AIFFRO K100 Mini Flash NAS Review - New Kind of Flash NAS?

[@nascompares]

*update* regarding pricing on the K100, Aiffro have provided a discount code to apply a discount. I still stand by my points in the vid, but I wanted to share this here in case it's useful. www.aiffro.com/discount/8KD7N23WCRWA?redirect=%2Fproducts%2Fall-ssd-nas-k100 (Discount Code 8KD7N23WCRWA)

[@sayanchx]

N100 only has 9 Pcie lanes so 4 nvme drives running in their native pcie 3 x 4 is impossible

[@fatenevermore]

The N100 only has 9 PCIe lanes, so that would explain the 2 lanes per drive. Given the small footprint and power requirements, I would expect this to be more something that you'd pair with a travel router and take with you than a daily use device.

[@nascompares]

To be fair, I ran this on a Shargeek usb PSU and a Glinet beryl on the way to a trade show last week for a laugh and it worked surprisingly well. Solar powered NAS vid coming soon

[@testshoot]

@@nascompares I'd try the same for photoshoots on location. I have the Beryl AX, and would like to tether my camera and send to NAS for a hot backup

[@dohmarau]

i reckon using a core ultra 165u would make a good mini pc nas platform. 20 pcie lanes would make it much better

[@joefog964]

Yeah, the lack pcie lanes have kept me from the n100 and similar processors. You end up compromising on something for the low wattage

[@phanter344]

Exactly, travelling storage for a mobile lab environment is what I'm considering using this for. I currently use a Pi 4 in a Geekworm NAS case with an 8TB SSD, which is ever so slightly smaller than this and performs adequately for what I use it for. I prefer this though as I can RAID the drives, run RHEL Linux and run x86 VM's. I also carry an i7 Intel NUC running vSphere, and this could replace both. It's small enough to pop into a carry-on. Pop in two or four 2/4TB SSD's gives a decent amount of storage. I'd use it for a lab DNS/DHCP/PXE sever, Linux repo server (Red Hat, Ubuntu) for VM's, Docker container registry, Ansible playbook repo, CIFS/NFS home area and as a Plex media server. Combined with my GLi.Net travel router and my space limited MacBook Air, or even just my iPad Pro, it provides a full featured, very portable lab. Sheer performance for this sort of device is less important, to me admittedly, than portability, flexibility and storage capacity.

[@zyghom]

I recently bought new mobo with N305 on Ali and put 1x 48GB DDR5, It has 4x2.5Gbps. It is a beast comparing to previous ones i.e. N6005. Considering I put there HDD and used 2x m2 as OS on mirror (zfs) - more than enough for the home NAS. This what you just presented is not really home NAS - maybe traveller storage.

[@nascompares]

It is genuinely pocket sized, for a change!

[@majicdude88]

This isn’t really a “NAS”. This is just a $150 DDR4 mini PC that they are marketing as a “NAS” for $300+. They just put an extra m.2 slot in a $150 mini pc and are charging double for the extra m.2 slot.

[@nascompares]

I mean, it's a tough argument to fight against!

[@MiesvanderLippe]

Well I can’t exactly do that myself with a regular mini PC can I?

[@PhiLPHiL]

I agree. We use something similar but with Ryzen 7 and 16/32G RAM as work computers in the office so they built a mini pc but trying to make it sound like it is more than that.

[@fwiler]

It's not one extra m.2 slot. It's 3 extra slots. It's overprescribing the pcie lanes with a switch. It's probably using asmedia asm2812x switch to do this which costs a lot. Notice how many 4 bay+ nvme pc's there are? Only a couple.

[@victorlowe]

Any hardware sharing storage onto a network is a nas anyway

[@BillyBobDingledorf]

I've seen a couple of reviews complain about the lack of wifi on a NAS. Why is that a dealbreaker? When I think of NAS, I don't think of wifi.

[@wayneseymour1]

I am a newbie when it comes to networking and NAS solutions, but I have a idea of one I want to try but I’m unsure if it’s feasibility. My solution to a small NAS is to use a mini-PC (Beelink Mini S12 Mini PC) with a 128GB NVME M.2 for the OS and Urbackup as the NAS software solution, a 4Tb SATA 2.5 SSD for interior storage expansion. That’s for the first part, the further expansion plan is to attach a 4 Bay HDD Cage Chassis, connecting it to the Beelink through a NVME M-Key PCI Express to SATA 3.0 Adapter Converter Hard Drive Extension Card. My only unsure portion of the NAS, is my decision to power the 4 Bay Chassis using a Pico UPS (24pin DC ATX PSU 12V DC Input DC 12V 150-watt Pico PSU) as the power source attaching a COMeap ATX Power Jumper Cable to turn the chassis on/off. On paper it seems as if it should work but of course like I stated I’m a newbie. What do you think? Would it work?

