Minisforum N5 vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Which Is BEST?

Last updated on 07 Jul 2025 📧 Subscribe
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1 Aoostar WTR Max NAS vs Minisforum N5 Pro NAS Comparison
1.1 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Price and Value
1.2 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Design
1.3 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Storage
1.4 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Ports and Connectivity
1.5 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – CPU and Memory
1.6 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Power Consumption and Noise
1.7 Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Verdict and Conclusion
2 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Aoostar WTR Max NAS vs Minisforum N5 Pro NAS Comparison

The demand for high-performance, multi-functional NAS systems has never been higher, as users increasingly expect far more than basic file storage from their hardware. Today’s workloads often include virtualization, AI-assisted operations, multi-tiered storage strategies, and high-speed, low-latency networking—demands that blur the line between a traditional NAS and a fully-fledged home server. In response to these needs, two closely matched contenders have emerged in the prosumer and power-user space: the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series, which consists of both the more affordable standard N5 and the higher-spec N5 Pro. These devices, released in mid-2025, share some common DNA—both are bare-metal NAS platforms that let you install your own operating system and tailor your setup to your specific use case—but they diverge significantly in how they balance compute power, storage density, connectivity options, noise and power efficiency, and overall value.

Check Amazon for the WTR Pro MAX

Check AliExpress for the WTR Pro MAX

Check Amazon for the Minisforum N5

Check AliExpress for the Minisforum N5

In this article we provide a detailed, category-by-category comparison of these systems based on hands-on testing and real-world workloads. Key factors like physical design, internal architecture, storage configuration, CPU and memory performance, external connectivity, and power and noise profiles are all assessed in depth. We also consider important use case distinctions, such as suitability for 24/7 enterprise-grade uptime, AI model hosting, or quiet home use. Whether you’re looking to build a dense storage appliance, a virtualized host for multiple VMs, a locally deployed AI engine, or simply a robust and scalable home NAS, this analysis aims to clarify which of these two (or three, when factoring in the standard N5) offers the best fit. As the boundaries between NAS and full server hardware continue to blur, understanding these subtle trade-offs will help you make a more informed investment for your own specific workload and budget.

Written Review of the Minisforum N5 Pro NAS – HERE

YouTube Review of the Minisforum N5 Pro NAS – HERE

Written Review of the Aoostar WTR Max NAS – HERE

YouTube Review of the Aoostar WTR Max NAS – HERE

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Price and Value

When examining the price points of the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series, it becomes clear that each brand has intentionally targeted slightly different segments of the advanced NAS and home-server market. The Aoostar WTR Max launches at $699 in a barebone configuration, which includes the chassis, preinstalled AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS CPU, external PSU, dual 10GbE SFP+ networking, and a front LCD panel. Like its competitor, it does not include RAM or additional storage at this price.

By comparison, the Minisforum N5 standard model enters at a lower price point of $583 in a similarly barebone configuration—also lacking RAM and user storage—but it does not include ECC memory support or a PRO-class CPU, which are key differences. The premium-tier Minisforum N5 Pro sits at a much higher entry price of $1,039, still barebone but featuring a far more capable Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370 CPU and ECC support. Users who prefer to have memory preinstalled can opt for a top-tier N5 Pro bundle, which includes 96GB ECC RAM and raises the total cost to $1,583.
Aspect Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 (Standard) Minisforum N5 Pro Best & Why/Note
Base Price (barebone) $699 $583 $1039 Aoostar WTR Max — cheapest base option
Optional ECC RAM ✓ (supports ECC) ✗ ✓ N5 Pro — ECC support only on Pro and Aoostar

Relative to its competitors, the Aoostar WTR Max occupies a deliberate middle ground—costing more than the standard N5 but significantly less than the N5 Pro. This makes it a particularly appealing option for users who want enterprise-relevant features like ECC memory support and a balanced CPU without committing to the premium pricing of the Pro. The standard N5 clearly appeals to budget-conscious buyers who are willing to forgo ECC support and settle for a mid-tier CPU to save over $100 compared to the Aoostar.

