JONSBO N2 NAS Case review + Build

[@moto-rambler]

The only honest, thoughtful, and competent review of this case on KZbin.

[@SvDKILLSWITCH]

Good review! I know it's a very niche market but it's frustrating how few really good options there are for compact DIY NAS cases. Would love to find something that supports eight bays in the bottom chamber with proper cooling, and maybe with the added width there would be enough space in the top chamber to have two PCIe expansion slots on their side with a PCIe riser.

[@Mkungaa]

There are quite a few new 8-9 bay Chinese NAS cases. But there is a catch - you have to import it from Taobao.

[@MrMcPeon]

Jonsbo N3

[@sussurus]

My understanding is that the Corsair SF PSUs like the SF600 you have were released initially in 2015 as 80+ Gold, and then a newer model was released in 2018 with Platinum certification. It's easy to get caught out by it: I've been keeping an eye at second-hand ones and a lot of people list them as Platinum rated but the pictures show it's actually the older Gold-rated model.

[@WolfgangsChannel]

It's a really cute little case. What ultimately made me decide against it though is the HDD backplane. There are a lot of people reporting issues with the N1 backplane, and I just didn't feel comfortable getting a SATA backplane from a non-server brand

[@PeterBrockie]

I don't blame you. Especially since an ordinary backplane is relatively simple to get right. That being said, I haven't really had any problems with backplanes beyond shitty cases which didn't allow hotswap bays to align properly.

[@s0ld475]

Yeah. I got the n1 and the backplane is very fragile

[@Beatleman91]

@@PeterBrockieDo you have to use backplane? Can't you just ditch it and connect the cables directly? I mean, if you don't care for hotswapping...

[@PeterBrockie]

@@Beatleman91 Yes, you can remove it. I don't really see the need other than slightly better airflow.

[@rafirizwan]

so here I am specifically researching this case for a NAS, and the motherboard and processor are the exact same ones I just happen to have laying around. Absolutely insane odds.

[@erny1601]

Jonsbo is now making 8-bay a case (N3), just a matter of time, when they will be available. It's great that some company is trying to make good nas cases, because the existing ones are crap, the ones which are good, are almost 10 years old and don't get manufactured anymore (chenbro for example).

[@Benzin0]

This case BEGS for a custom 3D printed bracket to be able to mount a 25mm thick fan in the back! I have the Jonsbo N1 and the biggest downside is the lack of ventilation for the PC side so it gets quite toasty in there if you run a CPU + GPU instead of an APU. The N2 seems to resolve that problem by having the compartments separated & the top vents (although they should've vented the whole top...) which is good. Great review btw!

[@PeterBrockie]

I've found just attaching the 25mm thick fan to the outside of the fan mount works fine and doesn't add much to the footprint and doesn't need any mods.

[@alexbright7735]

Nice to hear a real review. Many channels are sent free items and they sing its praises. Just an advert. This video was informative and interesting. Hope the developers take notes.

[@PeterBrockie]

Personally I don't care if a review sample is sent to a channel if they are an honest channel. Which usually means the bigger ones as they can tell them they'll just buy it anyway - which a smaller channel can't. Which sucks, but it's the reality of being a small channel. I just happen to have a day job to buy crap to take a look at. :P

[@microdesigns2000]

I've searched all over. I came back because this is the best video I found on building a decent NAS. I just broke my NanoPI-based NAS build from a few years ago (because of a design flaw on the SATA hat and I wrecked it). Now I want to build something a little better, that I might serve up a VM someday. I was first thinking, 'all I need is a file sharing machine' and was thinking about using Win11 and Intel because I'm a fan boy and I am comfortable at the Windows command prompt. But then I saw the price of XEON E-2300 CPUs and thought, well... maybe not. I've been using OMV5, that's been unstable after power losses that happen a few times a year, that make me run fsck manually every time, really annoying. This video has great explanations of a bunch of relevant things like ECC, VMs, temperatures, OS. I could build a decent system just with this video and the parts list in the description. Thanks! The only question I had was about the SATA controllers. The XigmaNAS seems to support their own software RAID, but I couldn't determine if they will support the hardware RAID, on board and on the PCI card.

[@davidg5898]

Thanks for putting up a review of this so soon after its release. It helped me make a decision to buy it (just arrived yesterday, and I built the system today). For the most part, it's the case I've long been waiting for. The few gripes are mostly fixable and minor. My only significant complaint is the screws used for the drive slider grommets. The shank on them is too short -- it should be the same depth as the grommets. You can only screw them in to the drive partially otherwise the grommets get smashed and won't slide on their tracks. Not-fully-secured screws leave me a little uncomfortable.

[@smokeythebear1633]

Finally found a good reviewer. Thanks for the video Peter.

[@inhalants]

Thanks this is super helpful. Just got mine in the mail. You spent a lot of time talking about the strange layout of the top panel with the dust filters on the side. I interpreted this to mean that they wanted you to use your cpu fan as an exhaust. I'm going to try running my system like that and sealing the top holes around the fan so that there's no recirculation. That way the fan is pulling in through the dust filters and exhausting up.

