The Jonsbo N2 vs N3 NAS Case Comparison

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nascompares.com/2023/09/08/to...
I Built the Jonsbo N2 NAS - • I Built the Jonsbo N2 ...
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Amazon:
Jonsbo N2 Build for Under/Around £250
Jonsbo N2 + TopTon Intel n5105 Celeron / Pentium n6005 Build (+$35)
Jonsbo N2 Case ￡74.04 (Ali) - amzn.to/3Z3f3Mu
Topton N5105 + 128GB NVMe + 4GB RAM ￡193.48 - amzn.to/47ZibNw
SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 - amzn.to/3ZbYGNJ
400W SFX PSU ￡24.36 - amzn.to/3qQRzxG
￡264.64 (128GB M.2 NVMe + 4GB RAM + 400W PSU)
Aliexpress links
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
Topton N5105/N6005+4GB - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DCl...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
400W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk3...
300W PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dmu...
--
Jonsbo N2 Build for Under £500
Jonsbo N2 + Intel Core i5 12th Gen + 16GB RAM + 10GbE Build
Jonsbo N2 Case ￡74.04 (Ali) - amzn.to/3Z3f3Mu
SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 - amzn.to/3ZbYGNJ
400W SFX PSU ￡24.36 - amzn.to/3qQRzxG
B660M ITX Motherboard £235.79 + Intel Core i5 12490F CPU + 16GB RAM - amzn.to/3LatkS2
ARGB CPU Radiator Fan (LGA1700) ￡13.38 - amzn.to/3sLPy6c
(better option for CPU Fan) Noctua NH-L9x65 CPU Cooler £49 - amzn.to/3EqsLjd
X540-T2 Intel Chipset PCIe x8 Dual Copper RJ45 10Gbps ￡39.34 - amzn.to/3Z3GSUU
Tbkoly Controller Card Motherboard Expansion Card 1 To 5 Port SATA £20.45 - amzn.to/3P8F3RV
(Optional) 2x M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 X 8 Card GLOTRENDS Dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 - amzn.to/3ZaeEbk
Total 390.44 (i5 CPU + 16GB RAM + 2x10GbE + 400W PSU + Case + Cables)
Aliexpress Links
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
400W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk3...
Mobo+Intel i5-12490F+16GB - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DCM...
Cheaper CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dd9...
Better CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk1...
2x M.2 NVMe Card - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmF...
---
Best Jonsbo N2 Build for £750-1000
Jonsbo N2 + Gen4/5 MoBo + Intel Core i5 12th Gen with Int Gfx + 32GB RAM + 10GbE Build
Jonsbo N2 Case ￡74.04 (Ali) - amzn.to/3Z3f3Mu
SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 - amzn.to/3ZbYGNJ
600W SFX PSU ￡43.78 - amzn.to/3sMaf1P
Asrock Z690M-ITX/AX gEN 4/5 Motherboard £171.20 - amzn.to/3EMpjQ9
Intel Core i5-12600K 12th Gen £239 - amzn.to/45UtNiQ
Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) £59.99 - amzn.to/45CB2fV
ARGB CPU Radiator Fan (LGA1700) ￡13.38 - amzn.to/3sLPy6c
(better option for CPU Fan) Noctua NH-L9x65 CPU Cooler £49 - amzn.to/3EqsLjd
X540-T2 Intel Chipset PCIe x8 Dual Copper RJ45 10Gbps ￡39.34 - amzn.to/3Z3GSUU
Tbkoly Controller Card Motherboard Expansion Card 1 To 5 Port SATA £20.45 - amzn.to/3P8F3RV
(Optional) 2x M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 X 8 Card GLOTRENDS Dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 - amzn.to/3ZaeEbk
Total £586.63 (Amazon) + ￡123.51 (Aliexpress)
AliExpress Links
Jonsbo N2 - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DD9...
SATA x6 Cable - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeD...
Cheaper CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dd9...
Better CPU Fan - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dk1...
2x M.2 NVMe Card - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DmF...
600W SFX PSU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFm...
H610 mini itx Motherboard - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DlX...
i5-12600K CPU - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkQ...
Corsair 16GB Memory - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DlY...
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Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
01:30 - The N2 vs N3 Price and Availability
02:13 - 8 vs 5
04:07 - LEDs
05:12 - Vibration and Specific Case Design
06:53 - Fans and Ventilation
10:46 - THAT PSU placement
13:47 - Bigger and Better CPU Possibilities
16:02 - Bigger and Better PCIe Cards
Thinking of buying a product mentioned in today's video? If this video has helped you make that decision, you can use the links and we will get a small % profit of whatever you buy.

