ROUAFWIT N100/N305 NAS Review

Last updated on 21 Oct 2024 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 ROUAFWIT NAS Drive Review – Super Budget?
1.1 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Quick Conclusion
1.2 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Design
1.3 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Ports and Connections
1.4 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Internal Hardware
1.5 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Power Consumption and Noise
1.6 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Performance
1.7 ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Conclusion
2 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

ROUAFWIT NAS Drive Review – Super Budget?

I remember when the pre-built NAS market was a pretty sparse and unpopulated one! Most users really only had the choice of expensive turnkey solutions from the likes of Synology and QNAP, or prebuilt, bulky, and inefficient dusty servers that were either horrifically overpowered, or so fragile that a single cough too close to it would cause it to break! The pre-built NAS market is now incredibly oversaturated with numerous brands, a huge diversity in hardware architecture, and a flood of pre-built, OS-free NAS solutions that are really starting to challenge the status quo of modern NAS solutions. However, numerous pop-up and relatively unknown players have entered this space.

Today, I want to talk about a particular budget solution that has started appearing on both Amazon and AliExpress: the Rouafwit Teknas 4 4-bay NAS solution. This system, powered by either an N100 or N305 hardware architecture, with two and four-bay disk configurations, arrives at a price point that even manages to undercut existing budget NAS solutions like Terramaster and Asustor. But, is it actually any good? Today, let’s discuss whether this system deserves your money and, more importantly, your data!

Component N100 Version N305 Version
CPU Intel N100, 4 cores, 4 threads, 6MB Cache, up to 3.4 GHz, UHD Graphics Core i3 N305, 8 cores, 8 threads, 6MB Cache, up to 3.8 GHz, UHD Graphics, TDP 15W
RAM 1 x DDR5 4800MHz RAM, up to 32GB 1 x DDR5 4800MHz RAM, up to 32GB
SSD 1 x M.2 NVMe (PCIe 3.0 x2) 1 x M.2 NVMe (PCIe 3.0 x2)
Expand Bays 4 Bays x 22 TB (Diskless) 4 Bays x 22 TB (Diskless)
NAS Bay Compatible with 3.5″/2.5″ SATA HDD, 2.5″ SATA SSD Compatible with 3.5″/2.5″ SATA HDD, 2.5″ SATA SSD
Throughput Speed (internal M.2) Read: 1627MB/s, Write: 1557MB/s Read: 1627MB/s, Write: 1557MB/s
Hot Swappable Yes, external hard drive hot swappable plug and play Yes, external hard drive hot swappable plug and play
System Pre-installed openmediavault(OMV), supports Windows/Linux/Unraid/VM-ware/Proxmox Pre-installed openmediavault(OMV), supports Windows/Linux/Unraid/VM-ware/Proxmox
Architecture X86 X86
Array Modes RAID 0/1/5/6/Single RAID 0/1/5/6/Single
LAN Dual Intel i226V 2.5 gigabit Ethernet Dual Intel i226V 2.5 gigabit Ethernet
Ports 2 x USB3.2 Gen 2, 1 x TF Card Slot, 1 x SPK/MIC 2 x USB3.2 Gen 2, 1 x TF Card Slot, 1 x SPK/MIC
Display Output 1 x HDMI + 1 x DP, Dual 4K@60Hz 1 x HDMI + 1 x DP, Dual 4K@60Hz
Case Size 24.5 x 17 x 13.5 cm 24.5 x 17 x 13.5 cm
Functions Mini PC, Soft Router, Virtualization, Edge Computer, Industrial Control PC, Cloud Server Mini PC, Soft Router, Virtualization, Edge Computer, Industrial Control PC, Cloud Server
Accessories 1 x 4 Bay NAS, 1 x Power Adapter, 1 x Manual 1 x 4 Bay NAS, 1 x Power Adapter, 1 x Manual
Weight 1.2 kg 1.2 kg

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Quick Conclusion

Given the affordability of this system, I really wanted to be positive about what you get for your money with the Rouafwit Teknas 4 NAS system. However, this system left me pretty disappointed. The hardware architecture on offer is simply not utilized as effectively as it is in other OS-free NAS solutions from companies like Aoostar, Terramaster, ZimaCube, and more. It would be easy to blame the modest architecture and low LAN allocation for this system being somewhat pared down, but features like the single M.2 slot, the complete lack of PCIe upgradability, the complicated design to access the internal components, and just a general feeling that this system has not been designed as a ‘solution’ but more as just a ‘product’ are hard to ignore. There are better examples out there of this hardware configuration at a similar price point to what the Rouafwit Teknas 4 is being sold for. In itself, it is not strictly a bad system; in fact, it’s not terrible value. The issue is that right now, the market is oversaturated with numerous better examples of similar hardware, and they seem to do it a lot better.

BUILD QUALITY - 6/10
HARDWARE - 7/10
PERFORMANCE - 7/10
PRICE - 8/10
VALUE - 8/10


7.2
PROS
👍🏻Affordable Pricing: Provides an affordable alternative to other NAS solutions while offering solid hardware configurations.
👍🏻Expandable Storage: Supports up to 4 drive bays with 22TB capacity per bay, allowing significant storage potential.
👍🏻Good Performance: Dual 2.5GbE ports allow for aggregated speeds, maximizing network performance for most home and small office users.
👍🏻Hot-Swappable Bays: External hard drives can be easily swapped without powering down the system, improving ease of use.
👍🏻Multiple Operating System Support: Pre-installed with openmediavault (OMV) and supports a variety of OS options like Windows, Linux, Unraid, and more.
👍🏻Power-Efficient: Low power consumption thanks to the N305/N100 processors, making it cost-effective for 24/7 operation.
👍🏻Compact Design: Compact aluminium alloy chassis with solid heat dissipation through both passive and active cooling mechanisms.
👍🏻Dual Display Outputs: Supports dual 4K display output through HDMI and DisplayPort, making it versatile for multimedia applications.
CONS
👎🏻Limited Expandability: No PCIe upgradability, which limits future hardware upgrades like adding a 10GbE network card.
👎🏻Single M.2 Slot: Only one M.2 slot, reducing flexibility for cache drives or storage expansion, especially when using it for the OS.
👎🏻Complicated Internal Access: Accessing the internal components (RAM/SSD) is cumbersome, requiring removal of the base panel and adhesive strips.
👎🏻No ECC Memory Support: Lacks ECC memory support, which could be important for users seeking data integrity in more critical setups.