[@jasperverkroost]

Would have the potential to be a nice Plex server, but apparantly the fan makes more noise than the one on my Synology 918+.

[@erock1984]

When I travel with the family, I bring a MiniPC with 2 4TB nvme drives as a mobile plex/jellyfin minecraft server. This would double the amount of storage within a power budget that can be run off of a powerbank on a cross country flight.

[@CM-mo7mv]

srsly? 😂 I was thinking on a road trip, but setting this up for a flight is wild

[@nascompares]

You GENIUS. I think I might have to turn this into a retro console, just out sheer spite now

[@kawaiisenshi2401]

​@@CM-mo7mvshoot connect that with some roku ar glasses while u fly with a 100w 20k+ mah battery pack and ur in business 😂

[@aureltrouts]

N100 supports 9 PCIe lanes Gen 3, so it would make sense to get PCIE (Gen 3) x2 for all of them (x2 * 4 = 8 lanes, which does not exceed 9), CPU doing its best... Also the reason why it's not worth buying any flash NAS (or mini PC) when CPU was N5105 or these new N95/N97/N100/N200/N300, cause CPU won't be able to use these SSDs to their full potential (Asustor Flashstor FS6706T is a good example of not picking the right CPU). CPU don't need to have huge TDP to handle number of lanes (see Ryzen V models like in Synology DS1821+/23+). If anyone needs/wants to get full-flash NAS, make sure CPU can handle the total number of lanes (x4 * number of SSDs). TBS-h574TX (both versions) can handle 20 PCIe lanes, reason why this NAS offers 5 SSD slots (NAS is overall "balanced/relevant"). Also, NIC can book some PCIE lanes too...

[@nascompares]

I swear I covered the reasons for the lane speeds afforded to those SSDs in this vid during the UnRAID terminal digging section, but if it didn't make the edit, apologies

[@testshoot]

It's a ship in a bottle with the bandwidth being the bottleneck. I feel better about the n305 than the 5101 and similar Jurassic era CPUs, but unless NAS have a host/client mode to act like a TB4 DAS, these will still be like squeezing frozen toothpaste out the tube.

[@ovarb12]

dude that unit empty is $1450!

[@aureltrouts]

@@ovarb12 wow, way too expensive for what it is... (personal opinion of course).

[@aureltrouts]

@@nascompares I tend to believe I'm the one who missed it, I'm sorry for that! Your content is really great, and definitely helps your community to not make mistakes when it comes to choosing a NAS. It's always a pleasure to watch your videos (always about to learn something)!

[@jamespistorino1745]

Absolute newbie to this area and wanted to ask this community questions about upgrading my system to support a "big data" project. My project is software than has to analyze ~10TB of medical data. The issues/concerns I have with my current setup are: 1) data transfer speed; and 2) capacity. The data is already backed up on offline drives so I am not concerned with RAID redundancy. I am trying to decide whether to buy a new computer and/or add a NAS (and if so what kind -HDD, SSD, or hybrid). I have an Alienware R11 (thus PCIe Gen 3), with 32GB of RAM, a 2.5Gb network connection. It has two NVMe slots, one is occupied with a 1TB SSD on which the operating system is stored. In the other slot I installed an 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 SSD. I have also installed two WD Ultrastar 22TB HDDs. The issue is that the 8TB SSD speed is limited by the motherboard and is also too small to hold all the data. Data transfer speeds from the HDDs max at ~250MB/sec. Thus, it takes many hours (almost a day) to read the data. I want a system at least twice as fast with at least 30TB capacity. Do I buy a new computer with Gen 4/5 PCIe and more NVMe slots that I load with the max TB SSDs I can afford and split the data across (suggestions for specific models appreciated)? Or do I add a NAS (again, suggestions appreciated)? Or do I do both? Internet wizards share your wisdom!

[@annebokma4637]

Waiting for the flashtor gen 2. 2*10gb.. 😊

[@nascompares]

You and me both bud...