[@Trains-With-Shane]

I've got a fractal Node 304 running a socket 2011-3 xeon, 64gb ram, and all 6 internal 3.5" slots populated. I wish I'd have known that the Jonsbo N3 was either a thing or going to be a thing before I put this thing together. I had to get very creative with the SATA power and data connectors in the 304 to keep from running them into my Noctua fan on the cpu cooler. And even with a fully modular PSU the cramped space makes me hate it. There's decent airflow between the drives and towards the CPU fan but.. that gives time for the drives to heat the air on the way to the CPU. Not sure if that's a big deal or not but the thing is running well enough. I'm half tempted to tear the whole thing down and stuff it into an N3. Especially with the addition of the drive status LED's and two more SATA bays.

[@briccimn]

Fantastic comparison for those two very nice cases! Thanks a lot!!!

[@nascompares]

Thanks man. Genuinely appreciate the kind words. You made my Friday!

[@fabstems3388]

I’m doing a hypothetical nas build that I’m gonna build once I have the finances, and the jonsbo cases were super interesting to me. I wanna use an intel 13th gen, the 13500 specifically, and this video convinced me to get the N3, as well as having more drive bays, the possibility for more storage later is alluring, especially given that it’s relatively not much more expensive, I think it’s a much better pick than the N2

[@essdee800]

I use a fractal design r5, and replaced the external drive bays on the front with a 3 harddrive tray. I have 12 drives in it plus the ssd with the OS. Great case

[@ajphototrekker]

Thank you for bringing fractal design r5 to my attention. I think it’s better fit for how I want to build my first NAS

[@essdee800]

@@ajphototrekker let me know if you need to know the hard drive tray I added. It’s a 3 drive bay that replaced the external slots on the front of the case.

[@fanily4072]

THat is a clever idea. How is the airflow? My biggest gripe with the N3 is that mini-ITX boards are so limiting. I'd like 2 PCIe slots for example.

[@bastian433]

I use that as well, did not know about the 3 drive tray, but not needed now. airflow isn't that great I think, but not that bad either.

[@essdee800]

@@fanily4072 I have 12 7400rpm drives and it seems fine. I put a noctua fan in the front as a replacement of one of the fans. If you’re super concerned about heat, you can take the top pieces out and add fans or just leave the top open with the mesh to let heat out. You can make it have good airflow. The front door can be left open if you’re super concerned.

[@Gamer_1745]

looking forward to seeing the build video. I would like to know what a 'good' build would be, but not outrageous one.

[@johnbeeck2540]

The vibration absorption with the four padded feet is superior to the silicone pad. Also allows air to circulate under the unit for additional passive cooling.

[@stephenhodson8538]

Apparently the official jonsbo line on the molex and sata power connectors on the backplane is that all 3 need to be used when all 8 bays are populated. In terms of fans noctua nfa9 92mm will replace the jonsbo 100mm ones at the bottom, and nfa8 80mm will fit at the top.

[@scubacode41]

Excellent video, I bought Jonsbo N2 and installed mini ITX motherboard ASUS H971-PLUS, 5 HDD in raid 5, Core i5 4th gen, 16GB RAM DDR3 and TrueNAS Core, works awesome!

[@npa4863]

How do you install 5 drives with only 4 sata connectors? Im confused

[@excelligent9293]

@@npa4863 might have used an m.2 to sata adapter but if the m.2 was for OS, i guess a pcie slot was used for sata expansion?

[@FTLN]

If I used sas drives how would I connect my hba card to the backplane? On the back of of the backplane are only sata connectors.

[@chriscardwell3495]

You could also consider the Fractal Design Node 304 for a 4 bay unit which has sufficient room for a small GPU card and standard ATX power supply. Space is tight if you select a fairly powerful CPU and large air-cooling device. Temperatures are brilliant with 4 noctua fans.

[@shadowarez1337]

After my sick build I had to tear it all down I had to add the Noctua NH-U9S black as it just fits and is a tower design which works better with the Noctua fan Swap I did.

[@user-hc6uo5fp8n]

Have you tried easynas or Rockstor nas software?

[@semuhphor]

Thanks!

[@nascompares]

Thanks for the incredibly generous donation man. Always appreciated when someone supports content creators and especially for incredibly niche subjects like data storage!!! Also, 10/10 beard in the profile pic, would recommend. Have a great weekend bud

[@semuhphor]

@@nascompares Lol! That's an older 20MB ST506 beard that I got in the '70s. Still workds great, but man is it slow. Thanks for the laugh.

