Topton N305 NAS Motherboard Review - KING OF POWER VS EFFICIENCY?

[@YodahMaster]

Video missed the wall power consumption information. Nothing mentioned about how much watts consumed for idle, or with full load. However, video title mentioned "king of power vs efficiency" lol.....

[@tremendous666]

Where are the details about power consumption? Why is this missing for a 24/7 NAS Mainboard?

[@nielsdebakker3283]

A lot will depend on the drives you are going to use.

[@craigprocter1232]

@@nielsdebakker3283 which will still be applicable (and the same) whatever motherboard you use, however the key difference IS the motherboard power draw - which is why it is important info.

[@CelentanoLuca]

especially with KING OF POWER VS EFFICIENCY in the title, what a joke.

[@billmurray7676]

@@nielsdebakker3283 Of course not, a drive consumes its power regardless of the hardware, so it's easy to substract from the equation.

[@RodrigoLobosChile]

Wow. I have just subscribed. What a gem of a channel.

[@SeverOprisan]

Chicony was the name of my first computer keyboard i386 - 1994

[@tolpacourt]

Happy Hacker keyboards have Chicony components.

[@KormakurDanielsson]

Nice review! that puppy goes all the way up to 48 GB of DDR5 ram btw, that's what I have in mine!

[@alphaeusmote184]

What power supply did you use?

[@Pzych0]

I bought the TerraMaster F4-424 Pro after watching your videos. I know you said it’s sad it didn’t have 10 gig, but I guess that NAS is for people like me … I don’t have even have 2,5 Gig to my router so I am doing dual link 1 gig till that day I upgrade my router... It’s my first NAS with Plex and some programs running in Docker on it. Can recommend the NAS and this N305!!

[@Raffav]

@NASCompares for sim card to work you need to put modem in the mini pci slot,

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

There's also a variant of this board setup which uses an ATX power design and can mount a LGA115x compatible cooler, though you lose the 4g modem port and you get 6 SATA ports instead of 2+SAS. These ports are also in front of the PCIe x1 slot along with some headers, which will prevent you from plugging a x16 card in there. That PCIe slot is also shared with the second M.2 slot and you can only use one or the other, though this is true for all of those N100 and N305 mobos.

[@davidwestra8181]

I have the n100 board with 2 1tb nvme, a 128gb boot SSD, and 8 8tb ironwolf drives. The boot is plugged into the native sata port and 4 of the ironwolf drives are plugged into the onboard jmb585. The other four are attached to another jmb585 chip via pcie. I am running truenas and have each 4 drive grouping as a raid z1 vdev combined into 1 pool. As far as performance goes, everything works great and is fast enough for most things. I have had zero connectivity issues. The only minor complaint is that it idles at about 75w.

[@polar_inertia]

i mean that's a lot of drives

[@LeoCanhoto-j6o]

I bought a Topton computer and threw my money away, it is a low quality product, without technical support. Friendly advice, look for another brand.

[@akurenda1985]

They really need to just put 10 gig on the board, rather than 4x 2.5 gbe connections. The 1x PCIe is only gonna give you about 7 GBe throughput if you slot a 10 gbe card in.

[@SoWhichUsernameIsNot]

That is the issue though. Someone may build one with a pcie3 x4 yet which would be ideal for an older connectx 3 controller (I have seen some boards with recycled connectx 2 or 3 controllers on board too). Drive performance isn't amazing either but it accommodates cheaper drives by not leaving performance on the table which makes up for it. The N305 is a great all rounder chip that brings a lot to this segment.

[@JoshDike-lx8gl]

4x 2.5g and the sim slot allow you to use this as a router.

[@tolpacourt]

Humbug. 10GB copper consumes a lot of power.

[@gearboxworks]

Seems like you should be looking for something other than an entry-level NAS board. 🤷‍♂️

[@Ilost11]

The cost of those Intel 2.5 gbe chips is really cheap compared to a single 10 gbe Marvel chip. The trouble is it's really nice to have multiple ports especially with proxmox virtualization (at least 2) and network firewall applications. The Chinese companies here saw the demand for multiple ports, at least 2.5 gbe and a preference for 10 gbe. So they created a solution to satisfy all applications which is in practice unoptimized for most. What further complicates the situation is the PCIE connectivity on the N series chips, they're lane restricted. Until we see cheap Intel 1235U across the market in 1 - 2 years and hopefully a reduction in 10 gbe Marvel chips or a new alternative, we'll just have to wait.