[@annebokma4637]

@@nascompares I know I saw you "complain" that they are keeping tou busy 😁 looking forward to that review for sure. Any dates known yet?

[@alanpaone]

this gets pretty close to making the compromises I'd want, tbh, I prefer an all-flash NAS just for footprint and noise in my apartment, I even only have 2.5GBe on my router, but 4 drives isn't quite enough, I'd still need expensive 4TB drives, and this is neither cheap enough to offset that, nor expandable enough to let me work around it. I'm pretty sure my next NAS is going to look a lot like this though.

[@XhawathyDev]

How do you think it would perform with proxmox for home assistant and Plex ?

[@akilmilo]

does the data transfer speed saturate the 2.5G connection? if so then I don’t really see an issue with the PCIe lanes configuration..

[@nascompares]

It easily saturates the external 2.5G with just 1 drive. But my main concern was that the N100 did not afford much in the way of throughput internally to the SSD. The internal 3x2 bandwidth per drive (so a maximum 2GB each) is there, but the N100 just does have the "umpf" to manage 4x Gen 3x2 m.2 particular highly. The appeal of alot of flash systems is that although you might have more than enough to fully saturate externally, you also have the means for fast internal throughput for bigger databases + container and VMs. This system felt very "middle of the road", despite its 4 SSD build. Plus, fixed low memory hurt too

[@Chris.Brisson]

@@nascompares yesterday I was hunting for an i3-14100T and an ASUS Prime H770-Plus (which offers PCIe lanes enough to host add-in cards for both expanded NVMe storage and 10GBase-T). That motherboard is trying not to be found. I'm thinking such a build might check all the boxes for price, power draw, and performance. I'm thinking about constructing a network appliance that integrates VMs for both OpenMediaVault and OPNSense.

[@PlanetNr4]

What I feel worried about in these... curious brands is the reliability. In a NAS you need reliability, data redundancy, etc. At this price point I would choose a Synology, QNAP or even TerraMaster, that I've been using for several years without any issues.

[@nascompares]

Very true. That said, I'll always favour a competitive marketplace (but I would say that, wouldn't I...)

[@Ohytos]

It's DDR5, you can check by it's part number and 4800 MT/s speed.

[@gabest4]

Pair it with a NICGIGA switch for perfect synergy.

[@nielsdebakker3283]

N100, that chip has a total lack of pci lanes. Why do you think it has so little connectivity.

[@nadtz]

N100 is good for a lot of things but lacks the pcie lanes to make a good flash NAS. Not that something that small and low power wouldn't have use cases, I could definitely see using something like that while travelling or on location, price is way too high though and it's a shame almost none of these support 22110 drives.

[@nascompares]

It's a great portable system with a half decent USB power kit (shout out to shargeek on that one), but yeah, it's a massive low ceiling for 4x m.2 NVME

[@EViL3666]

Interesting, looks like my previous comment got removed.... Either way, to say it again, many of the N100 boxes currently being sold are way overpriced. I've got a variety of the N100 including Trigkey boxes from Amazon, and Firewall-style box (4x 2.5GbE). But the best one is a barebone N100 with 2x2.5GbE NICS (Intel) and 2x NVMe bays, that I'm using for a CEPH cluster, and they cost me less than £100 each from AliExpress.

[@andygardiner6526]

It's a NAS with "only one 2.5GbE" but what is its purpose? If you have 10GbE and are able to drive the SSDs hard how are you going to cool it and what are you connecting to it? I would contend that this is not a NAS designed with SSDs to be a power box but the physically smallest, portable NAS device they could produce - necessarily requiring the physically smallest storage devices - to put in a bag and take with you ... and it fits that brief reasonably well. I think it seems overpriced for the benefit of portability but I'm not their target market.

[@tim3172]

How are you going to cool.... what? SSDs don't require active cooling. NICs don't require active cooling. But he is conflating the use case for this (a low-power CPU with fast-for-the-home networking) with some kind of appliance that requires 99.999% uptime and active failover with remote blah blah blah.

[@andygardiner6526]

@@tim3172 The review already states that the unit runs warm in its current condition - running SSDs hard *does* generate a lot of local heat so if driven harder - eg with 10GbE and multiple users - the unit will need active cooling as there's no space for extra heatsinking.