[@PeterBrockie]

Updates: You can externally mount a 120x25mm fan, which is not ideal, but it does work. 8-bay JONSBO N3 review: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmSxknmNipeMmqs

[@matteventu]

Does it still come with the dumb hex screws? 😬😬😬

[@PeterBrockie]

@@matteventu I can confirm the N3 comes with hex screws on the top cover. Source: Mine got delivered today. Review coming soon. :D Just looking over at the build quality, it's quite good with just a couple silly things we already saw coming (100mm fans...)

[@matteventu]

@@PeterBrockie looking forward to it mate!

[@aliancemd]

To install a 120x25mm fan on the outside, do you need to cut that exterior metal mesh? It seems to be slightly bent towards the outside which could interfere with the fan or at least create additional noise. I am thinking that I can slap a Phanteks T30 with a grill on it.

[@PeterBrockie]

@@aliancemd Nope. It was no issue installing it.

[@vvyakovlev]

Thanks for the review I had r5600 on hands for this build, so I had to go with the dedicated GPU to have video output of some sort About cooling ID-COOLING IS-55 + Arctic P12 exhausting air from the top. Found out that pushing air to the motherboard caused turbulence noise from the top lid, so side holes with filters are actually usable Hot-rod style external mounted back another Arctic P12 exhaust with generic grills as I found stock mesh grills very restrictive

[@PeterBrockie]

Shouldn't make much of a difference, although the focused air coming out of the fan is usually better to have down to spread out over the vrm, etc. But it may mot really matter in practice.

[@subrezon]

You can fit a standard 25mm thick fan in the back, you need to buy two molex male punchdown connectors and a molex extension. Plug the connectors into the backplane, cut the male connector off of the extension and punch down the loose wires into the connectors, taking care to get the pinout right. This way there is enough space for a standard fan in the back.

[@matthewdinslage7179]

I actually tried this, but I found the pushing the wires down into the connector was a huge PITA. I know molex makes a hand tool for this, but how did you push the wire into the housing?

[@subrezon]

@@matthewdinslage7179 I don't own this case so I did not do it on it exactly, but I did something similar with another very similar backplane. I got the wire in using an ethernet punch down tool, then pushed it in to the end with a flat head screwdriver.

[@VolkerBaier]

You could also mount the fan to the outside, looks are not that nice any more but you would have no restrictions to the thickness of the fan.

[@PeterBrockie]

Agreed as someone else pointed out. I'd still like to see JONSBO simply make a case which takes normal 120x25 fans. :D

[@mtrebtreboschi5722]

The point of not including a bigger fan is likely to keep the small cube size/shape. Its about 20% smaller volume than the N1 and is pretty much a perfect cube. If you want better cooling there are bigger options (like probably the N1)

[@kirkfoster2673]

Thank you! I was looking at this case, but was blown away that they they choose to make it so small, restricting to an ITX, but yet have 5 drive bays. I knew at that point that this case was not properly thought out. And you very much proved that with your excellent review. Such a shame, just make this case a tiny bit bigger.

[@subrezon]

Having 5 HDD bays instead of 4 is a big deal, because ideally you want "power-of-2" plus "# of redundant" drives per array. 4+1 is really the most efficient way to build an array. And yes, while most consumer ITX boards only have 4 SATA ports, most workstation/server ITX boards do indeed have 6 or 8.

[@matthewdinslage8120]

Getting ready to build a NAS and literally just saw that Jonsbo is releasing a new N3 NAS case with 8 drive support. I will probably wait and see reviews for it before I pull the trigger.

[@PeterBrockie]

I'll try to pick one up when it's available. It worries. Me that the specs say it uses dual 100mm fans... Not 120mm. 100mm. I hope that's a typo, although looking at the photos, if the top fans are 80mm the bottom ones are probably 90mm (aka 92mm) - which worries me for cooling 8 drives. Other than that, it looks pretty good, actually. Full-height cards (2 slots, although it's an ITX board so it's probably only good for a thick GPU).

[@PeterBrockie]

I did some more poking around and it does look like they are shipping impossible to find 100mm fans in it. But I found a product image with some Chinese text which translates to: "The hard disk compartment fan also supports 90mm specifications" I suspect hdd cooling is going to be ass on this case and you're going to be stuck with hot drives and trash fans or cool drives and deafening Delta high rpm fans.

[@matthewdinslage8120]

@@PeterBrockie I just saw that too. I immediately googled 100x25mm fan and saw one. Really dumb move on their part. Why they didn't go with 80mm is beyond me, SMH. Plus in my use case I really don't need 8 bays so I may just stick with the N2.

[@PeterBrockie]

@@matthewdinslage8120 For 8 hard drives I'd really like to see dual 120mm. Even if it seems like overkill (I don't think it is), 120mm fans are the most common out there and super quiet ones are easy to find.

[@matthewdinslage8120]

@@PeterBrockie True that, and that would of only added .78 inches to the height of the case. they really should of gone with 120mm. I am thinking I will probably go with the N2. I have found people saying that if you get lower profile 90 degree molex connectors you can squeeze a 120mm fan into the N2. There is a video of a guy doing it on another channel. I managed to find some 90 degree molex so I went ahead and bought them just in case, it's dumb luck I found them because they are getting very hard to find in this day and age.