[@meccu19]

What was that combo m2 and 10gb card?

[@timbriggs9355]

Hi. I wanna. Hold a NAS for holding my media. No need to transcode and I’m using a Zidoo player in each of my rooms. Would the budget n2 build be ok for that. 4k rips etc

[@brucemorton1176]

Finding an ITX motherboard with 8 sata ports is tough. Anyone got any recommendations?

[@Boatnuts14]

is there an adapter for using 2.5 in drives in these

[@matthewjheaney]

I'd like to hear how loud is the N3 case. The bottom fans (2 of them) are 100mm, compared with the N2 which has a single 120mm fan. The top fans look to be 80mm (or smaller). Won't these get loud? Also, can you use a fanless PSU (e.g. SeaSonic SS-400FL2)?

[@scinel82]

Nice video. The only problem for me is I can't find the cases in Turkey.

[@kociol80-uf8ss]

Where is Jonsbo N3 build that you promised?

[@hokokcheong3307]

Anyone using jonsbo n3, the height clerance is 298mm, does this include the bottom rubber stand. Would like to know the rubber can be unscrew out to make it lower than 298mm.

[@Ninu89]

If you find out pls tell me also.

[@ALex-qc4lf]

The feet are likely better to decouple the device from the surface it's on, thus I would prefer them

[@fotografiabogota]

Hello, thank you very much for the video, 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 for your time

[@fanily4072]

I really like the N3 case but Mini-itx motherboards seem so limiting. I want something to last 5 years or more. I'd like to start out with something with 2.5G/1G built in networking with the ability to add a GPU on a PCIe slot later. I can only find Mini-itx boards with a single PCIe x 16 slot. However, I want the ability to upgrade to 10gb networking later. I heard that m.2 slots can be turned into 10Gbe networking but not sure if that is something I should consider. Do mini-itx with 2.5Gb builtin and 2 pcie slots exist?

[@RC2225]

mini itx spec has only 1PCI-E slot. you could misuse a m.2 pcie slot with an adapter to jam in a network card.

[@arg8763]

Another option is a motherboard with Thunderbolt and a 10G TB adapter. I use them at work some, and they have been reliable.

[@zyghom]

So I bought motherboard from Ali: N6005 and ... both Jonsbo: N2 and N3. So far I have only 4x 3.5" disks but... thinking upgrade N3 is the only option - the mobo I bought has 6 SATA ports and using M2 one can ad up to 5 more. But in N2 there is only place for 5 SATA 3.5" disk. So if someone does not think more than 5 disks, N2 is more than enough. My complete system reports

[@lamar9525]

How would a newbie learn Debian?

[@zyghom]

@@lamar9525 ?

[@lamar9525]

@@zyghom Yes.

[@Servicehans]

Am I the only one, who is not completely in line the with the choice of SFX psu for those kinds of machines? These home nas machines mostly run at idle/ with a pretty low powered cpu. 1. The PSUs are quite big and use up space that could otherwise be used for additional HDD. 2. They are often 300-400W in power. Which is quite overkill for for example a i3-12100 and 5 HDDs. I think the use of a pico PSU + good quality power brick would be a more sensible choice. What do you think?

[@Wirenfeldt1990]

SFX PSUs are easier to come by, and allows you to run a GPU with more headroom.

[@Servicehans]

@@Wirenfeldt1990 in the case of n3, yes you can put quite big gpus inside, with n2/n1 you are limited to halfheight single slot GPUs with max 70w power draw. I just doesnt make sense to me. I use a dell DA-2 power brick + picoPSU and it works flawlessly.

[@snowdog993]

Arrrgh ITX!

[@praetorxyn]

Those dual 100mm fans on the N3 are so dumb. 100mm fans basically don't exist, I don't think Noctua makes one etc. There was plenty of room for 120mm fans on a case that size.

[@FTLN]

Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM fit just fine in the bottom compartement and in the top Noctua NF-A8 PWM

[@karlschuneman7960]

Standard 92mm fans will fit just fine. the mounting holes for the lower fans are 82.5mm apart which mount 92mm fans of your choice. the upper fan mounts are for two 80mm fans.

[@be-kind00]

The nic on the Z690M-ITX/ax is from Realtek and I heard this brand of nic has some issues especially for Truenas and some other Unix varients due to missing or buggy drivers. Is that still true? @nascompares