[@AndrewTSq]

How does it compare with a N100 board? The N305 are so much more expensive than the N100 boards I have found, so Wonder if it is really worth it?

[@miecz8316]

Will you try the new purple board from topton and other Chinese brands, I'm rly interested about the power draw and it's 2 Ethernet port and I think pcie x4?

[@marsovac]

One of the main things you would compare in a NAS motherboard would be how far the C states go. You just skipped over them in the BIOS...

[@JeronimoStilton14]

C states?

[@MoDNcA]

This would be a perfect board for a camping van. Low power, acceptable connectivity but integrated LTE

[@tehehe5929]

People are getting excited for the wrong cpu. The one to get excited is actually Intel Pentium 8505: 20 lanes of pcie, dual channel memory. 4e+1p (so 6 threads total) cores. 1/3 cheaper msrp than n305. AV1 decode. Same TDP as n305: 15w (granted only if you disable turbo boost). It's absolutely no contest which is better for a nas and not only for a nas. U300E is basically the same as well just lower power. n100 has its place because it's cheap, but the next level from here is 8505/u300e not n305.

[@marklewus5468]

I think this is why your guest from Ugreen yesterday was talking about a 12th gen i5 in their upcoming NAS. A bog standard i5-12600 supports 20 lanes of PCIe3 and PCIe4, and thunderbolt. But being Intel, still no ECC! They want you to buy a $2000 xeon to get that…

[@reptilia7170]

Just built an am4 build with amd 5650g pro and ecc. Little less efficient on idle but very happy. Running proxmox and opnsense with pci passthrough.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Intel will never put ECC on consumer CPUs. Meanwhile, AMD allows Unbuffered ECC on all of their CPUs.

[@andrikurniawan531]

@@reptilia7170 what mobo to use, similar to this mobo

[@reabstraction]

​@BrunodeSouzaLino it's a chipset issue Non-F CPUs support ECC only on W680 For some bizarre reason

[@reabstraction]

On desktop

[@Raintiger88]

Great video. My trusty N6005 board is good enough, but nice to see these newer boards.

[@marklewus5468]

hey Robbie, the PCIe debacle with all of these (previously known as) Celeron chips is an Intel marketing thing. There’s no reason they could not have put 20 PCIe lanes on these chips except they really want to sell you a 12900. You really have to question whether you’d be better off with the Erying 11900 laptop cpu board for anyone who cares about i/o performance.

[@dktol56]

Also an Intel marketing thing - single channel RAM. These N-Alder Lake (E-cores) are sufficiently powerful for many applications that they could hurt sales of more profitable CPU's. So cripple them a bit. Intel sucks!

[@tim3172]

The missing 500 pins from LGA1700 and FCBGA1264 were primarily for PCI-E connectivity. PCI-E connectivity takes a lot of cost to achieve...hence why Intel had 28-lane and 40-lane HEDT parts.

[@tim3172]

@@dktol56 A single-channel RAM controller is also half the size, saving a lot of money. The CPU cores max out long before RAM bandwidth is the limiting factor, anyway. (If you're talking about GaMiNg, just buy an actual computer designed with that in mind.)

[@andy.3407]

Another contender is the minisforum ms01. It offers much more right up to i9 gen 13 intel (pci slot sets up the possibly to config the storage you want). One thing that is in common is the barrel jack power supply. It would be great to find a converter to go from the barrel input to a standard pc/NAS power supplies to power all the disk drives

[@0xKruzr]

that Minisforum machine is a powerhouse and the new i5 version makes it really price-competitive with something like this imo.

[@andy.3407]

With the i9 13 gen. Proxmox truenas and multiple virtual machines are possible.. this is a great foundation box

[@PoetofHateSpeech]

But on 100x the price lol

[@ivanmalinovski7807]

Great review! I'm really loving these NAS boards. However, I wonder if it's possible to mount our own cooler of choice? At the very least it would be nice with a nicer fan.