[@Megatog615]

im a big fan of those metal grates for fans. my pc case has dust filters that go on the outside of intake fans and for some reason they thought it wouldn't suck the filter into the fan. adding these grates fixed the problem for me.

[@tomdillan]

I have over four different itx motherboards with six sata ports. On the four bay nas you showed earlier I took the backplate off since I wasn’t going to use the hot swap function and that helps with cooling.

[@PeterBrockie]

The issue isn't that 5-6 SATA ITX boards don't exist, I'm only pointing out that zero modern ones seem to have them. With the exception of expensive Xeon D-15x1 boards (which have other limitations and aren't even that modern), and Aliexpress J6xxx series boards. The Aliexpress boards are usually not SATA ports from the PCH, but from a cheap Jmicron controller - some people swear by them and some say don't take them within a mile of TrueNAS. I haven't had any problems though.

[@shikuva]

Asrock h370m itx/ac 6 sata I use it with lainli q25 . But this n2 is so cute . Very good review . Thank you

[@mikestegen]

Can you mount a thicker 120mm fan on the outside of the case?

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. You can basically always do that on almost any fan. But I stand by my criticism that it should support a 25mm thick fan.

[@jonathanmarshall3974]

Thanks for the review! I’m keeping an eye out for cases for an upcoming NAS upgrade :)

[@ericneo2]

Your cat tax is acceptable. Your video was great and thanks for the extra links.

[@andrewdenzov3303]

Just flip CPU fan upside down and you good to go. It will blow hot air up und pull fresh air through filtered slots

[@willcurry6964]

I would like to see a 2.5 inch cage for SAS Enterprise Hard Drives.

[@mtrebtreboschi5722]

Jonsbo also came out with an 8 drive N3 case recently it seems decently bigger to move the PSU

[@PeterBrockie]

Already reviewed it! kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmSxknmNipeMmqs It's a pretty good case. I think there are better mATX 8-bay options (which I'll have a review out for soon), but it's a solid case. The N4 which I'm currently reviewing seems like a major step back and is basically trash. So who knows what direction they're going with stuff...

[@mtrebtreboschi5722]

@@PeterBrockie Thank you! Sounds interesting. I'll check out that review and look forward to the one about the N4

[@Cooper3312000]

Some Asrock rack server Xeon mini itx boards support ECC/IPMI/10GbE/ASPEED VGA. At a cost of course.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. Supermicro as well. I was limiting myself to consumer stuff since it's easier and cheaper to get and has 95% of what you need for a simple NAS. Plus most of the Xeon ITX boards are D-15xx boards which have pretty poor per-core performance which matters when doing a VPN link.

[@QuentinStephens]

They are generally not actually purchasable.

[@nmap-p-]

I understand the anger about ecc, it’s a pain in the ass to realise that intel has only very (heavy power hungry server) specific cpu’s supporting ecc. And the reason for intel for you is probably also the lower power usage?

[@fotografiabogota]

Hello Peter ty so much for your Video but i dont get it, you have to buy the N2 NAS and all inside ? the truth is that I am very good at the topic of NAS, I usually pay for Google Drive but I am already spending 350 dollars a year, and I have seen or am considering the option of a NAS but I wanted to ask you something very specifically, I hope you can help me: Let's see if the NAS is useful for what I want: we have photographers throughout the country of Colombia but each photographer is in a different city, I want to assign them a user and an amount of space and that they can only enter their space and with your user and they cannot see what others do, is that possible? ty so much

[@PeterBrockie]

That's beyond the scope of this video. This video is about the case and that's it. The software side of things will be the easiest to do by using one of the big cloud providers like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, etc. For a self built NAS, something like Nextcloud can do that, but requires a lot more work than just using Google.

[@daveweinstein5044]

They do make an 8-bay case, it's called the N3. Unfortunately it's still mITX, and I haven't been able to find any mITX MBs that have 8x SATA ports.

[@PeterBrockie]

Already have a review on it. :D kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmSxknmNipeMmqs

[@adicl_yt]

The orientation of the fins on the low profile Noctua CPU cooler is indeed annoying... the hot air is blown into the RAM on almost all the AMD mini ITX mainboards I have seen. No idea why Noctua was not able to get it right.

[@PeterBrockie]

It's also an annoyance of the AM4 mount in general in that you're not usually able to rotate your coolers. Obviously this applies to other non-square mounts as well like LGA1700 (mount is square, but the IHS isn't, so it's often restricted to one orientation), etc.

[@Kyniel]

I went for a pcie card rather than the m.2 E for adding SATA ports - partly as I was just unsure how the fit would work. Do the SATA cables block your PCIE slot?

[@shuginubi]

thinking about putting there i5 12400 and RX6400 single slot low profile card (the best you can fit in there), and put 4 2.5 SSDs of 2Tb each (which are laying around rn), for RAID 1. Perfect build, tbh, to configure as store for valuable work data. And maybe some classic vidya

[@zachb4047]

Really liking this channel! What I really want to see someone try and do is take the topton n5105 MoB and do M.2 to PCIe x4 adaptor to off load transcoding!!!??? If that can be done, it would be near a perfect board to me.