Conversely, the N5 Pro is positioned for buyers who prioritize maximum multi-core performance, AI acceleration, and ECC memory—even if that means paying nearly 50% more than the Aoostar. For users who value the best balance of price and advanced functionality—including high storage density, good networking capabilities, and ECC support—the Aoostar WTR Max arguably delivers the most well-rounded value proposition among the three systems, particularly for general-purpose NAS or mixed-use home lab scenarios.

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Design

Both the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series feature compact, all-metal chassis designs that prioritize serviceability, efficient internal space utilization, and professional-grade durability. The Aoostar WTR Max adopts a slightly larger rectangular footprint, accommodating six SATA bays, a dedicated seventh tray slot for up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs, and an integrated LCD display on the front panel for customizable real-time monitoring of system metrics such as temperature and network activity.

Ventilation on the Aoostar is extensive, with intake vents at the bottom, perforated panels on both sides, and dual rear-mounted exhaust fans drawing heat from the drive bays and CPU area. A vapor chamber heat spreader and a dedicated bottom-mounted cooling fan help distribute and evacuate thermal load evenly across internal components. The Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro, meanwhile, share a more compact and minimalist chassis with a slightly smaller footprint and a slide-out drive cage mechanism, making internal access and servicing more straightforward. Both Minisforum models include five SATA bays, a versatile three-slot M.2/U.2 arrangement, and a clean brushed-metal exterior that avoids visual distractions by omitting a front-facing display.

Aspect Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 (Standard) Minisforum N5 Pro Best & Why/Note
Chassis Material Full Metal Full Metal Full Metal Tie — similar high-quality builds
LCD Display ✓ ✗ ✗ Aoostar WTR Max — includes customizable LCD
Slide-Out Drive Cage ✗ ✓ ✓ N5/N5 Pro — easier drive servicing
Compact Size (approx.) Compact (~same footprint) Compact (~same footprint) Compact (~same footprint) Tie — equally compact and serviceable

Where the Aoostar WTR Max shines is in raw storage density and front-panel functionality, with one additional SATA bay over the Minisforum design, plus its customizable LCD display for at-a-glance system information. Its more aggressive ventilation strategy—with side vents and larger intake paths—also suggests it can move slightly more air through densely packed storage configurations. However, the Minisforum chassis demonstrates superior internal organization, with its slide-out cage allowing faster upgrades and maintenance, and better separation of airflow channels for drives and CPU cooling.

The lack of an LCD display on the Minisforum may disappoint users who like direct front-panel readouts, but it contributes to a more understated aesthetic. In practice, the Aoostar’s design will appeal most to those who value maximum storage flexibility, high-density airflow, and immediate status feedback, while the Minisforum will suit users who prioritize tool-less servicing, quieter operation at idle, and a more refined, professional look. This category ultimately comes down to user priorities, but if judged solely on usability and build refinement, the Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro take a modest edge over the Aoostar WTR Max.

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Storage

Storage capabilities represent one of the most significant differences between the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series, reflecting divergent priorities in how each system balances density and simplicity. The Aoostar WTR Max delivers a standout total of eleven drive slots, composed of six 3.5”/2.5” SATA bays, a dedicated seventh tray supporting up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs. This architecture provides users with the ability to create sophisticated storage topologies, combining high-capacity mechanical drives for bulk cold storage and multiple high-speed NVMe SSDs for tiered caching, scratch disks, or performance-optimized pools.

The additional M.2 tray, which is unique to the Aoostar design, simplifies the installation of multiple NVMe drives without occupying space within the motherboard area, while still offering full Gen 4 speeds on select slots. In contrast, the Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro are more restrained, offering five SATA bays and three NVMe/U.2 slots, which can be configured either as three M.2 drives or as one M.2 with two U.2 drives using the supplied adapter card. The Minisforum setup also includes a dedicated M.2 slot for its 64GB OS SSD, but sadly, this slot consumes one of the three available NVMe positions. Both Minisforum models support hot-swapping on the SATA bays and flexible RAID modes, but the higher bay count and more independent storage interfaces of the Aoostar clearly cater to users with larger or more diverse storage needs.