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ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Design

The Rouafwit Teknas 4 system arrives in a distinctive retail box with a modest accessory kit. The unit was well protected in structured packaging, and I can’t fault the protection it received in transit. That said, it is worth highlighting that it didn’t include any screws for 2.5″ media or an ethernet cable. One could argue that many users may already have network cabling at home and reusing it helps avoid waste, but it does seem a little cheap to omit the necessary screws.

The accessory kit isn’t groundbreaking in terms of quality. Indeed, it doesn’t have any branding on it and feels quite cheap. Again, this system isn’t designed to be a pricey one and is certainly targeting a more cost-effective market. Nevertheless, the accessory kit is not a place where you want to see money being cut.

The instruction manual is quite informal, and the support and warranty document feels a little flat. I know it may seem like I’m being harsh here, but this system is priced similarly to other solutions listed on Amazon and AliExpress from China, and many of them have provided better accessories and presentation—some at an even lower cost than the Rouafwit Teknas 4. So, I think it’s important for users to have higher expectations than what we see here.

The design of the external chassis is quite quirky, and they’ve taken a few unique design and color elements that I haven’t seen on other systems. Everything is where you expect it to be, with drive bays on the front and ports on the back, but a few unique flourishes in the design and material choices do stand out.

For starters, the SATA storage bays are located horizontally, as opposed to the vertical configuration found in most other NAS systems.

The trays themselves are pretty bulky, but they hold a 3.5″ SATA hard drive very well. They are click-and-load trays, so no screwdriver or screws are needed to install drives. That said, as mentioned earlier, the accessory kit does not include screws for 2.5″ media, which you will need to install in this system.

The trays use a double-button pull motion to remove them from the system, as opposed to traditional spring-loaded trays. This is not a bad thing, just different from how other brands approach SATA storage bays.

The four individual SATA bays connect to an internal PCB board that has four individual SATA data and power connectors, so no loose wires here. This board feeds into a larger motherboard PCB, and the SATA storage is managed by a JMB 58x SATA controller.

This controller runs on a PCIe Gen 2*1 line, so you’re looking at around 500 MB/s bandwidth for these drives. That is just about enough to support the dual 2.5 G network connections on this system, but it’s surprisingly tight. Given that the system has four drives in a RAID 0 configuration, it will likely exceed the bandwidth afforded by this SATA controller.

At the base of the system is a ventilation panel with a small laptop cooling fan behind it that draws air through the system’s mainboard PCB.

The sides of the system don’t feature passive ventilation. Instead, it uses a horizontal cooling system that pulls air through via the ventilation and rear active cooling fan. The external chassis is completely metal on all sides, which no doubt helps with light heat dissipation in conjunction with the active and passive cooling systems already in place.

Surprisingly, the system was not too noisy, despite the largely metal design and even with four hard drives in active use.

The base of the system does not feature any accessibility panel to reach the internal SSD or memory slots, which, as you will find out later in the review, was quite frustrating!

Turning the system around, we find the rear-mounted cooling system and ports.

The internal cooling fan is an orange standard PC fan, but it was very low noise, and I’m positive that with the right NAS software, this fan is also controllable via the system hardware.

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Ports and Connections

The ports and connections on this system are a little underwhelming. There are the obligatory USB 3.2 Gen 2 connections that allow for up to 1000 MB/s bandwidth for locally attached storage and accessories.

There is also a TF/SD card slot for installing smaller SD cards, opening the door for OS updates, BIOS/firmware updates, and even running UnRAID from this.

However, when it comes to network connectivity, the system falls short. It arrives with two 2.5G network connections, which, on the surface, is good, providing 500-600 MB/s external connectivity thanks to load balancing, SMB multi-channel, and link aggregation. However, despite the N305 CPU having only around nine PCIe lanes to distribute across the system, the lack of 10GbE connectivity is a real pain. It significantly reduces the maximum external performance potential of the internal M.2 SSD slot and the four hard drive slots.

I have no doubt that the hard drives or SSDs in this system can easily oversaturate these network connections.

While it’s nice that there’s a port for failover, the inability to scale up network bandwidth with something like 10GbE via a PCIe upgrade slot or a more conveniently placed M.2 slot is disappointing. It feels like the system is limiting my ability to fully utilize the CPU and hardware architecture.

For example, compared to the Terramaster F8 SSD NAS, that system arrives with a lesser N95 CPU but still manages to include eight M.2 SSD slots and a 10GbE connection—and at a similar price point. It’s annoying that the Rouafwit Teknas 4 has a better CPU but severely limits its connectivity options.

Overall, the ports and connectivity on this system are just fine—nothing exciting, nothing groundbreaking, just fine. The lack of an easy way to scale up network connectivity is disheartening. While you could use USB network adapters, there’s definitely enough hardware architecture here that they could have done more with what they had. Let’s discuss the internal hardware.