[@thickglasses]

Jonsbo just announced the N3. It has room for 8 drives and 2 full sized PCIE slots. They added fans to the mobo area but only 80mm x 25mm in size. they also changed the hard drive fans from 120mm x 15mm to 100mm x 25mm for some odd reason. I tried to link to it but YT kept deleting my comment. Jonsbo has a page for the N3 on their website.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yeah, a couple of us were talking about it in the comments. I think 80mm is perfectly good for the motherboard area, since you need barely any airflow unless you're running a high end PC as a NAS, but the 100mm fan choice is completely insane. I'll try to pick one up when it's available in the US.

[@thickglasses]

@@PeterBrockie I might pick one up too. I'm looking to move my NAS from a Fractal Design Define 5 to a smaller machine. I did a quick Google search for 100mm fans and didn't find much. What an odd choice.

[@elisauco8666]

Would there be enough space to fit a deep mini-ITX motherboard? It needs extra 15mm and it looks like theres enough space, but not sure if it would fit because of the front IO card.

[@ALex-qc4lf]

You could change the fan to blow up out of the case :P

[@zenskas358]

Great review mate, very thorough and you had a lot of the same thoughts as me! I just picked up the same N2 in white on the secondhand market with the intent to build something cheap and power efficient for Plex. The allen key is quite weird. Seems to only be needed for 4 screws for the top cover. Every single other screw in the case is phillips... Purchased brand new WD 4x8TB hard drives and one M.2 NVMe drive for OS and caching. I got all other parts secondhand for cheap - Asus H610i Plus D4, i3-12300T, 500W Be Quiet gold rated SFX PSU, so just need some RAM and a cooler which I may just buy new. I admit it's a shame I can't use ECC RAM :( But the cost, efficiency and performance of the i3-12300T for Plex will be amazing. I intend to run a ZFS RAIDZ array, external UPS, and backup all important data to a separate NAS system + cloud storage - so in these ways I am covered for data loss or hardware problems. I have seen some people install additional 40mm case fans on the sides of the case if you get tricky with zip ties, double sided tape and/or drilling your own holes. But I agree it would have been a simple addition from the factory. For low power builds it isn't needed but if you want a beefier >65W CPU, low profile PCIe GPU/RAID/network card etc then you start to want some additional motherboard compartment cooling. It also appears very easy to run a full size 25mm thick fan on the outside of the case. Take the stock fan and both grills out, screw the new 120x25mm fan to the outside of the removable fan bracket, use wire grills on one or both sides as needed to protect the fan blades. It will of course protrude 25mm from the back of the case and look a bit funny, but this is generally no problem unless you are heavily space constrained. You may need to get tricky with the fan cable but it can easily be run in through the PCI bracket area or drill a hole. It should perform much better than the stock fan and in my case I will be ordering a 120mm Arctic P12 Max which is good value, has great static pressure and a very wide RPM range (will plug into mobo rather than HDD backplane so that I can find a suitable fan curve based on HDD or CPU temps). Anyway, I highly recommend the case from what I have seen so far and look forward to completing the build soon!

[@PeterBrockie]

It's too bad the tradeoff is usually Plex or ECC. If you go AMD, you have worse support in Plex for transcoding, but get ECC (with G Pro APU, a normal G series won't do ECC) or you go Intel and drop ECC. There are some exceptions but they are few and usually either expensive or underpowered. Or both. Haha You can get a W680 motherboard, but they are super expensive and I don't think any ITX boards exist. The N100 can do a decent job at Plex, but with only 4 cores it's kinda crappy for running Plex in a VM. But the N100 doesn't support ECC... Or does it? Some motherboards enable "in-band" ECC where it uses normal RAM, but sets some aside to provide ECC. I did find a cheap N100 board with it enabled for a future video - still testing it out.

[@zenskas358]

​@@PeterBrockie Yeah outside of the really expensive or niche server gear you are right. I think the ultimate consumer solution in the N2 case for great CPU performance, ECC, AND transcoding Plex performance is an AMD socket board/Pro CPU/ECC RAM, then utilize a low-profile single slot Intel GPU like the SPARKLE Arc A310 ECO 4GB or suitable NVIDIA GPU (Quadro P or T series low profile cards seem a solid choice for cheap). The problem then of course is that you lose your only PCIe x16 slot on the motherboard which you maybe wanted to use for RAID or NIC cards etc. However if you pick a good board then some have dual NIC, many at least one decent 2.5Gbit NIC, you've got 4 SATA ports on most, and your addition of extra 2 SATA ports on the wifi card is brilliant. Most good modern ITX boards will also have two 2280 M.2 slots, so two SSD's there or you can use one of them with a similar M.2 SATA port expansion card like you used, they make them for 2280 M.2 slots with 5 or 6 SATA ports. Not proper hardware RAID but that's not as important to most consumers doing homelab NAS. My big thing was value, for that I was constrained by what I could find secondhand in my budget. My next big tickbox was efficiency/quiet, so knowing a 12300T is an extremely efficient solution for Plex transcoding and idle power usage as compared to a more powerful, more expensive and more power hungry AMD CPU and separate GPU. For those reasons the Intel chip was a no brainer but if I had the budget and didn't care for extra noise or power use then I'd have gone all out with an AMD CPU, ECC RAM and Intel Arc A310 for the best of both worlds.

[@misku_]

Very informative review, thanks!