[@nascompares]

You definitely can. I did this with a N5105 board. But the silicon paste on these topton/CWWK onboard coolers NEVER reattaches, so be ready to clean and reapply! That's why I never removed them in the vids

[@RetroBoxRoom]

Would you say it’s worth replacing the thermal paste at purchase?

[@BomarJr]

What is the idle power consumption of the board itself with the nvmes alone? I can't imagine it being lower than 19-25 watts due to the many controllers that are used to split the pcie lanes and NICs...

[@joaojoao6831]

PC Topton low quality product, no warranty and no technical support, I bought it on Aliexpress and it was money thrown away. Advice from a friend, look for another brand

[@shellydamaggot]

Topton recently released a similar motherboard using an i7 1165G7 (or similar i5 and i3), do you think you can also review one of these? One of the advantage compared to this N305 motherboard, is that the 1165G7 has more PCIe lanes, thus 4 lanes to each nvme and 4 lanes to the PCIe connector as well. And the Xe graphics are way better too for transcoding for instance...

[@g.s.3389]

for a firewall which one would you chose among all the ones you have shown us?

[@xdrtrey1094]

idk this thing tries to be everything and makes such weird compromises that it doesn't shine in any particular usecase

[@Rose.Of.Hizaki]

Magic roundabout music was a nice touch. Most viewers probably wont know where that song is from.

[@nascompares]

Thanks for spotting that! Few have! Cheers bud

[@fbartolini1222]

Any really compact case that would be particularly be a good fit for this board and 6 2.5-inch drives?

[@SergeyToroshchin]

is shield back panel thin mini itx size? or standard mini itx size shield back panel ... can find any info about this aspect

[@eliteschw31n64]

so it doesnt have a 24pin header for power? i am looking for a low power board that has that header

[@wodmarach]

This is the DC edition there is also an ATX edition.

[@MoviesFlaFla]

From what I understand at 6:43 , you can also connect the ATX power supply with an adapter in the 2x 4pins connectors but i'm unsure of the cable to use ?@@wodmarach @nascompares very information video as always :))

[@wodmarach]

@@MoviesFlaFla You can add a power boost from those 2x4 pin adapters for certain back-planes but there is a version without the barrel jack and a 24 pin socket instead.

[@jonny490]

Is there any RAID functionality on board just for a resiliant boot devices?

[@zyghom]

few months ago I built my NAS based on Topton 6005. The performance shows me that CPU is never going above 40% while averge is around 5%. That board accepted 64GB RAM that is a key point when you use ZFS. So question is: how is this i3 better than 6005 in such usage? Probably it is not. Of course if I was buying today I would have bought this one. But still: can we be always on the top?

[@frankwong9486]

Maybe newer generation of igpu quicksync? but not every user need that thing

[@zyghom]

@@frankwong9486 not for NAS for sure

[@costenalolek973]

​@@zyghom VM's or HomeLabs... 4Cores/4Threads vs 8C/8T. With 4 NICs and 8 Cores, Proxmox, TrueNAS, pfSense and more, works like charm... 6005 for NAS only is enough, but only NAS meaks it obsolete these days.

[@zyghom]

@@costenalolek973 "only NAS meaks it obsolete these days." - hmm, Linux/Unix way is: "one job done by one program" - so one machine for NAS. Other machine for Proxmox. And believe me: Ryzen 9 will be better for Proxmox than 6005 Intel

[@costenalolek973]

@@zyghom One machine for this, another machine for something else, that's what I meant, when I wrote that it's obsolete. Today, HomeLabs are in demand, one machine has many uses, so you need both, cores and computing power, which the n305 from above mobo has at a fraction of the price and power consumption of Ryzen 9, and what the 6005 lacks. But sure, for NAS only, 6005 is more than enough.

[@emparado]

So I bought this board from your review being generally positive about it. And I wanted to have some fun and build it my own. But, this with the power supply situation has me really stuck. This board does not have that normal power 24 pin connector so I don’t really know how I would connect this to make 4 drives work. You say “..you may need additional cabling here” what do you mean exactly? Please give some additional information on how this board should be connected or used with more than 2 drives. I have the Jonsbo n4 case. And this backplane seem to have a molex connector. That is not possible with this external power supply? Or what additional cabling could solve this? I just have this board laying around and I would be very grateful if anyone could give some info on this. Thanks!