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Internal Hardware

The internal hardware of the Rouafwit Teknas 4 is deceptively understated, with the option of an N100 or N305 Intel CPU. Accessing the internal hardware to upgrade memory or change the internal SSD is done in a slightly unconventional way.

Unlike some systems that feature strategically placed rear screws, a click-and-load system, or even an internal panel located in the SATA hard drive cage, the Rouafwit Teknas 4 requires you to peel away the rubber feet strips on either side of the base panel and then remove six individual screws. If I were being charitable, I would say users won’t need to access the system this way very often, so the unconventional means of accessing the internals isn’t a dealbreaker.

However, peeling away these rubber feet strips isn’t easy, and doing so nullifies the adhesive. Additionally, although nothing in this area of the system is hot-swappable, users will need to access this panel to upgrade the internal SODIMM memory or change the M.2 SSD. It’s a really odd design choice and not something I’ve seen on any other NAS server at this scale.

Inside, we found the CPU on one side under a larger heatsink panel, and the rest of the hardware peripherals on the other. I expected a small motherboard given the system’s size, but this one is especially cluttered and not directly in line with the large rear cooling fan. Instead, this small motherboard is connected to a laptop-style fan in the base cavity of the system, and given the clustered nature of the PCB, the airflow seems somewhat optimistic.

The CPU under the larger heatsink is either the N100 quad-core processor or the low-power-consuming 8-core N305 i3 processor. Both CPUs are becoming increasingly common in the NAS world and are great for users wanting integrated graphics and x86 architecture while keeping their electricity bills low.

Given the price point and scale of this system, the choice of the N100 or N305 CPUs makes a lot of sense. Whether you’re running modest container deployments, a mid-range Plex media server, larger file backup operations, or virtual machines, both of these CPUs offer tremendous value. However, the limited resources spread across the system likely contribute to the modest connectivity and expandability. Other brands have utilized the N100 and N305 more effectively with greater connectivity than what’s present here.

The system comes with a single SODIMM DDR5 memory slot, with the default memory choice left to the end user at purchase. For instance, the N100 version of this 4-bay NAS comes with 8GB of DDR5 memory for $350, but you can scale up to the N305 with a 2TB SSD and 32GB of memory on a single module for $750. There are around 12 different configuration options between these two price points. However, the system does not support ECC memory.

Now let’s discuss the internal M.2 SSD slot. There’s good news and bad news here. On the plus side, it comes with a pretty robust, good-quality Samsung SSD, which is surprising for a budget appliance. Most other cheap NAS devices ship with unbranded SSDs as standard. This is a DRAM-less drive, but for a NAS operating system SSD, it’s not too bad.

The downside is that this SSD, regardless of the drive you install, has limited usefulness. With only a single M.2 SSD slot, this drive will almost certainly be used for fast storage or caching.

Unless you plan to run NAS software like Unraid from a connected USB, most other NAS software will require the use of this M.2 slot. This is especially frustrating when practically every other N100 or N305 NAS appliance features two M.2 slots.

This all results in a rather unusual 4-bay NAS system. All the expected building blocks are here, but each one seems slightly off. For example, the internal PCB includes an M.2 Wi-Fi adapter slot, but it’s empty. It would have been a cheap and easy way to add wireless connectivity to the system. You can still add a Wi-Fi adapter if you choose, but it’s a pain to access and is tightly sandwiched against the existing M.2 connection.

Even better, it would have been possible to add an M.2 to 10GbE network adapter in this slot. This would have allowed users to upgrade network connectivity, even if the hardware designers had bifurcated this slot from a single PCIe x2 into two x1 slots. There are so many ways brands have utilized the limited PCIe lane architecture of the N100/N305 in the past year and a half that make this system seem a little limiting by comparison.

The hardware architecture isn’t bad exactly, just not particularly exciting. There are better ways this hardware has been deployed at a similar price point.

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Power Consumption and Noise

Power consumption on the Rouafwit Teknas 4 was quite reasonable, largely thanks to the efficient CPU. Despite running four SATA drives, two cooling fans, and an M.2 SSD, power consumption during both idle and active use was commendable. In idle mode, with all drives in hibernation, power consumption was an extraordinary 9W. Of course, this would change rapidly with drive access, but clearly, the cooling systems powered down when not needed.

When the system was running the OS from the internal SSD and the CPU was at 40-50% utilization, power consumption ranged from 31 to 36W. This is much higher, of course, but still impressive for a 4-bay SATA hard drive system.

Similarly, the noise levels were quite low. During idle use, the fans spun down significantly, and we recorded impressively low noise levels.

When all four hard drives and both fans were active, the system only produced 36 to 41 dBA of noise. Had I used higher-capacity or enterprise hard drives, the noise level would have been higher, but the slightly bulky trays did a great job of reducing ambient noise.

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Performance

Measuring the performance of the Teknas 4 Rouafwit NAS is a little more complicated than it should be. With hard drives, there is potential for aggregated read performance to reach 500-600 MB/s (in a RAID 0 configuration). However, since the system only features dual 2.5GbE network ports, there’s a cap on the overall external performance. Aggregating the two 2.5G ports should give you performance above 550 MB/s at full saturation, but there’s not much room to maneuver between what a SATA hard drive can output and what the network interface can handle before full saturation.

Using Unraid, we performed some internal performance tests on the M.2 SSD. Since the slot is Gen 3 x2, the drive has around 1800-2000 MB/s of internal bandwidth to work with. Running repeated 1GB test files showed performance between 1.1GB and 1.5GB per second, which is respectable. However, it’s unfortunate that there’s no way to fully realize this external performance on this box.