[@OlindoPindaro]

I will use an external 130W 19V Power Brick for N100 Mobo. I think is more silent...

[@sdfghjk8428]

Damm boy, you rock

[@meccu19]

I have some ideas already, curious if you can shift motherboard, drill some space for dual slot card, and same, you can cut space in front to place small fans for intake… hmmmmm

[@christopherjackson2157]

Could you stick the fan on the exterior if you've got ur own metal grill? Sometimes an option depending on mounting solution

[@marcin_karwinski]

Imagine this with ASRock Rack deep mITX board for Rome-generation Epyc, with 4 mem slots occupied and some of the 6 PCIe4x8 ports connected/split/switched to similar daughter board just without SATA but with U.2 and/or M.2 instead... but then they'd have to buy a proper PCIe switch chip and that would've driven the price way higher...

[@nmap-p-]

One more question about this case. I noticed some people on reddit went away from this case after a few months because of the airflow not being sufficient. Their drives got too hot, do you experience that too? Thank you for the information!

[@PeterBrockie]

An easy and cheap way to get much better cooling is the simple external fan mod I show in this follow-up video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o6qlqYB5jdSWmtk Should handle just about any drives unless your room temperature is hot enough to kill a human. :P

[@Ziraya0]

Why didn't they add more bays! Why leave out 2~3 bays worth of space to retain a hex key! This could have been an 8 disk case and that gives a lot of array structure options! 5 is such a weird number to have gone with~

[@PeterBrockie]

The space behind the hex key is the PSU and cable area. If they made it longer they'd have enough for a wider backplane, but then you'd start running into cooling problems because the right-most drives in front of the PSU wouldn't get as much airflow, but it still feels a little wasted. 5 is a damn weird number of drives.

[@Ziraya0]

@@PeterBrockie I'm doing a lot of nonsense at work lately that ultimately results in me wiping batches of 30 drives at a time, in a modified bulk hard drive shipping box (cardboard) fitted with one 180mm x25 noctua blowing into the bottom. These drives are writing solid for as long as it takes, and they're stable at about 25C. The only trick to making this setup work is ensuring there is enough space between the fan and The Drive Matrix for the static pressure to distribute, and that bypass paths are reasonably blocked off. Pull-only is kind of bad because then you're relying on the atmosphere to fill your low pressure zone and that will more heavily bias direct paths, while push-only creates positive pressure, which is better at utilizing all paths to escape.

[@pascalschwitz7016]

Thanks for this review! One question about replacing the m.2 key wifi card: Is it possible to replace it by a PCIe riser card to then use the card to attach not only the missing 5th sata port but also adding other PCIe devices on top? And maybe I missed it but what is your TrueNAS boot drive and where attached to? Thx

[@PeterBrockie]

As far as I know no one makes anything which would split the wifi slot into SATA and PCIe. I was running it off a couple M.2 SSDs in mirroring since I didn't need any caching - if I recall correctly.

[@casperghst42]

Why is workstation boards a must? I've been using an ASRock board with C236 with does iGPU and ECC ...

[@Kekeripo]

What i found very odd... why is there a backplane anyway? I'm asking because you have to plug in your power and sata cables anyway. Not having the backplane would allow for some more cooling, maybe even more space for a 25mm fan. I guess hot swap is nice to have, but i'd rather have improved cooling and reduced noise over a feature i might never use.

[@PeterBrockie]

Because you'd have to take the case apart and fiddle with sata and power cables in a small space to hot swap anything. That being said, you can remove it and do that if you really want.

[@wraynephew6838]

Can you explain to us why ECC is so important and a must for a NAS?

[@muktheo]

prevent bluescreen

[@matthewdinslage7179]

It is not a MUST have, but it is definitely recommended if your board and CPU support it. It helps ensure data integrity by detecting and correcting single-bit memory errors that can occur due to factors like cosmic rays, electromagnetic interference, or hardware defects. It adds an extra layer of protection to your data, reducing the risk of silent data corruption and enhancing overall system reliability.

[@hkhan1989]

Watching this today (May2024) and it's like you predicted the N3 lol

[@PeterBrockie]

No one could predict the terrible N4 though. haha

[@fredericomachado4116]

Mesh filter on the sides where the air exits makes no sense whatsoever unless it's for looks.

[@glenngarcia6665]

Hey this was a great overview of your Jonsbo build! I have this Phantom Gaming ITX and the Ryzen 5 3400G Pro and I am having trouble with it posting or showing BIOS when connected to a monitor. Did you run into any similar issues? Any insight is appreciated! Thanks!

[@PeterBrockie]

Is the BIOS up to date? That motherboard only supports that CPU from version P2.10 onward.

[@glenngarcia6665]

@@PeterBrockie yeah, the motherboard has a sticker that says 2.30 on it. I ended up unplugging the CMOS battery and doing a short on the pins but haven’t had any luck. Anything you recommend?

[@glenngarcia6665]

Forgot to mention the LEDs work and CPU fan spins when turned on

[@PeterBrockie]

I'd try a GPU just in case it's somehow trying to use a PCIe GPU first instead of onboard. That being said, a CMOS reset usually fixes that kind of stuff. Obviously if you have any other parts (different RAM, CPU, etc.) try using those to eliminate different hardware. @@glenngarcia6665

[@glenngarcia6665]

@@PeterBrockie Finally got it working! Turns out my RAM wasn't seated in all the way! 😶

[@JTLowry]

There's not many its boards that use ECC ram.