Feature Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 / N5 Pro Notes / Best
SATA Bays 6 × 3.5″/2.5″ (SATA 3.0, up to 22TB each) 5 × 3.5″/2.5″ (SATA 3.0, up to 22TB each) Aoostar wins on total count
SATA Hot-swap No Yes Minisforum wins
NVMe/U.2 Slots Total 4 × M.2 in tray + 1 × OS M.2 slot 3 × NVMe/U.2 + 1 × OS M.2 slot Aoostar wins on total NVMe count
NVMe Slot PCIe Lanes / Speed 2 × Gen4 x2, 2 × Gen4 x1 1 × Gen4 x2, 2 × Gen4 x1 Aoostar provides more total bandwidth
OS Drive Impact Separate dedicated M.2 slot for OS SSD OS SSD occupies 1 NVMe slot Aoostar wins here
NVMe Hot-swap No No Neither supports hot-swap NVMe
Optional U.2 Support Not natively supported Via included adapter (2 × U.2 + 1 × M.2) Minisforum offers flexibility
Reported Internal SSD Speeds Gen4 x1 slots: ~1.6 GB/s read/write; Gen4 x2 slots: ~2.9–3.1 GB/s read/write Gen4 x1 slots: ~1.7 GB/s read/write; Gen4 x2 slot: ~3.3 GB/s read, ~3.1 GB/s write Comparable, slight edge Minisforum
Total Drive Capacity 6 SATA + 4 NVMe + OS SSD = 11 drives 5 SATA + 3 NVMe/U.2 + OS SSD = 8 drives Aoostar wins on total drive count

Storage capabilities represent one of the most significant differences between the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series, reflecting divergent priorities in how each system balances density and simplicity. The Aoostar WTR Max delivers a standout total of eleven drive slots, composed of six 3.5”/2.5” SATA bays, a dedicated seventh tray supporting up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs. This architecture provides users with the ability to create sophisticated storage topologies, combining high-capacity mechanical drives for bulk cold storage and multiple high-speed NVMe SSDs for tiered caching, scratch disks, or performance-optimized pools.

The additional M.2 tray, which is unique to the Aoostar design, simplifies the installation of multiple NVMe drives without occupying space within the motherboard area, while still offering full Gen 4 speeds on select slots. In contrast, the Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro are more restrained, offering five SATA bays and three NVMe/U.2 slots, which can be configured either as three M.2 drives or as one M.2 with two U.2 drives using the supplied adapter card. The Minisforum setup also includes a dedicated M.2 slot for its 64GB OS SSD, this slot consumes one of the three available NVMe positions. Both Minisforum models support hot-swapping on the SATA bays and flexible RAID modes, but the higher bay count and more independent storage interfaces of the Aoostar clearly cater to users with larger or more diverse storage needs.

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Ports and Connectivity

Both the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series deliver a wide array of external ports and connectivity options, though their designs reflect different priorities and deployment philosophies. The Aoostar WTR Max is clearly oriented toward high-density, network-heavy environments, offering two 10GbE SFP+ fiber ports alongside two additional 2.5GbE RJ45 copper ports. This configuration enables up to four simultaneous physical network connections, making it well-suited to scenarios that demand redundant paths, segmented VLANs, or hybrid fiber-copper topologies.

In addition, the Aoostar includes a front-mounted USB-C port, an SD card slot for quick local transfers, a rear USB4 port, an HDMI output for direct monitoring or console access, and an OCuLink port for external PCIe-based expansions. The SD card slot is an unusual but useful addition for media workflows, though the absence of any PCIe slot in the WTR Max’s internal layout limits upgrade options to what can be connected externally through OCuLink or USB4.
Connection Type Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 (Standard) Minisforum N5 Pro Best & Why/Note
10GbE RJ45 ✗ ✓ ✓ N5/N5 Pro — standard copper 10GbE
10GbE SFP+ ✓×2 ✗ ✗ Aoostar WTR Max — SFP+ for fiber
5GbE RJ45 ✗ ✓ ✓ N5/N5 Pro — additional RJ45 flexibility
2.5GbE RJ45 ✓×2 ✗ ✗ Aoostar WTR Max — more mid-tier ports
USB4 ✓ ✓×2 ✓×2 N5/N5 Pro — more USB4 ports
HDMI ✓ ✓ ✓ Tie — all include HDMI 2.1
PCIe Gen4 Slot ✗ ✓ ✓ N5/N5 Pro — PCIe x16 expansion
OCuLink ✓ ✓ ✓ Tie — all include OCuLink

The Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro, by contrast, prioritize versatility and broader compatibility with typical IT infrastructure. Both models feature a 10GbE RJ45 copper port and a secondary 5GbE RJ45 port, allowing direct connection to high-speed copper backbones or standard multi-Gig switches without requiring transceivers. They also include two USB4 ports (one front, one rear), an HDMI 2.1 output, an OCuLink port for external PCIe-based devices, and crucially, a PCIe Gen4 x16 (x4 electrical) slot.

This PCIe slot unlocks possibilities for internal upgrades such as GPUs, additional NICs, AI accelerator cards, or other PCIe devices—a flexibility that the Aoostar lacks. This makes the Minisforum a more future-proof choice in environments where needs may change or grow, and where access to off-the-shelf PCIe hardware is desirable. Together with its more copper-friendly network ports and two USB4 connections, the Minisforum family aligns well with home labs, creative workstations, and hybrid environments that benefit from adaptable, modular expansion options.

On balance, the Minisforum N5 series edges ahead in overall versatility and general-purpose applicability. While the Aoostar WTR Max offers a greater total number of network interfaces and superior fiber capabilities out of the box, those features come with trade-offs, including reliance on SFP+ transceivers, higher fiber infrastructure costs, and reduced flexibility for other kinds of expansion. For users specifically targeting a fiber-based or multi-path network deployment, the Aoostar remains highly appealing. However, for broader scenarios that favor compatibility with standard copper networks, more USB4 bandwidth, and internal PCIe upgrade capabilities, the Minisforum N5 and N5 Pro offer a more balanced and adaptable external connectivity package – but just less ACTUAL external bandwidth for networking!

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – CPU and Memory

The Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series diverge substantially in processing power and memory capabilities, with the N5 Pro clearly at the high-performance end of the spectrum. The Aoostar WTR Max is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS, an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on AMD’s efficient Zen 4 architecture, and supports up to 128 GB of DDR5 memory with ECC. This makes the WTR Max a strong contender for users who need solid multi-threaded throughput, data integrity via ECC, and headroom for running many virtual machines or containerized workloads.

It is especially attractive in enterprise-like environments where reliability and memory capacity are priorities. The Minisforum N5 standard, by contrast, uses the older Ryzen 7 255, also with 8 cores and 16 threads, but based on the earlier Zen 3+ architecture, with a cap of 96 GB DDR5 and no ECC support. It remains competent for general NAS duties, file serving, light VM usage, and moderate multimedia tasks. Stepping up to the N5 Pro, however, brings a dramatic increase in compute and AI capabilities: its Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 370 processor offers 12 cores, 24 threads, ECC support, and a built-in neural processing unit (NPU) delivering up to 50 TOPS for AI inferencing, while maintaining the same 96 GB DDR5 limit. This makes the N5 Pro ideal for highly concurrent workloads, virtualized environments, AI model hosting, and scenarios where raw CPU power and error resilience are critical.

(The CPU in the Minisforum N5 Pro is also featured on the X1 Pro from Minsforum, so below you can see the GFX benchmarks of this processor vs the same CPU + an MGA1 External Oculink eGPU)

Feature Ryzen 7 255 Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370
Architecture Zen 3+ Zen 4 Zen 5 / Zen 5c hybrid
Cores / Threads 8C / 16T 8C / 16T 12C / 24T
Base / Boost Clock 3.3 GHz / 4.9 GHz 3.8 GHz / 5.1 GHz 2.0 GHz / 5.1 GHz
L3 Cache 16 MB 16 MB 24 MB
GPU Radeon 780M (12 CUs) Radeon 780M (12 CUs) Radeon 890M (16 CUs)
GPU Clock ~2.5 GHz Up to 2.7 GHz Up to 2.9 GHz
NPU UPTO 16 TOPS upto 16 TOPS Up to 50 TOPS
TDP Range ~45 W ~45 W 28–54 W
PCIe Lanes 20 PCIe Gen 4 20 PCIe Gen 4 16 PCIe Gen 4
Memory Support DDR5 (non‑ECC) DDR5‑5600 ECC DDR5‑5600 ECC