[@hallamnet]

You would need a cable to connect to the top two black 4 pin connectors. I am in the same boat as you. I have just ordered one and cannot find the cable to plug in to this and in to the back on my jonsbo n3 case. It would need to be 4pin to molex from what I have read but can’t find a male molex to 4 pin connector anywhere. Might have to make one myself if no one here cannot help.

[@Kringlan84]

​@@hallamnet Did you manage to solve it? I don't even know what to search for.

[@davidwestra8181]

I’m looking to upgrade to those 12th-14th gen intel socketed ITX boards that have 3 nvme, 8 sata, and full x16 pcie slot. All native and full pcie. I’d likely run a i3-12100t as it still benchmarks higher than the n305. This seems to be the only way to not have any bandwidth limitations on connected devices.

[@monish05m]

nice video and board. Since my contry decided to ban aliexprexx, alibaba and most things china, may i offer to buy this board off you if your not using it ?

[@DaNiePred]

Hm, you mention „low power consumption“ several times, but didn‘t test it? The problem with this board is, it doesn’t really get to low C-states due to that rubbish SATA controller. Mine idles at ~17W, without any SATA drive connected.

[@Copernicus22]

I've heard about motherboards having Spyware from brands like Asus, etc. What are the chances these have the same?

[@emparado]

should i buy an ATX power supply for this board or only use that external power brick that i can get with the board? I would like to build in a power supply, but i have no clue on where to start. what is resonable to to buy?

[@tokelahti]

How much ECC really matters, if you make NAS to boot like daily?

[@Avico78]

is there any difference between the DC and AC version beside power input?

[@jonjohnson2844]

The SIM slot will just be a slot, there won’t be a radio, it will need to be added by M.2

[@M4XD4B0ZZ]

Have you seen the 12xSata Port Version of the N5095 NAS Board?

[@strategischen]

Would be wonderful if you can export the IOMMU groups and confirm thtat we can passtrough the iGPU. Great video!

[@jeremyfmoses]

It's unclear to me how to power SATA devices when using this board. There are two connectors marked "12V output" next to the CPU heatsink, but SATA devices need 12V, 5V and 3.3V. You say powering SATA devices needs "additional cabling", but does they also need an additional power supply? A lot of great information here otherwise, thank you!

[@fintrollpgr]

Like in any PC, with power connectors from the power supply....

[@costenalolek973]

@@fintrollpgr So I need 2 power supplies? One for motherboard and an extra one for hdds/ssds? Thats dumb!!! What about common ground?

[@guygoogle702]

Power supplies provide cables (and power) for the motherboard *AND* your storage devices like SATA drives. I suggest you read up a little.

[@costenalolek973]

@@guygoogle702 I suggest watch the video, understand it, and only then take part in the discussion.

[@fintrollpgr]

@@costenalolek973Oh I just realized you're concerned about the DC version of the board. Well as he explained you will need to tap the power off those (I believe they were black) connectors to attach them to a SATA backplane. So you need some kind of dedicated NAS case with support for that and the right cables.

[@TheMadhatter2561]

I had to push PayPal for a chargeback to get topton to give me service. So keep that in consideration when buying something like this.

[@helidrones]

Most of my floppy disk drives were either Teac or Chicony back then.

[@dktol56]

I really don't like (or fully understand) the two 4-pin aux power connectors, in addition to the main DC-in barrel jack. Are the aux connectors (one or both) required for PCIe add-in cards? They aren't used for a SATA/SAS backplane with spinning rust drives - that has to get power directly from the PSU. So to build a NAS with this board, you'll need a (likely flex) ATX power supply AND the external power brick. That seems kind of silly.

[@radudarie1140]

I was wondering the same thing. They're labeled as outputs on the AliExpress listing, so I think the idea is that you can use them to deliver power from the barrel jack to the SATA backplane? Otherwise, I agree, it doesn't really make sense.

[@tim3172]

They're ATX 4-pin hard drive connectors that servers have used for ages. You buy an ATX-4 pin to SATA cable and call it a day. You don't need another power supply.

[@Kringlan84]

​@@tim3172 Looks like the backplane on the Jonsbo N3 has two molex male connectors and one SATA connector, not sure if all are needed. Are you sure the ATX-4 pin can go to the molex connectors? Or does one need to go 4-pin -> SATA -> Molex female?