Theoretically, you could use 2.5G or 5G network adapters to fully saturate those connections, but the only high-speed SSD slot is already occupied by the OS. Even if you fully populate this device with SATA SSDs in a RAID configuration, you’d likely only hit 700-800 MB/s at most. So, while sustained performance is possible and heavily dependent on the storage media you use, these performance numbers come with the caveat that the system lacks most traditional methods for scaling up external bandwidth to enjoy this performance across your broader network.

ROUAFWIT 4-Bay NAS Review – Conclusion

Given the affordability of the Rouafwit Teknas 4 NAS system, I had high hopes that it would offer great value for budget-conscious users, but ultimately, it left me disappointed. While it uses low-power processors like the N100 and N305, which are suitable for NAS applications, the hardware is not utilized as efficiently as it could be compared to other OS-free NAS solutions from brands like Aoostar, Terramaster, and ZimaCube. The single M.2 slot, lack of PCIe upgradability, and overly complicated design for accessing internal components are difficult to overlook. These shortcomings reduce the flexibility and future-proofing potential of the system, which is especially unfortunate in a market where users expect more scalability, like the ability to upgrade network speeds to 10GbE or add additional SSDs for caching. The need to peel away rubber strips to access the internal components adds to the frustration, as it feels like an unnecessary hassle when other systems offer easier, tool-less solutions.

While the Rouafwit Teknas 4 NAS isn’t strictly a bad system, it’s hard to recommend when the market is full of better alternatives that offer more for a similar price. Competitors like Terramaster and ZimaCube manage to provide more user-friendly designs, better expandability, and faster network options, all within the same budget range. In contrast, the Rouafwit Teknas 4 feels more like a “product” to fill a gap rather than a well-thought-out “solution” for long-term use. For users seeking a high-performance, cost-effective NAS with room to grow, there are simply better options available that deliver more value, making this system feel underwhelming in comparison.

PROS of the Rouafwit Teknas 4 CONs of the Rouafwit Teknas 4
  • Affordable Pricing: Provides an affordable alternative to other NAS solutions while offering solid hardware configurations.
  • Expandable Storage: Supports up to 4 drive bays with 22TB capacity per bay, allowing significant storage potential.
  • Good Performance: Dual 2.5GbE ports allow for aggregated speeds, maximizing network performance for most home and small office users.
  • Hot-Swappable Bays: External hard drives can be easily swapped without powering down the system, improving ease of use.
  • Multiple Operating System Support: Pre-installed with openmediavault (OMV) and supports a variety of OS options like Windows, Linux, Unraid, and more.
  • Power-Efficient: Low power consumption thanks to the N305/N100 processors, making it cost-effective for 24/7 operation.
  • Compact Design: Compact aluminium alloy chassis with solid heat dissipation through both passive and active cooling mechanisms.
  • Dual Display Outputs: Supports dual 4K display output through HDMI and DisplayPort, making it versatile for multimedia applications.
  • Limited Expandability: No PCIe upgradability, which limits future hardware upgrades like adding a 10GbE network card.
  • Single M.2 Slot: Only one M.2 slot, reducing flexibility for cache drives or storage expansion, especially when using it for the OS.
  • Complicated Internal Access: Accessing the internal components (RAM/SSD) is cumbersome, requiring removal of the base panel and adhesive strips.
  • No ECC Memory Support: Lacks ECC memory support, which could be important for users seeking data integrity in more critical setups.

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      246 thoughts on “ROUAFWIT N100/N305 NAS Review”

      5. I cannot agree with these comments and the negative judgement in any way! Of course I know that as a NAS blogger you are only too keen to promote Aostar and Topdon products. An honest and technically knowledgeable review should be a basic requirement! Just as an example, Aostar’s NAS doesn’t even have the most basic hot-swapping function. This is relevant in a comparison and therefore your assessment is unfair! As a counter-example of a fair and technically experienced assessment of this product, see also the following report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t17ZuaeOaDs
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      6. From what I understand, this machine simply doesn’t provide fast storage access but it could still be good to install something like CasaOS and run Jellyfin/Plex or possibly even Nextcloud? For that use case I don’t believe that the storage needs to be blazingly fast.
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      11. starting out by telling folks they are using soemthing wrong by using the MAIN consumer product it was made for … is not a good take my bro. my mainboard has 5 open m.2 slots and one that is occupied by the wi-fi module , (still building the system) i already got 1 ssd and i plan on filing the others with SSD’s . i’m a gamer that is sick of juggling hard drive space vs fast storage for X game… so yeah bro i’m filling those with storage.
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      12. Something to keep in mind is that your M.2 slots are bottlenecked by the number of PCIE lanes your CPU and Motherboard support. If you several things like a NVME and 10GE into your m.2 slots and you also have a honking GPU, all of your devices are likely going to be throttled as a result. An i513600K for example has 20 PCIE lanes. Pair that with an RTX 4070ti which eats 16, and you’ve only got 4 left for an NVME, and you’re out of lanes already.
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      13. I got the N100 version of this to basically be a Jellyfin server/NAS combo. 300GBP for a sorta NAS solution that can actually transcode 4K HEVC 10 bit with tone mapping enabled seems like a bit of a steal to me. Most other solutions either require another box to run Jellyfin on (as they don’t support decent transcoding), or are prohibitively expensive for the hardware they pack…maybe my usecase is pretty niche though
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      18. PCIe is PCIe is PCIe, my friend. 😀 I honestly don’t know why they went with M.2 keying, since apart from NVMe vs SATA they deliver pretty much _the same thing_ – PCIe lanes. And using a x4-to-6xSATA breakout module is still a better deal than putting ONE (1) SATA disk in it. Just something to remember: those controllers will likely run at SATA-II or even SATA-I, depending on how much you’ve paid – YMMV, you may find better chips to use your M.2 on. Still, if you’re running GbE (while 2.5GbE and 10GbE _cards_ may finally have reasonable pricing, the _switching hardware_ still costs a pretty penny! I can buy TWENTY 8-port GbE switches for what they want for an 8- or 10-port 2.5GbE!), adding even a 4xSATA-I card per PCIe lane is reasonable for HDDs.
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      19. If your CPU supports _PCIe bifurcation,_ move your GPU to a x1 or x4 slot (a dremel may be useful if you don’t want to buy a riser) and then purchase a 4×4 card that can fit 4x NVMe on the x16 slot. The CPU needs to support this, and there are modes (x8/x8, x4/x4/x8, x8/x4/x4, x4/x4/x4/x4) which may or may not be supported (my CPU doesn’t support the 4×4 config – I suspect it’s due to the iGPU – so I ended up going with x8/x4/x4 for a total of 3 NVMe disks). But if you really need those PCIe lanes – a PCIe x16 card that gives you 4 x4 M.2 sockets is _a wonderful thing to have._ Just take care: this will likely be very awkward to reach and will require angled adapters. But if you have a free x16 slot? That’s potentially 24 more SATA ports…
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      20. A small ARM PC with 4xGbE that I’m using as a router doesn’t offer any sort of storage except for USB ports and a microSD card slot. If you’ve ever tried running a full-fledged OS on a microSD card, you’ll know that it’ll bite it _in about a year_ (besides being slow as heck). But the two M.2 slots keyed for a WiFi card really helped there! 😀 Actual NVMe storage? Wicked! It really gives you back the power, because otherwise it’s a super-fast quad-core 4 GB machine! Another thing: under Linux, nVidia GPUs really don’t like to run on PCIe that is _not_ hooked to the CPU (the driver hangs on boot). So I moved my NVMe disks to a 4×4 card in the x16 slot, and then used the M.2 to hook the GPU up. May not game great, but AI doesn’t care. 😀
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      22. I’ve been trying to do this to my Dell Opliplex AIO 9030, but can’t seem to get it to work.