Looking deeper at the individual CPUs, their architectures reflect different generational and market goals. The Ryzen 7 255 in the Minisforum N5 is a Zen 3+ part built on a 6 nm process, with a base clock of 3.3 GHz and turbo up to 4.9 GHz. It provides 16 MB of L3 cache and includes integrated Radeon 780M graphics with 12 RDNA 3 compute units. At ~45 W TDP, it is a capable midrange processor for general NAS use but lacks advanced enterprise features like ECC and AI. The Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS in the WTR Max upgrades to Zen 4 at 4 nm, bumps the base clock to 3.8 GHz while maintaining the same 5.1 GHz boost, and delivers better power efficiency.

It retains the Radeon 780M GPU but with improved clocks and adds ECC memory support plus 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes for broader connectivity options. At the top sits the Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 370 in the N5 Pro, which leverages AMD’s Zen 5/5c hybrid architecture. Despite a lower base clock of 2.0 GHz (favoring efficiency) with the same 5.1 GHz turbo, it increases core count to 12 and thread count to 24, doubles L3 cache to 24 MB, and upgrades the GPU to Radeon 890M with 16 RDNA 3 compute units clocked up to 2.9 GHz. The Pro has a higher rated integrated NPU, capable of 50 TOPS, positioning it as an ideal candidate for on-premises AI inferencing and acceleration workloads, several times higher than the potential 16 TOPS rating on the CPUs of the N5 Standard and WTR ,Max. Its TDP range of 28–54 W also reflects its hybrid design’s balance of power and efficiency, although it offers slightly fewer PCIe lanes (16) than the WTR Max’s 20.

Aspect Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 (Standard) Minisforum N5 Pro Best & Why/Note
CPU Model Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS Ryzen 7 255 Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 370 N5 Pro — more cores, AI acceleration
Cores/Threads 8C/16T 8C/16T 12C/24T N5 Pro — highest core count
ECC Memory Support ✓ ✗ ✓ Tie between Aoostar & N5 Pro
Max RAM 128GB DDR5 96GB DDR5 96GB DDR5 Aoostar WTR Max — higher maximum RAM ceiling
AI NPU ✓ (16 TOPS) ✓ (16 TOPS) ✓ (50 TOPS) N5 Pro — higher TOPS rating

In terms of choosing the best fit, the Minisforum N5 Pro stands out as the premium solution, delivering unmatched compute performance, higher concurrency, and dedicated AI hardware. Users deploying AI workloads, large-scale VM clusters, or needing the absolute highest processing headroom will find its premium justified. The Aoostar WTR Max, while trailing the N5 Pro in cores, threads, and AI acceleration, offers a more balanced middle-ground option: solid Zen 4 performance, ECC support, and greater maximum memory (128 GB) make it ideal for reliability-conscious users and memory-hungry environments at a lower cost than the N5 Pro. The standard N5 occupies the entry-level tier, with sufficient power for typical NAS and light VM duties but no ECC and limited future-proofing compared to its peers. In short, the N5 Pro dominates this category for high-end, AI-driven use cases, the Aoostar WTR Max excels for dependable performance and larger memory footprints at midrange pricing, and the standard N5 remains the best value for modest, general-purpose NAS applications.

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Power Consumption and Noise

Both the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series aim to strike a balance between capable performance, manageable power consumption, and acceptable noise levels, though they adopt distinct philosophies around power delivery and cooling. Both the Minisforum N5 and the Aoostar WTR Max feature external power supply unit (PSUs), of a pretty hefty 280W – these will almost certainly not be for everyone, but do allow for both systems to maintain a decent small-scale (however, be aware that they DO get warm)!

In terms of measured power consumption, the WTR Max idles at approximately 32–34 W even when fully populated with drives, and it ramps up to around 73–89 W under heavy load, such as during multi-VM and high-throughput testing.