[@45KevinR]

All of the N100 devices seem to hit a bottleneck on their pcie lanes. I'm starting to think the cpu throttles them rather than it being other circuitry. So they are handy to get 2/4 drives deep, but struggle if you try to use more than one at once. That's semi acceptable at cwwk prices, but this is way more money. Hmm.

[@nascompares]

In the week and a bit since I recorded this vid, I have been filling some cwwk review bits. One at $125 and the other at $200. This on the other hand is seemingly a middle of the road product, but if they changed the presentation to something designed FOR portability, I think some users would think they price for something a tad more niche is a pinch more acceptable. There WILL be a 2nd vid on this system, as I'm not through yet with it!

[@GronaldoSr]

Great review, but don't understand the complaint of absence of Wifi, while nobody will use it as stated. Also would add costs, so I understand not implementing this.

[@nascompares]

Normally I would agree with you (as WiFi in Nas is spotty at best in terms of supported NAS OS' and it's use as a daily connection), but on a system that only has 1 physical LAN/ethernet connection...where is the failover? WiFi on this would at the very least allow 1 failover, if only to push alerts about system stability and/or a low priority ping/connection mechanic. That's why I singled it out on this system.

[@GronaldoSr]

​@@nascomparesfair comment.

[@tim3172]

He's a bit slow and doesn't realize the 1x lane which would have to be dedicated to/wasted on wifi is used for other things.

[@tim3172]

@@nascompares You don't need failover on a home NAS. It's not that serious.

[@sk8er000]

I'm planning to buy a cwwk x86 p5 with a i3 n305 and 32 gb of RAM what do you think about this model for a low power nvme nas?

[@nascompares]

I just published an article early access review on the x86 P5 N100 model (vid live later publicly later this week + review article finishes here nascompares.com/review/cwwk-x86-p5-nvme-nas-review/ ..plug,plug,plug!!!) and...colour me impressed! It's not perfect and there are certain hardware comparisons to be made with this K100 NAS.. but it's so much lower in price, has sodium memory as opposed to fixed, 2x2.5G and even has a WiFi card slot... For like $125, that's crazy! Just be aware, it gets HOT (and yours will be the 8 core N305!) and the included fan kits are a little 'blah'.

[@sk8er000]

@@nascompares thank you very much for your answer! I'm really looking forward to watching the video. Initially I was planning to have a small fanless secondary system to use with some VMs. If the HW performances in relation to the price are good enough I can evaluate to put the system in my cabinet and mount a bigger Noctua fan to cool the CPU..

[@ymeshulin]

@@nascompares SODIUM memory for the win my man! 😀

[@Cabel330]

Does someone know when we can expect new Synology nas´s? Is there a timeline?

[@nascompares]

Stick around the channel in about 2 weeks bud *runs away before anyone notices*

[@markbarton]

As someone looking to finally upgrade an old Synology 2 Bay NAS it would be good if you could cover some of the network scenarios - e.g. convert network to 2.5G - you would need switch (cost), cables, and what typical hardware - so does a newer mac have an appropriate LAN port, do PCs generally support it - if not what do you need. If you do manage to get 2.5G network would SSD based NAS be overkill. You also mentioned failover for dual ethernet ports - is this just for a port failure on the NAS? Or more about failover to a separate NAS? If feels like a table / video to breakdown typical costs for 1, 2.5 and 10G ethernet and what the minimum requirements would be for the PC to support that speed.

[@nascompares]

Re: the single port reasoning, I just think it was the brand reusing a mini PC mould and build (you will see a good example of this logic in a CWWK x86 P5 video on the channel soon) for coat saving...which is a bit of a bummer

[@markbarton]

@@nascompares But whats the advantage of dual ports? Is it like rack servers having dual PSU's?

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

The only reason to upgrade home wired network to 2.5 is if your cables are good enough for it to save the costs of replacing them. The cheapest way is to buy a decent Chinese 2.5gbe switch, a card for your PC if it doesn't have it, and see if the cables can manage. Depends on cable category, quality, and distance. Otherwise replace with cat6a and either go directly to 10gbe or, if you're skimpy, 2.5gbe.

[@darkphotographer]

there is no point having ssd nas without a 10gb nic , i add ssd in my server only after i install a 10gb nic , i had for long time a quad port 1g nic on my server and workstation ,

[@rodfer5406]

Usbc speeds?

[@dukeseb]

Bargh……. Why do they keep putting them out with 2.5G…. I would kill for one that would just have an SFP+ port on it

[@nascompares]

To be fair, they'ce stretched the N100 in this thing insanely.