        Want to run PCIE off the NGFF NVME socket so I can turn it into a gaming GPU attached AIO, but I think the BIOS needs to be flashed with a custom image, and that’s a bit beyond my current skill.
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      24. *Update* Following further discussion with a representative of Rouafwit, I will be making a follow-up video to this on, as they feel they have been treated unfairly. This covers my points of comparison with Aoostar/TopTOn/CWWK branded products, as well as points of omission in previous content. When it’s live, I will add it here as a pinned comment and in the description
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      35. That you for reviewing this wannabe-NAS. I saw it on Amazon a few months ago and was intregued by it’s size, as that part is very attractive to me, but was instantly tured off by it not having any reviews, at all. It was like the internet had never heard about it. It seems to be a new-ish product, but when the internet takes no interest, you know it can’t be that good.
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      38. … and you didn’t point out that during internal ops, like rebuilding an array, that 500GB/s lane is just not enough – it’s going to suck. This is my main complaint with those N100 and N305 designs – just not enough PCIe lanes to get the job done. It’s turtles all the way down.
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      47. As there a ton of different brands and models (figuratively speaking, of course) there is plenty (others) to choose from.
        And, again, no dust-filter on the fan? (assuming it is blowing cool air into the case…)
        IMHO a fair case slapped (literally) together. With a sub-standard designed motherboard. (for NAS applications). To me a very lazy design. (in the baddest sense)
        I believe there are way better choices out there.
        PS: I do miss the seagulls, sharing the blame 😉
        I agree, underwhelmed is the adjective here.
        Very hard pass, if I would need to make a choice.
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      52. The AOOSTAR R7 destroys this and I got the 5700u model for £250 used on eBay. Now have 64GB RAM and 2 X 12TB running Proxmox for under £600 and that includes the AOOSTAR R7 itself, HDD, RAM, and NVME SSD.

        Pricing of this ROUAFWIT N100/N305 is atrocious!
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      61. lol some of these are really dumb. But thanks for The suggestions.