The chassis design favors airflow with strategically placed ventilation on the sides, rear, and bottom, a pair of large rear exhaust fans, and a dedicated internal fan that focuses specifically on the hard drive bays. This combination keeps temperatures steady under pressure, and even during sustained activity, noise output remains modest — around 35 dBA at idle and typically peaking near 44 dBA when heavily loaded, which is relatively quiet given its drive density and active cooling.

Aspect Aoostar WTR Max Minisforum N5 (Standard) Minisforum N5 Pro Best & Why/Note
PSU Type External External External No Difference
Peak Power Consumption ~73–89W ~80W ~80W Tie — both in similar range
Idle Power Consumption ~32–34W ~32–34W ~32–34W Tie — similar efficiency
Noise at Idle ~35 dBA ~32–34 dBA ~32–34 dBA N5/N5 Pro — slightly quieter at idle
Noise at Load ~44 dBA ~48–51 dBA ~48–51 dBA Aoostar WTR Max — quieter at load

The Minisforum N5 series has similar Power usage at idle to the Aoostar, sitting at 32–34 W with a standard configuration, and peak draw during demanding scenarios — such as AI inference on the N5 Pro or intensive virtualized workloads — topped out around 80 W. The N5 chassis relies on a refined internal cooling setup, with a base-mounted intake fan and two rear exhaust fans, arranged to direct airflow efficiently from front to back through the components. While thermally effective, this setup tends to produce slightly higher maximum noise than the WTR Max, registering 48–51 dBA during sustained full-load operation. At idle, the Minisforum systems are competitive, staying quiet at roughly 32–34 dBA, but the difference becomes more noticeable when fully stressed over longer periods.

Minisforum N5 Pro vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Verdict and Conclusion

In reviewing the Aoostar WTR Max and the Minisforum N5 series—including both the standard and Pro models—it becomes clear that each system was designed with a distinct user profile and set of priorities in mind, making direct comparisons nuanced rather than absolute. The Aoostar WTR Max distinguishes itself with a compelling balance of high storage density, strong CPU performance featuring ECC memory support, excellent chassis ventilation and a competitive mid-range price point.

Its combination of six SATA bays, five M.2 slots, quiet operation under sustained loads, and a tidy all-in-one form factor appeals to users who value storage flexibility, operational efficiency, and simplicity in deployment. The Minisforum N5 standard model carves out its niche as an affordable entry point for those with lighter needs—delivering solid, modern NAS performance in a compact chassis at the lowest price of the three. At the other end of the spectrum, the Minisforum N5 Pro targets advanced power users, offering the AI‑accelerated Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 370 processor, ECC memory capability, and unmatched multi-threaded and inference performance, all of which position it squarely in the high-end category for workloads like intensive virtualization, heavy concurrent tasks, and AI-assisted applications. For those specific use cases, the N5 Pro’s premium price is justified by its unmatched compute capabilities and feature set.

Ultimately, choosing between these systems requires a careful assessment of workload demands, expansion expectations, and budget constraints. The Aoostar WTR Max delivers a well-rounded combination of storage capacity, compute power, noise and thermal efficiency, and ease of deployment at a price that is reasonable for most advanced home and small business NAS environments. Its blend of practical features and robust hardware makes it especially attractive for users who prioritize storage-heavy applications and quieter, more efficient operation. The Minisforum N5 standard model is best suited for users with modest requirements and tight budgets, offering a clean, capable NAS platform for general use without the advanced features or costs associated with its Pro sibling. The N5 Pro, however, remains the clear choice for users who need the highest possible performance, AI‑specific capabilities, and maximum concurrency—provided they are willing to pay a premium for these cutting-edge benefits. In short, while all three systems deliver strong value in their respective niches, the Aoostar WTR Max arguably offers the most versatile and cost-effective package for typical NAS workloads, striking a smart balance between affordability, capacity, and performance.