[@pedro97moreira]

Hi everyone. I bought one of these and a jonsbo n3 and either im being incredibly dumb (which is likely) or is this board is really not that compatible with the case. Ive built multiple PCs in the past and Ive been using a terrible WD home cloud for years (hell). Thought assembling a mini PC like this would be easy but so far the building experience has been quite frustrating. nothing seems to be compatible. I have a small list of things if anyone could help me out. 1. The board has no usb C plug so the USB C on the case is useless?? 2. The board has no HD Audio plug, so the audio jack on the case is useless? 3. Most importantly the power on cable on from the front panel is in no way compatible with the pins on the board, with any of them, in any configuration. Am I supposed to cut the extra plastic on the thing and plug it in? also the cable only has 4 wires connected to the "plug" while there are 7 or 8 power pins on the boards part labeled F Panel. Im kinda lost here. 4. (Mea Culpa, didnt notice this) The board has 2 Sata ports on board + a SAS to 4 Sata ports. I expected to use the 2nd nvme slot to add the extra 2 missing sata ports I needed to fully populate the case but it seems that theres no way to do that beacuse the 2 nvmes are on the back leaving no room to place the sata connectors... 5. I had this doubt when watching the video and still do. The board has two 4 pin out to feed the HDD back plate but it also has one 4 pin 19V in connector. Do I need an entire PSU to connect a single 4pin in??? whats the point of having an external charger if im going to need the PSU all the same. So far I only have 4 HDD, do I have to have the 4 pin in connected right away or only when more hdds are added? Aditonal comments: -I bought the model with SSD an RAM included and it came without any of these. Im currently waiting for a response from the seller. -My board actually came with 2 power cables to connect the MB to the board. I think in the video it was mentioned that these didnt come included but in my case they did. Anyways. Thanks and great video!

[@anttisalminen1916]

Thank you for your findings. I just placed an order to alternate version of this board, one that has 24pin PSU connector and 6 native SATA ports directly on the board. However, the Aliexpress shop now approached me and is, for some reason, trying to offer this DC variant to me! I'm having hard time to explain to them that I really don't want this DC variant, cause I assume, the same what you speculate, that to make it work on NAS environment, it requires regular PSU.

[@anttisalminen1916]

Haha, and now finally got mine. Seller just blatantly send me this MB, but made into a router (with casing etc.) Altough I specifically told them not to send DC version or one with the casing "for me to take apart and get the MB" Well lessons learned not to order AE anything expensive. Talking with the seller currently and it is hard to explain: a) it is wrong product. b) device (motherboard) is wrong. c) I dont care if its more expensive compared what I ordered. d) I dont care it returning takes "long" time. f) I definitely won't order another in the mean time... Heard though that AE is decent with disputes.

[@chimestrike]

After receiving back my Storaxa chargeback thought I would get myself one of these instead, and it seems the sellers are having a major issue as after nearly a month they refunded me as it seems they have some issues getting these out to people now, which is a real pity. I'm doomed never to upgrade my nas at this rate

[@B.D.B.]

But how do you power the HDDs? If you still need a PSU it defeats the purpose of having DC input. Also you'd need some way of jump starting the PSU as you don't have the ATX 24 pin header. I see that it has 2 4 pin ATX outputs but it doesn't come with the cable and the pin out is non standard.

[@JimboLodisC]

new Odroid H4 board dropped last week, choice of N97 or i3-N305 chip, 2.5GBe, PCIe Gen 3 X4, has a version with 4 SATA III ports

[@fbartolini1222]

Everyone has their own needs and use cases, but I don't see the Odroid H4 being particularly better than this board? Am I missing something?

[@sNaKeEeDK]

What cpu cooler can you upgrade with?

[@vasilebogdanbujor8308]

also wondering. I have the N100 version, and it's louder than my 3 noctua fans combined. the provided fan gets the job done though. I don't think it can be upgraded easily, mount is not standard

[@MackemChops]

I want an N300 fanless option. 10% less CPU performance for half the power consumption (7w vs 15w)

[@alexandelandry5661]

i know there is a dual 4 pin power output on the board but is it enough for 6 or more hdd ??