        Oh while we are rounding up kinda useless suggestions, what about oculink? That’s one that I have actually seen in the real world and it wasn’t a terrible idea
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      63. I feel like 4 lanes of gen 4 is enough bandwidth that they could put a gpu on a m.2. Not a crazy one, but better, or literally identical to integrated graphics. It would be huge for mobile devices and useless for desktop
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      73. I’ll save you 10min32sec : an M.2 slot is usally just another PCIE 3.0/4.0 1X/2X/4X, here you go (unless it’s a specific old laptop wifi port which wouldn’t have every pins necessary to be pcie port, but just MSATA or over things)
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      74. I’ve actually gotten into doing things like this for my daily driver PC to get around the fact that consumer motherboards these days have taken a hatchet to expansion slots in order to dump as many lanes as possible into more M.2 slots.
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      79. make sure to get NVME instead of SATA for M.2 slots if using an SSD,, they are almost as fast as the Ram…
        as for internet speeds, a lot of people don’t realize it but 1mbps is more than fast enough for majority of uses… I only use 15mbps on my home internet with 1 other person using also…
        People are just shoving their money into ISP pockets and getting nothing in return…
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      84. The big problem that makes most of this pointless is that the M2 slots share the bus of PCIe slots, meaning that utilizing them prevents using the PCIe slots they are paired with. You have to pick one or the other, especially on enthusiast class boards.
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      89. I like the concept of using Oculink like TB or Firewire for utilising PCI-E devices in external enclosures. Obviously this is its main use case for eGPUs, but I’m thinking low power devices like my 2-slot PCI-E 3.0 1X Audio card that I can’t live without. M.2 – Oculink bridge could provide a neat interface that promotes portability for SFF systems.
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      92. 4:36 Can we talk about how a guy that’s only used to voice operated computers can suddenly type at 1000wpm? On a qwerty keyboard no less, because apparently humanity never moved up to dvorak.
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      102. It should be made more explicit that Coral is ONLY good for object recognition tasks, and thus only good for a security system. It is an incredibly weak NPU with a very small memory pool. No problem if you’re just doing object recognition for a security camera or two, but it will never help you do any of the really popular and fun AI projects. Projects like image generation, large language models, STT, TTS to Voice, and RVT vocal encoders, it simply doesn’t have the memory capacity or bandwidth for any of that.
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      103. I managed to double the speed of my M.2 NVME Gen4 SSD with one simple trick. Put in the Gen4 slot instead of the Gen3 one. I’m too ashamed to say how long it was in the wrong place.
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      106. I see a lot of absolutely disgustingly stupid dumb videos on YouTube in regards to tech… especially from people like Linus Tech Tips… it’s good to see an actual fresh realistic approach to tech that isn’t skewed, paid for, or just completely wrong.
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      107. Nice! I have six Dell Wyse 5070’s and I was wondering how to turn one into a NAS. That SATA adapter (and probably using the WiFi slot) sounds like a real solution. Thanks for the tips
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      109. Only problem I know of these little M.2 slots is that when you actually plugin a 10GB Network Card or a GPU.. it get hot as hell, burning hot. But I heared you can plug like over a 100 USB ports on them.. thats insane!
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      111. I would pay good money to see you plug one of those m.2 to PCI-E adapters into one of the new Microsoft Surface units that has the m.2 upgrade slot. you would probably have to completely disassemble the tablet and alter the housing but it would be AWESOME! LOL. put a 4070 or something like that on it. lol. I know there would be a bottleneck from hell there but it would be hilarious and cool to see if the system could recognize it and utilize it!! Could you imagine being in a library gaming with a 4070 setting on the table ???????? That would be the best conversation starter…. EVER! lol Don’t forget to take your power supply with you as well! LOL ????????
        I just had an even better idea. Take some thick acrylic and make a box with ventilation and somehow fix the Surface in the front of it and put the graphics card and power supply in there! LOL. That would be awesome! you could make a portable DIY Surface gaming rig lol.
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      114. I wish my board had more m.2 slots. I only it only has two. But I searched a while for an matx board with intel alterlake w680 chipset to have ecc support.
        Both slots are used for SSDs. One for Proxmox and the VMs and one for data that changes often or I want to be fast.
        Thankfully I have a PCIe x4 slot left for another card if I want to upgrade to 10g Ethernet.
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      115. All nice, but all my slots has been spent on NVMe disks. Just love the fact that I have 3 disks and no wires to hide! The only powercords I run other than the motherboard, is the GPU. Makes a much cleaner build with modular PSUs.
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      122. These options shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, as they’ve been around for years with the previous Mini PCIe (mPCIe) form factor… of which M.2 PCIe (NVMe) is just a more modern version of.
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      126. Geez bud. None of this is at all relevant to me. I don’t see any advantage for all this gear in my standard ATX life. Is there a great shortage of expansion slots in mini PC’s or something? Seems like it’s tech gizmos just for fun imo, and I’m all for it in that case.
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      128. I was listening to you while working. My brain registered your accent but my attention was divided. So I was sitting here wondering what the heck an Aye Aye adaptor is. Does that let you connect a pirate ship to your M.2? Anyway, thanks for this little roundup, great video.
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      134. Great video. I’ve always been keen on finding alternate uses for hardware like this that the typical user wouldn’t think of doing. Especially if you build custom rigs for example which use nonconventional designs/layouts/sizes.
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      137. This is great and all, but as I only have a laptop with one M.2 drive I will stick to using it as storage. Funny, you say wired is reliable, stable and consistent, but my EE Wi-Fi has been exactly that for 6 months. And, it is faster than my home broadband, which is why I ditched my home broadband for my phone hotspot internet. It’s also a lot cheaper. Horses for courses I guess.
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      140. Has anyone went M.2 to PCIE NVME raid card? I have several 2TB NVME cards i’d like to put to use. Or better yet, is there a small factor NVME raid card that doesn’t depend on a full PCI slot to hold it in place? Using a custom ITX case with no available slots, but room to tuck a card in somewhere in the case.
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      143. what can you do with only one spare M.2 slot at 3.0, I have 1 4.0 M.2 slot and 2 M.2 slot 3.0 ? ( Motherboard is Gigabyte Z590 UD AC ) Do I misunderstand something here ? ( sorry for my bad English i am from Belgium )
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      144. As a low-income hacker, I’d noticed that classic HDDs at a certain UK secondhand retailer seemed to be coming down in price quite a lot, and 05:00 finally explains for why. Looks like I’m going to have to remember to keep hold of those S-ATA I/F cards for the forseeable, especially as I imagine that there’ll be no classic/magnetic devices built for the M.2 standard at all, which makes long-term data storage and archival a pig. ????

        Going to have to dig out a pinout of the M.2 standard and learn a bit more about it. I thought it was just a storage interface, not a _complete_ PCI-Express 4×4 interface! ????