[@carlocatalano7515]

Thanks for the video, very interesting! I was thinking of building a nas of this type but the electricity consumption scares me considering 24/7 on. Have you measured the watts while idle? are they comparable to a pre-built nas?

[@PeterBrockie]

It depends on what you're using for a cpu. You can easily use a 10w Intel chip motherboard for a simple NAS, and spin down the hard drives when idle. That kind of setup will go down to 20w or less easy. But a higher end system like the AMD one I have here you're looking at 50-100w depending on load. But usually under 50 idle as modern chips are really good at going low power.

[@hankkingsley9183]

Better that you don't have to pull the whole thing apart to swap out a drive

[@stephencooper3835]

Im thinking of doing this build, has there been any issues with it over the last few months? And what drives would you recommend, im on somewhat of a budget and would hope to expand later, so maybe 3 large 8tb + to start with

[@PeterBrockie]

Adding drives to an existing array is not optimal under TrueNAS. If you will be running unraid, so I'd go with 5 drives which you can afford. One thing to watch out for is smaller capacity drives can be SMR, so do a Google search and make sure they aren't before buying any. I haven't run into any problems. Both this and the N3 (8 bay) are great cases.

[@qwesuperpk]

Will the RAID5 work on these configurations? (as these motherboard doesnt support RAID5). I'm not sure whether software-RAID5 can be done on it? (or will should buy PCI SATA controllere - and hence need to have integrated graphics processor? As no free PCI slot remailns)

[@PeterBrockie]

The case itself has no RAID abilities. You need to either use software raid (like TrueNAS or UnRAID) or use a hardware RAID controller card - which really isn't common these days. Pretty much everyone uses software RAID.

[@SynAckRepeat]

How do you get around transcoding with the AMD chipset? Edit: sorry continued watching and noticed you mentioned plex which was what I was going for with this build. Any recommendations for hardware for a plex server/ NAS? Edit2: Haha continued watching so a supermicro x7spah?

[@PeterBrockie]

If you're looking to do Plex, really any reasonably modern Intel board with an iGPU will work. You just don't get ECC memory on their consumer boards.

[@SynAckRepeat]

@@PeterBrockie was looking for a Z490M-ITX/ac but cant find any in US, I guess whats your gripe with non ecc memory? Most of the consumer memory is non ecc for personal pcs is it not? I thought most ECC memory went into servers and enterprise workstations ? I dont even think synology uses ecc unless your spending thousands for enterprise level equipment?

[@PeterBrockie]

ECC is highly recommended for ZFS (TrueNAS), and really any server. However, I am moving away from worrying about it - especially in a homelab. I wouldn't really recommend tracking down an old board unless you really really need something on it. I'd personally grab a cheap ITX 12th Gen Intel board with whatever basic features you need (dual m.2, 2.5g ethernet, etc) and a cheap 12-14th Gen CPU in your budget. Older motherboards tend to be way overpriced or hard to find. A new motherboard (even a cheap one) will come with newer I/O, use less power and probably be about the same price. When 12th Gen came out I sold off my old 8th Gen stuff and actually made a profit after buying the 12th Gen to replace it. People pay way too much for out of date hardware just because they have an old cpu they want to use, etc.

[@Issenia]

How long should the SATA cables be for decent cable management with this case? It seems I need to run them around the whole motherboard - so roughly 30 to 40cm?

[@PeterBrockie]

It depends on the location of the ports on the motherboard, but if I recall normal length ones included with motherboards reached.

[@bulletproof8019]

build it overkill with an intel 13500 and no dedicated gpu for unraid+plex. it rips

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. Quicksync is the way yo go for a nice Plex server. Although I think there are still issues with that and HDR tone mapping if you're running Plex under Windows.

[@bulletproof8019]

@@PeterBrockie so far so good under unraid for plex and other dockers. I wished i saw you r video before because i sacrificed a ssd port to add the 5th drive by using the IOCrest SI-ADA40149 2 Port SATA III 6Gb-s M.2 22x42 Controller Card. your soution is way better. Used artic slim fans cheaper that noctuas and as good. my drives are all 14tb shucked ones so not as hot as yours butnot Red pro. all in all way overkill but works super well.

[@PeterBrockie]

@@bulletproof8019 Actually I sacrificed the wifi card by using the A+E slot M.2 instead of a normal M.2 for an SSD. So you still retain your SSDs. :D

[@Qibbles]

@@PeterBrockie May I know if having a gpu + a quick sync capable cpu would make transcoding better?

[@PeterBrockie]

@@Qibbles Plex won't use both at the same time. One or the other only.

[@marcin_karwinski]

Maybe Arctic's P12 Slim would be a better fan choice...

[@drunkenveteran1997]

Did using the WiFi card's M2 slot result in any configuration adjustments for the SATA expansion card? Or was it essentially plug and play? Debating going this exact route, thanks for the video it's helped me a ton in creating my NAS.

[@PeterBrockie]

Nope configuration needed with TrueNAS. You might not be able to boot off the SATA ports on the m.2, but that usually isn't an issue.