[@tim3172]

It's a max of 4 per output for a total of 8, following the SATA standard. You can use more SSDs safely, but you're violating the letter of the standard.

[@tim3172]

I wonder how they're getting away with selling a 32GB RAM option when the N305 is officially listed as 16GB max.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

Don't know about the current Chicony but ten years back they were making a lot of notebook computers sold under a number of names including their own. Brands used to give them some specs and logos and they would produce custom versions of their designs using the specified design and with the brands logos and names. They were not the best, but far from the worst notebook manufacturers.

[@NeptuneSega]

Never understood all these 1G or 2G Nics onboard. Prefer having 1 10G nic and call it a day and have more room on the board for other components

[@denvera1g1]

I love the Atom/Alderlake N family of processors. Imagine we get a similar board with a real i3 and you had 20 PCIe lanes to work with and could use 64-512GB. The downside is that the real i3 has 4 of the E cores cut in favor of having 2 P cores so power usage goes up without much performance increase so it would need beefier VRM and cooling, without much perfromance increase, and in some cases might be slower, but i'd trade that for say 8M.2 at 2x link speed and SFP+28

[@gearboxworks]

Yes! I am surprised so few boards and so few people talk about the later generation Atom processors for NAS. Seems like the perfect CPU for lower-end NAS.

[@GameMasterProducts]

Hi can you test the next orange 8tb m.2

[@jaylord55]

aliexpress anniversary sale starts on the 18th of march just fyi

[@lukasw6864]

I have the board and it is nice but do not buy it for the m2 slots. they are useless. With dd i get arround 200MB/s on one and the other is like 150MB/s

[@CesarePuliatti]

How is the wall power consumption?

[@MacLimitRange]

You don't need shit like that to have an efficient NAS, just a good DIY solution with an Intel cpu, possibly 8th gen.

[@fwiler]

Why do they all continue to put in 4 ethernet connections? It's already starved for bandwidth, and it increases build cost. I've yet to see one using those connections where it makes sense, even as a router there are other options that are smaller and better.

[@0xKruzr]

hell, I'd prefer dumping the built-in NIC altogether and just putting a PCIe slot in there.

[@tolpacourt]

Roland Rat says hi.

[@w3isserwolf]

Why always 4 nics…. 1x1gbit (Management) and 1x2.5gbit(data) is enough

[@BLASTIC0]

holy crap i love you shirt. I dont trust RAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ecn000]

How would one connect 8 HDD's on this board?

[@shoddits2156]

NVme or PCIEx to SATA adapter

[@MoviesFlaFla]

2 NVME + 4 SATA via mini sas + 2 SATA

[@ronnyspanneveld8110]

Chicony.. never heard of them... WHAMZ you got a "dislike" from me :P Remember them well my Bondwell PC XT at 4.75Hmz had a keyboard from them in the 80's... oh right you where not born yet sorry.... Pfftt... (hmz kinda pressed the "like" by mistake sorry)

[@_Jadewolf_]

You never heard of Chicony? 😮

[@brunlort]

EVERY COMPUTER runs dc power

[@hikareti9503]

First thing you should do is throw out the power supply. Never trust generic Chinese power supplies, they’ll burn your house down…

[@tommybronze3451]

Honestly I'm fed up with "nas" motherboards coming in with 8 or less sata connectors (even with mini SAS), while giving people 4 ethernet ports ... WHY ? this supposed to be a NAS not a SWITCH. Even if you wanted to use it as a router, just two ports would be enough ... but NO, we need to take 4 slow ports and pretend that this is not a bottleneck ... idiotic.

[@Gamer-kr8tc]

No gaming benchmark no actual review 👎

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

No ecc, non-atx psu, no 10gig network... Nah, pass

[@allan801]

No ECC, no thanks 😢

[@dankmemes3153]

Unless you send your components to space, high altitude locations, a place with significant radiation, or processing stuff like banking info you don’t really need ECC memory.

[@allan801]

@dankmemes3153 space, hmm, no, if data is important, ecc is the best practice. But agreed at this price point, maybe it is not an option.

[@BeedaNet]

just info Aoostar R7 nvme 512GB gen3x4 root@pve:~# dd if=/dev/nvme0n1 of=/dev/nvme1n1 bs=1M count=1024 1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 0.377167 s, 2.8 GB/s