My need is simple, small files over network to a Linux computer (NFS) (10Gbit) or to someone’s Macbook (NFS) (2.5Gbit dock).
But I have been looking at literally every motherboard I could buy from the AM4 and AM5 series (I’m reluctant about intel) to come up with an HBA, SATA controller etc+Fast Networking+SSD Cache configuration.
I need to access files quickly, but they’re small on size, 1-2MB to 10MB on average, so I thought about going with the 2.5G that comes with almost all boards, this is due to not being able to find a proper motherboard.
One option is QNAP Ryzen 2.5Gbit 8bay With an SSD cache+10G card
Would their 16Gbit SAN card provide any speed benefit for small files?
There’s an ARM based QNAP that provides 2x10Gbit SFP+ but I find that to be anemic.
Option two is custom PC, and if I match the price of QNAP to a build, I get far better performance+64GB ram on AM4 and 32GB on AM5. This build comes with a Ryzen 5 7600X or Ryzen 7 5700G for AM4.
All of these can do 100+TB with two spares and SSD caching. But which one should I go with? I’ll be using Truenas Scale on custom pc and QNAP’s operating systems already seems to use ZFS.
Only QNAP’s QuTS OS uses ZFS, their NAS boxes default to QTS so I think you have to switch out the OS before you get started. The model you linked claims to support both.
I don’t think you need more than 10GbE on the NAS, especially if the clients accessing it won’t be 10GbE anyway. But I’ll bow to the experts here. I use 10GbE on my 6-bay Synology without cache drives and 600MB/s is generally what I get out of it with large files. For smaller files Windows Defender tends to mess with transfer speeds more than anything else anyway.
Sounds like what you want is the DS1823xs+, has an upgraded Ryzen chip with a 3.6 boost (the QNAP V1500 at 2.2Ghz does not boost), has ECC memory and 10GbE included. But for the price you might as well just build your own system honestly… the QNAP model doesn’t even appear to come with ECC memory. I’d recommend the AM5 build, 32GB is still more than plenty and it’s a good upgrade in processor performance.
What a shame, I cannot buy that model in my country. Closest I could find for sale is DS1821+ which still uses embedded Ryzen 1000 series.
I’ll most likely build an odd system with GIGABYTE X670E aorus xtreme which happens to have built in 10G NIC. 2 nvme would take 8 lanes, HBA cards I could find are 8lane too so all slots will be occupied.
This does raise the price a bit but it’s cheaper than importing any high end NAS.
You might want to look into Asus boards so you get ECC support if reliabilty and data matters to you. Accessing small files will likely be limited to the network protocol rather than the interface, if it’s only a single computer you might want to look into iSCSI instead of SMB or NFS.
That’s why I thought about QNAP’s 16G SAN card. ROG STRIX X670E-F Seems like a good contender for ECC, I would just put a 10G card or SAN card on the x4 slot.
Another option which also is popular on this board is Asus ProArt X670E-Creator that offers a bit more flexibility when it comes to PCIe slots if that’s of interest.