        And yes, I wish I could be this handsome too. If I was then I could also produce YouTube content that people would actually watch, rather than my videos being shadowbanned and my comments being dropped left right and centre because platforms don’t like those with diversity _and_ handicaps… ????????‍????????
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      149. This could turn a old PC into a relatively useful NAS – putting in a 10GB M.2 card and a router?
        Could a PCIe gen 5 M.2 Be converted to a PCIe gen 3 x 16 GPU slot effectively?
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      152. You should put together a list with all your links in one place(just put a note that prices can change). I wanted to check some of the motherboards you where referencing, however you only listed links for the cards.
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      154. I have one PCIe NVMe M.2 connector for a SSD drive in my laptop and one in my mini PC and both have exactly what’s supposed to be connected to them — the C: drive (512 GB in the laptop, 2 TB in the mini PC).
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      155. Hmmm. How will adding an aye-aye to a motherboard help with your computing experience? To start with, you need to provide them with grubs (shudder!) and water them and then there’s dealing with what comes out the other end! Besides, what kind of aye-aye even *has* an interface for a computer? It’s just, I mean, the concept of grafting a lemur into a computer doesn’t make any sense to me. ????????????
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      161. That mini SAS may seem useless but there are cables that can split that to 4 or maybe more SATA drives. You also can use SAS if you want where with SATA you can’t. SATA drives work with SAS but SAS works with both SATA or SAS. So if you plan to use SATA drives SAS is OK for it with that cable.
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      162. A year ago I bought one of those m.2 to 10gbe adapters for my system because I was out of PCIe slots. For reference, I was using a ryzen 5950x on an x570 chipset. My observations that you didn’t have on your review that I feel are important and I’d love further investigation.

        First, the included thimble sized heat sink was not adequate as it would overheat and then I’d lose network connectivity. I had to replace it with something more robust. Seeing I was in it to win it, I used a thermalright fully active m.2 cooler. That solved the overheating.

        Second, because the device is a b+m key, I was only getting PCIe x2, NOT x4. It was easily verfied with a lspci -vv command and it always showed the device ws downgraded. Because of that, performance was nerfed and I coulnd’t get 10gbe with iperf even when running parallels.

        My solution was then to use an m.2 to PCIe adapter like you had, then a 10gbe card (running the same aquantia chipset). Boom, iperf gave 9+.
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      163. Great video. I was all excited only to realise that my Sabertooth X79, I had already upgraded with Dual M.2 PCIe NVMe X4 Adapter and put in 2x 4TB SSD’s 🙂
        So I can’t upgrade further as yet.
        I tell you the Dual M.2 PCIe NVMe X4 Adapter made my 12 year old Sabertooth motherboard live longer and the drives are fast.
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      168. 3:30 That M.2 to PCI slot adapter seems pointless because all the M.2 slots I’ve seen are paired with either a PCI slot on the motherboard or a SATA port. From what I’ve seen, unless people need a PCI slot that’s on a different angle, they won’t be gaining anything.

        6:30 That “A.I.” card is a lie. (I don’t mean you’re lying, I mean the company is lying) Currently, there is no such thing as A.I. (artificial intelligence). All the current so-called A.I. are either algorithms that are sufficiently complex that they seem to be A.I. or they’re completely unrelated to A.I. Artificial intelligence doesn’t currently exist and it likely never will exist.
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      183. it is far more caveated than simply bang in a device into the M.2 slot, by doing so you can slow down or even cripple the baandwidth on other devices as many M.2 are actually shared.
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      186. the moment I saw the caption “You are using your m.2 slot wrong!” automatically I knew its a clickbait… so I came here to give a dislike. So many trash youtubers out there nowadays.
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      188. esentially m.2 is basically just a repackaged pcie, sata or usb connector or a mix of those
        for example wifi key m.2 often carry 2x pcie and 1 usb , nvme carries 4x pcie and so on and in many cases standards are interchangable
        i am using my dedicated x16 pcie port on my motherboard wrong because i put m.2 adapter into it just to have 2 nvme drives on my desktop computer
        full size graphic card would not fit into it anyway
        and on my laptop i desoldered sd card reader chip just to add m.2 socket on cables for another ssd support and dualboot a cheap hp laptop with no upgradable storage