[@drunkenveteran1997]

@@PeterBrockie Awesome, thanks for the reply!

[@BarneyKB]

Do you think if you soldered a 'pig tail' molex connector instead of the pcb mount connectors on the backplane you could fit a 25mm fan?

[@PeterBrockie]

Probably. But it's easier to just screw a 25mm fan on from the outside.

[@AnatolyK]

So would you recommend going with smth like 5600G (I don't care about ECC that much) on, say, B450 or even 550? Or it's still better to stick with Intel because of Quicksync? Currently using Plex mostly w/o transcoding, but thinking of moving it onto Jellyfin. Was also thinking of using Proxmox as my main platform. And I think I'll be happy with just 3 drives installed in slots 1-3-5. I'm looking at the branded NASes and getting upset with the pricing/what you get for the money. Do I miss smth and maybe there's a sort of a magic bullet NAS on the market?😁

[@PeterBrockie]

Intel Quicksync no contest for Plex. The AMD encoder doesn't have very good support at this time.

[@matthewforan6397]

Some of Intel's 12th and 13th gen core processors actually do support ECC. The problem is finding a motherboard with the right chipset, and then they cost $500...

[@PeterBrockie]

So, yeah. They might as well not do it. They had a choice to enable it on consumer boards and just not support it like AMD. As far as I know no ITX boards exist as well.

[@matthewforan6397]

@@PeterBrockie the ASRock IMB-X1231 is the ITX board I had in mind, for $500. But for that much you could get an AMD CPU and one of consumer AM4 motherboards.

[@blancheit4696]

where did you get info about ecc support? and 5650GE seems to be a pro serie so does it support ecc?

[@PeterBrockie]

The Pro series APUs support ECC -IF- your motherboard also supports it. Some motherboards do not enable it, so you have to Google around or look at the specs in detail to figure it out.

[@matthewdinslage7179]

On the E Key to sata adapter do you need to use right angle sata connectors or is there enough room to use straight sata connectors? Around minute 20 it looks like you are using straight?

[@matthewdinslage8120]

Got mine built. I found that with the Asrock B550M-ITX, if you are using the E Key to 2-port sata adapter with an add on card in the 16X slot there is not enough clearance between the adapter and the card when using straight angle sata cables. You will need a right angle to right angle cable or better yet I used the Silverstone CP11B-300 low profile sata cables. They are PERFECT for this situation, but be warned that are ridiculously expensive at $16.00 each.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yeah, I actually ran into issues with drives dropping out using my E key adapter (which considering I paid a couple bucks for it doesn't surprise me haha), so I just stuck a low profile 8 port sas card in there with a 40mm fan on it. Works perfectly.

[@matthewdinslage7179]

@@PeterBrockie That's funny you mention that because I had the exact same issue. I was getting S.M.A.R.T. errors that were pointing a to a bad cable or E Key adapter. After moving the drives around and reseating the cables the error went away, but I am keeping a close eye on it to see if it starts acting up again.

[@stephencooper3835]

​@@matthewdinslage7179any more issues with the E key adapter, thinking of doing this build myself

[@matthewdinslage7179]

@@stephencooper3835 No, its been rock solid since I reseated everything. I think the problem was one of the drives was not complete pushed into the back plane. After I moved drives around and made double sure they were all seated correctly I have had no problems. The only small issue is that it takes about 30-60 seconds on a cold boot before the E key adapter is recognized and Truenas boots. This is mostly a nonissue since the system is more or less running 24/7.

[@tommarnk]

amd does have AMF Hardware Video Encoder that does AVC/HEVC in hardware but for some reason i cant get it to work under linux, i think i need to use amdgpu-pro drivers or something Reasons to use AMD * ECC * much better graphics (and drivers under linux see amdgpu) * much better power efficiency i have a N1 with 5700G, 32GB RAM, 4x Toshiba MG09 18TBs (IO Crest 2 Port SATA M.2 adapter), ZFS under Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS

[@sadgshb]

Thinking of going for the same build but curious of how much watt is it consuming in idle

[@PeterBrockie]

Usually around 5w per hard drive if thru are spinning, and about 30-40 for the motherboard. So under 100 if it is not doing anything and under 50 if it has the drives sleeping.

[@1point21]

Can you mount the fan on the outside to use a thicker fan?

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. That's what I ended up doing.

[@karpoc]

Hello! What motherboard is in the video? Intel ?

[@PeterBrockie]

The AMD motherboard in the description is the one I used for the video. But this case will take any ITX motherboard. It's really just a tradeoff between AMD with ECC memory and Intel with the iGPU for transcoding videos.

[@nmap-p-]

Do you know what the power usage is on idle?

[@PeterBrockie]

Depends on the hardware you use. This setup because it has a proper CPU is more than a simple NAS board with a Celeron. The drives will use the most power if you have a simple cpu.

[@QuentinStephens]

5 is a good number for drive bays for a NAS: you run RAIDZ2.

[@PeterBrockie]

I agree with that, but finding anything modern with 5 ports on ITX is basically impossible. Unless you go with a server board or older Gen motherboard.

[@QuentinStephens]

@@PeterBrockie Agreed. I used a M.2 to SATA adapter with 4 ports so it feeds my boot drive and a SLOG drive.