[@nadtz]

Not enough pcie lanes. You would eat up 2 with 10gb so you would only be able to do 3 drives with 1 left over for all the other IO.

[@tommybronze3451]

4x nvme … and still no 10Gbe … what’s next ? 12x sata connected via usb 1.1 ?

[@tim3172]

You realize that a 10GBe NIC would consume as much power as this entire system, right? ... right? You do know that this is a small, low-power system for the home and doubling its power consumption would be a bad thing. ... right?

[@tommybronze3451]

@@tim3172 you still think in old aquantia power usage ...

[@phanter344]

These are home NAS's, do you really need more than a 2.5Gbps NIC? I'd like one of these to take away with me when I'm on the road and anything that lowers the heat/power/price is ideal. Not all NAS's have to be 'knocking it out of the park' performance wise. Same with PCIe lanes, no it can't use the SSDs to their full potential, but do you need it to? All the time? Is if fast enough as it is? I guess if you're a company and need fast NAS storage you'd go with another brand, but not all of us need that performance, especially in a home situation. For home I'd suspect that storage capacity, size and noise trumps outright performance, and I think tis is where these systems are best suited.

[@nascompares]

This...is a super mature response. Respect! I complete get your point of view, but I do need to highlight that at a price Vs ROI here, there are better options out there for this scale (raised it earlier in the comments, but the x86 P5 is a great example). Thanks for commenting bud, a very measured response.

[@ace-gc5xm]

can this be used as just a DAS ? im looking for m.2 das

[@nascompares]

Not really I'm afraid. Only if you direct patches your Ethernet port 'point to point' with the NAS. Even then, it would be on IP (169.:etc) and limited to 2.5GbE (250-279MB/s)

[@marcomoraschi3972]

@@nascompares usb-c?

[@rodfer5406]

I want one

[@rogerthomas7040]

The price makes it something of a joke. If you want a 8GB RAM, 4 way NVMe SSD, with a single 2.5Gbps network port you can purchase the ARM based CM3588 board for under $160.

[@nascompares]

*cough x86 P5*.... Yeah

[@ovarb12]

$450 help me to understand what is the value in this unit?

[@tim3172]

It's not a "value" unit. It's something designed for a specific use case, i.e. a small, solid-state NAS for the home with reasonable expansion. The people buying NVME SSDs are buying it for responsiveness, not raw throughput. When I hit my NAS, and I have to wait for the drives to spin up, I often forget to complete what I was doing. I since moved the common files to NVME and it's not an issue anymore. If you want a "value" unit, buy a 2-bay HDD system for $169 and call it a day. "Derp why isn't this the cheapest thing I can buy?"

[@bxchris]

"it ain't me" 😂

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

WiFi,.. yeah, no thanks, rather have two wired ports, but even then, it really only needs one if it's on a home network with no internet connection.

[@deepblu3.]

Portable computers get smaller and pricier. Port elimination is not consistent with real life. I still need them, but now have to pay extra and manage the logistics of 2 devices plus tons of cables...

[@nascompares]

*Thinks of the Mac books that had just 2 thunderbolt ports and that's it* ...amen brother!

[@tim3172]

So, buy a device that fits your needs and quit squawking?

[@deepblu3.]

@@tim3172 Like?… a 2012 MacBook Pro? Or a MacBook M3/M4 Ethernet Edition!! Apple fits my needs but I have been compromising ports for a while. I’m not a PC user. Idiotic comment.

[@edwald4056]

At that price, I can't justify getting one. 4 x pcie3 drives in that tiny space is gonna bake something.

[@nascompares]

Oh the plus side, doubles as a fried egg cooker?

[@tim3172]

Uh oh! Somebody doesn't understand the difference between temperature and heat output.

[@reddeviluk]

£365 for 256Gb......WOW. Bang for the buck, isn't this.

[@nascompares]

Discount code added to the comment section on request of the brand, but even then. This is not the cheapest for the spec, no!

[@victorlowe]

If you're using it as a nas as intended, then it absolutely does not need wifi. You're gonna chuck it next to the router and leave it plugged to ethernet FFS what a stupid thing to complain about

[@leadfarmer5563]

$399 for this? lol no way.

[@betterlifeexe4378]

overpriced

[@HwSystems]

Without 10G it is worthless.

[@nascompares]

Harsh words!!!