        i am much more upset about x4 pcie slot not being popular on desktop boards because making ssd that slots into that would be much easier with much more space for radiators and no need for screws and other laptop things could also be plugged in there, but for some reason bubblegum slot is better form factor even on desktop where space is not a constrain
        making it worse and placing it often under gpu slot and making ssd’s die from excesive heat
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      189. This is great information. I had no idea this M.2 could do anything else but Wi-Fi.
        I can now use my very limited NUC i3 Intel with only 1 NIC with an extra 2.5 GB LAN as a OpnSense firewall, taking over my very poor current OpnSense firewall that can’t load all the geo location database needed to stop the scam/spam and can’t run the clamd antivirus plugin either due to the limitations of the resources on it. This is excellent news.
        Recycling older hardware to good use 🙂
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      190. Such a wonderful video your content is really impressive but I saw your Thumbnails need some improvement Since thumbnails are key to attracting viewers
        I’d love to create a ????FREE thumbnail trial for your next video???? If you like it, we can discuss more. Looking forward to your response! ????
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      191. What about a video on what we can do with those pretty useless M.2 NGFF SATA 2042 ports they keep putting in the NUCs and its clones? Useless because actual SATA SSDs of that format are extremely expensive.
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      192. Thanks for the information. My problem is that many of the products shown here are apparently not yet available for purchase. I would be particularly interested in the M.2 to SFP+ cards, then I would no longer have to take the detour via OCuLink. Even my Retro XP PC can access the 10G network via OCuLink. However, OCuLink has an advantage that should not be underestimated: The SFP+ card can be quickly moved from one PC to the next.
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      195. I have a z790 dark hero and I cannot get any of the PCIe slots to work with a Gen 3 network adapter. It is supposed to be a 10G adapter I was trying to get working with my NAS
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      197. 5:05
        The idea of having a sweet server board with 2 built in miniSAS HD and then going with janky m2 to sata adapter seems quite wrong to me.
        Especially if you live in US you should have a wide variety of SAS breakout cables and SAS backplanes available, should just go with those IMHO.
        (Personally just got a 4 bay hotswap rack for my server with miniSAS HD but sadly i didn’t notice that the cable is a separate purchase so still need to get one)
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      199. The enhancements only work if its an NVME M.2 AND the use of the pcie lanes in the slot doesn’t disable them elsewhere…. There are M2 nvme to multiple nvme breakouts.. cheap, one pcie lane each m2 slot. Or expensive.. pcie lane switch to provide more.
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      201. One more thing to use in M.2 is – NVME drive, but not the M.2. I found in “local” shops new (with original package and seals, have warranty) P4510 1Tb ( SSDPE2KX010T801 ) in U.2 form factor. For some reason they are twice cheaper than same/similar models with SATA interface while much faster. Aliexpress, 10$ M.2 to SFF-8643 card + SFF-8639 cable bundle and they can be installed in any motherboard with M.2!
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      202. There are better things that you didn’t mention. When you talked about the 2x10GbE, the device you showed was actually a re-manned SFP+ and the device to connect it was actually actually a mini-sas standard (I forget which one) but there are tons of SFF 8643 devices so if you want to go that rout use those. You have U.2 adapters and External versions for things like Jbod and backplains.
        Also Occulink really deserves a shout out here. Missed opportunity.
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      203. To say you’re using it “wrong” is pretty clickbaity at best, as opposed to PCIe slot can be used for multiple types of devices. Bu that wouldn’t get quite as many clicks.
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      204. As an alternative to the ADT-Link PCIe extender, you might take a look at an M.2 Oculink adapter board and SFF-8611/8612 cabling to an external PCIe slot. Eta Prime made a video about this 3 months ago – he used a mini-PC with an existing external Oculink port connected to an eGPU, but he also displayed an adapter board that could be used in an internal M.2 NVMe slot. The parts came from Amazon. Oculink should provide superior signaling and durability over a PCIe ribbon cable.
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      206. Your title screen shot……….. mate don’t. Don’t sit there and tell people they are using their slots wrong, you just come off as a pretentious prick. Don’t get me wrong I like your videos but………. a slow revenue day? …. Come on.
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      207. Not to rain on the excellent parade of ideas, but people need to remember that the older or cheaper boards and mini pcs may only have PCIe 3.0 (~8 Gigabits/s per lane) or only a x1 slot, or both limits. All part of Intels goal to cripple the Atoms and J/N series cpus. “Oh you wanted more fast lanes, please buy a far more expensive cpu!” ????‍♂️????‍♂️????‍♂️. On the upside PCIe has its speed in both directions at once. ????
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      208. Surprised you missed the best use, m.2 to U.2/U.3 adapters. Enterprise NVME are sometimes cheap from ebay, and the drives basically have infinite write life for most people. Not to mention that they have so many more chips on them, that they don’t get the transfer rate slow down you get with consumer nvme drives, once they run out of their small caches.
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      213. thare are still a lot of questions about smart ups systems budget and others, i follow some reddit threads and most people are still questioning what kind of ups they should get and if its able to connect (software) to their nas so it neatly turns it off on time. what are the best picks for late 2024, that works on ;asustor, Qnap and Sygnology?
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      217. M2-to-SATA is not equal to normal SATA ports. For example, it does not let HDDs go to sleep mode (actually, they enter sleep mode and wake up immediately). I had to junk this card
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      218. Every port that has little chance of its potential being expoited should have a method to share it by many devices. A PCIE slot can be used by the most demanding game with the most bandwidth starved GPU while being shared by several m.2 SSDs without any noticeable hit to performance, from the sharing, of any of them. Just prioritize GPU when gaming; storage commands will still be in the order of microseconds and GBs/s.
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      219. Ooooh, I thought I’d filled my bingo card there – I don’t have an m.2 AI adapter or an m.2 to Dual SFP+ 10G, but I have all the others. The m.2 to PCIE x16 is probably the least useful, if you’re into small formfactor rigs, but the 10G NIC, the 6xSATA and the wifi to dual SATA cards have been very useful. Though the wifi slots are becoming less useful, with most of the new ones being CNVio and not MiniPCIE.
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      232. What I want is an m.2 to dual m.2. not using the fastest m.2 nvme drives on my nas. So not worried about speed But I would like to have twin drives for redundancy on my cache. My board has another m.2 but it is being used for SATA ports for storage drives
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      235. Surprisingly useful. Didn’t think of the 6x SATA or AI being options. This suddenly gives something like MS-01 almost unlimited uses (with a different case, of course). But even the most ancient of boards could suddenly have a wildly different use. My old gigabyte router-on-a-stick is going to definitely see some hacking. Thx Robbie!
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      236. Those M.2 to SATA adapters normally use something like the ASM1166 or a JMB585 which can experience some weird behaviours (e.g. The ASM1166 needs a certain level of firmware for unraid)
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      243. I’m just going to sit and sulk in the corner with my MacMini, unable to play with any M.2 options, and yet I still plough through to the end of the video!
        I’m forever shouting our local gulls who make a hell of a racket. You’re not in SW London near a bus depot, are you?! We may be sharing the same noisy brutes!
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      244. If you initially setup your NAS ( I have both QNAP and Synology ) with just M2 NVME’s installed as Volume 1 with the operating system and apps, and then later installed HDD’s as Volume 2 for the data, would the operating system and apps be installed and run solely on that faster storage pool and improve performance. Or am I misunderstanding how this works ? Happy Friday.
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      245. Those wifi M.2 cards are often USB 2. Depending on the age of the host machine, USB 2 over M.2 might be all you get. iirc, more modern M.2 wifi cards can be USB 3 and/or PCIe x2?

        Some of your suggestions are going to need a larger case. I don’t see a lot of point in ITX vs mATX if you’re going to need more space.
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