[@geerliglecluse5297]

Correction, Intel DOES ECC

[@PeterBrockie]

Not with consumer chipsets and only some 12/13th Gen support it. I don't even know if anyone bothered to make an ITX board for the W series. Edit: Found an ITX W680 board. It's about $675 US for a basic board and it doesn't seem to really be for sale anywhere. Haha ASRock IMB-X1231. Yeah, I am going to stick with AM4 if I want home ECC support.

[@brandonchappell1535]

The fractal node 304 is better and holds 6x3.5s and 6 2.5s on side of caddys, plus full atx psu

[@PeterBrockie]

There are pros and cons for both, the Node is quite a bit longer which might mean you can't fit it where you need. It also lacks hot swap - which some people really like. Personally I don't need it all the time, but if the case is going somewhere remote for backup, having hot swap is great when someone not too into tech needs to do a drive replacement without you.

[@dobermanownerforlife3902]

​@@PeterBrockie i use the node 304 with and fm2+ apu (5 sata ports.). I don't have a ton of data. The case is kind of overkill(for me). Debating going SSD for storage drives to save consumption. Still can't find a case designed for 2.5 inch drives, like the 3.5 inch drives.

[@PeterBrockie]

@@dobermanownerforlife3902 I think Silverstone had a 2.5 NAS case and it was horrible. It was basically just as large as a normal case and had terrible cooling. Edit: Found it. www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Premium-Chassis-CS280B/dp/B01LQZI9J6

[@dobermanownerforlife3902]

@@PeterBrockie I found a 2.5 inch nas. Qnap made it years ago, and abandoned the design. It was a 5 bay. The trouble was with its drives compatability. It seems it wasn't intended for ssd. I use linux for soft raid and Emby as media server. I have no need for transcoding, so my options are wide open. A standard 4 bay Qnap or synology is tempting. I just have no idea if their software will let me run 3ndrives in stripe and the 4th as stand alone outside of raid. So like a 4TB x3 stripe with 12tb platter drive as removable back up.

[@dobermanownerforlife3902]

@@PeterBrockie my bad. Was synology. Ds620slim. 6 bay 2.5 inch drives.

[@PSP_vip]

I'm deaf , could you tell me Noctua fan size 120 or 140 ?

[@PeterBrockie]

The N2 uses a single 120mm fan.

[@fredericomachado4116]

Intel i5 13th gen do use ECC

[@PeterBrockie]

Only if your motherboard uses a W680 workstation chipset. Anything else EEC won't be enabled. If you're talking about DDR5's on-chip ECC, that's not the same as proper ECC which is only supported on the W680.

[@hpsfresh]

They have 8 bays. N3 it called.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. Mine is getting delivered in a couple days and I'll do a video on it.

[@hpsfresh]

@@PeterBrockie any news? :)

[@PeterBrockie]

@@hpsfresh Delays in shipping, UPS says soon, but who knows.

[@nonameentered1918]

use a taller CPU cooler and exhaust up?

[@PeterBrockie]

You can or pull in, but having one exactly the right size vs giving us options for fan mounts is silly.

[@Mutation666]

Not all am4 boards support ecc

[@PeterBrockie]

I did say your motherboard has to support it at one point. In general, ASRock and ASUS are pretty good for supporting it, with Gigabyte being off and on and MSI being pretty bad.

[@ballamaniac6984]

this one better than the n1 ?

[@PeterBrockie]

In my opinion, yeah. It's a better design. From what I have seen the N1 gets very hot unless you have super low power stuff in it and it tends to be a lot harder to work with while building.

[@ballamaniac6984]

@@PeterBrockie aight thanks was looking to get either n1 or n2 prolly go with thr n2

[@klauskohlfuerst]

AMD CPUs are bad for PLEX transcoding ... 😢

[@fauzanmuharram4202]

its possible to add rtx a2000?

[@PeterBrockie]

Nope. The A2000 is two slots wide and this only has a single low-profile slot.

[@fauzanmuharram4202]

@@PeterBrockie thank you

[@pepeshopping]

Case too expensive for what it is. You are aware that the mini pci is only 1x so not great for 2 fast drives…

[@PeterBrockie]

If you compare it to normal cases, yeah. But compared to NAS cases with hot swap, it's average price. Only using one drive connected to it. Plus it doesn't matter anyway, the network will be 1 gig.

[@dejanpetkovski8761]

A lesson: Don,t buy from a New Egg.

[@Hellahard]

Not Neweggs fault. Be mad at the right peeps.

[@PeterBrockie]

Who is mad at Newegg? Haha

[@jacobp7289]

ECC is way overrated...

[@PeterBrockie]

Not when you don't have access to the server because it's 100s of km away and you don't want it crapping out. That being said, I do think it's rare that memory outright randomly dies, but when you're talking 24/7 operation the odds of a random glitch over time do add up.

[@coryschwartz1570]

Totally disagree. It's not just that your machine might crash sometimes. RAM contents are written to disk. You don't notice at first. You are protecting against small amounts of cosmic radiation, after all. but keeping data for years, you'll get corruption from bad ram. ZFS documentation recommends ECC, as should any storage project

[@bassyey]

For gamers and casuals yes.