Low power TrueNAS machine on sort of a budget (UK) feat. Topton N5105

[ChrisA]

So after looking at running costs of computers yet again, I thought I’d take a punt at AliExpress. I mentioned the motherboard here:

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/post-what-new-thing-you-acquired-recently/149881/20127?u=chrisa

I got some used RAM from eBay (DDR4 ⋅ 16GB (2x 8GB) ⋅ PC4-21300 (DDR4-2666))

Then I’m just going to re-use hard drives.

My biggest annoyance so far is the PSU. I had an old one to test with, but did the right thing and bought a new one many months ago as a spare…it did not work

DOA PSU: CiT ATV Pro 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Non-Modular

I’ve bought a be quiet! 450W System Power 10 to replace it. I’ve had plenty of these and they’ve been as good as gold…even though they are Bronze rated

I think I narrowed down the problem with the PSU, I installed and routed the cables before checking it worked

Anyway, here’s how the board fits in the case (DeepCool Wave V2 MATX Case), the case was on offer for only £25 from Scan (UK)

The board has two NVME slots, so one will be used for boot and the other for apps. I still prefer Core over Scale, so that’s what I’ll use. The great thing is that I already have an install, but it uses a high power/running cost machine with drives and an install of Core. So all I need to do is plug in the drives, install Core and upload the config file and I’m done!

If I remember, I’m going to do a power usage test.

I will need to add at least one fan, it’ll go on the back, still unsure if I’ll make it face in or out. On that subject, Scan occasionally do great offers on case fans, £10 include postage and sometimes it means the whole order is free!

Hope this is of vague interest to someone

[ChrisA]

When funds permit…and an actual rack I’d like to get a 2U case like this, as it’ll be perfect for it I reckon:

I only need 4-6 drives and that’s what that case offers (with a baby mobo).

[ChrisA]

Another piece of the jigsaw just arrived

I’ve had good luck with patriot so far, though it is hard to find small capacity NVMe drives these days.

[ChrisA]

PSU arrived, system as follows idles at 25W

2 x NVMe drives
1 x 3.5" HDD
1 x 2.5" SSD
16GB RAM

[dns2utf8]

Quick question about the board. Did you notice anything strange with the firmware?
How is the warranty situation?

[ChrisA]

Yeah, the only thing I noticed was the WOL doesn’t work, even though it’s enabled in the BIOS. Also getting hold of more update firmware doesn’t appear easy or possible (though I only googled for a short while).

As for the warranty, I’m assuming at this price it’s not existent. My fingers are simply crossed it stays work, and so far, so good - though it doesn’t have much uptime, only a few hours a day since April 2024 (now June 2024, to save anyone checking the post date!).