PC to be the same device.
AV1 encoding and 2x 4k120 are pretty heavy requirements… I think I’d go with @EniGmA1987 's suggestion for this one, but maybe an Arc A310 or 380 or something instead of the 9060xt to get real-time AV1 if you need that.
I’d started out my own home server doubling as HTPC and gaming machine. Eventually split it out into three different machines just because of the annoyance - pretty annoying having cores tied up with Whisper or transcoding something while I’m trying to play a game. Just my experience.
Thanks. The N5 Pro NAS and mini PCs initially drew my interest as potentially being cheap and small all-in-one solutions for my desktop needs, however with the kind of convoluted setup that we ended up with in your post it seems like going with a regular desktop box (like what @HirenP suggested) with a bunch of space for hard drives is the way to go. Also I think the drawback of the setup you suggested is that unlike the N5 Pro there’s no support for ECC memory (although since I’m inexperienced with NASes I don’t know how crucial that really is, I’ve just heard that it’s pretty important in the past).
I’ll be taking a look at all of the hardware suggestions and write back if I stumble upon any problems, thanks for your suggestions.
Unless you really need features like being able to remotely access your files (or access your files from multiple rooms in your house) right now, I’d also suggest to first invest in a capable desktop and maybe a good 6-8 bay DAS (direct attached storage) for redundant storage and backup. And maybe get a decent UPS, blackouts or brownouts are a lot more common than people realize.
BTW, while standard DDR5 RAM isn’t fully error correcting like “real” ECC, it has a number of error correcting features that previous generations of RAM like DDR4 didn’t have. So, unless you’re dealing with very large files and/or that data is mission-critical, DDR5 ECC RAM is, IMHO, often more a “nice to have” than a necessity.