Category Best Choice Reasoning
Price (Value for Money) Minisforum N5 (Standard) Lowest price while delivering competent NAS performance
Overall Storage Capacity Aoostar WTR Max More bays and better storage flexibility (11 drives total)
Ease of Maintenance & Design Minisforum N5 / N5 Pro Slide-out cage, cleaner internal layout, easier servicing
Connectivity Versatility Minisforum N5 / N5 Pro PCIe slot, USB4, OCuLink, balanced copper networking
SFP+ Fiber Networking Aoostar WTR Max Only system offering dual 10GbE SFP+ ports
Compute Power & AI Minisforum N5 Pro 12 cores, 24 threads, 50 TOPS NPU, ECC support
Noise Under Heavy Load Aoostar WTR Max Better ventilation, lower load noise levels
Best All-Rounder Aoostar WTR Max Balanced price, storage, performance, and cooling
Power User / VM & AI Workloads Minisforum N5 Pro High concurrency, AI acceleration, virtualization
Check Amazon for the WTR Pro MAX

Check AliExpress for the WTR Pro MAX

Check Amazon for the Minisforum N5

Check AliExpress for the Minisforum N5

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      340 thoughts on “Minisforum N5 vs Aoostar WTR Max NAS – Which Is BEST?”

      3. Brighton, the arse end of the UK? Please, check your map. The isle of Sheppey is the turd flying out of the actual pig’s arse of the UK.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      4. My company buys a lot of MiniPCs. Minisforum is BY FAR the highest failure rate and worst support out of the main ones we have used, which include Beelink, GMKtec, and Aoostar. So I have a hard time paying any kind of money on any of their products.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      5. Putting all your data on a Chinese device?
        Yeah, I don’t think so.
        When the war starts every one of these will be bricked quicker than all the BYD cars.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      8. What do you think of the MAX vs UGreen? I mainly use what i currently have for plex and general storage. But im a data hoarder. So wanting the device that will handle all my media and storage needs including 4k transcoding.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      11. I’m new into NAS so forgive the stupid question I’m trying to do crash course.
        So this is a powerful unit and could make a great windows cloud PC. So using it’s own OS could I use an m.2 drive to make a virtual machine so I can connect to locally and over WAN?

        I’m now looking at this thinking I could use this as a gaming PC to run on my quest with Windows Link/Steam link (I don’t mean VR games I mean standard Flat games)
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      14. In case this is useful for anyone else… I ordered the WTR MAX on June 15th, it arrived July 17th without the 96gb RAM. The reply I got from support was “Hello, our machine and memory are mailed separately.” and “The logistics tracking number of the memory will be sent to you in the next few days”. They haven’t even bothered posting it yet. None of this was communicated beforehand.
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      16. Been a great time watching and learning from ya, and the way you present. Truth in reporting: That near end here breakdown, was that you or reading off AI generated whatever? I get these AI things help, but have run across a few that didn’t come out correctly. Heck, one of the previous streamers I followed for hifi audio even had to make a vid for retraction, and admitted his review was AI and not him. I hope we’re not heading in that direction as a society.
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      18. How is transcoding in Plex on the AMD GPU? You didn’t go into it much, but one of the use cases I’m considering is exactly this. I’ve read it can be hit and miss, and I currently use an Intel iGPU which has been flawless.
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      19. Q: Have you tried 96GB non-ecc with this? Aoostar say it’s not supported, but the only threads I can find on 96GB not booting are related to Windows 11/Amd drivers to which three are replies that Ubuntu Linux works… I would be running Linux on mine (perfect media server setup)

        Got a prime day deal on 96GB, wondering if I should try it or cancel and order something else…

        Anyway great video, thanks for doing what you do, I wouldn’t have known about the WTR Max without your announcement video ????
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      21. Would love to see these devices clustered with proxmox with a ceph cluster running on top. My current 3 node proxmox / ceph cluster is pretty under powered; but is very efficient.

        Also.. would love to see how much quieter the N5 Pro is with a Noctua fan upgrade.

        Your channel has quickly become my favorite subscription in YouTube!
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      30. A note on the CPUs: While the N5 Pro’s HX 370 does have 12 cores, 8 of them are little/compact cores, which run slower using less power. That’s better when your OS scheduler can intelligently distribute tasks to the appropriate cores, but potentially worse for things like VMs which may need to be pinned to specific cores to run at desired speeds.
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      31. Does the N5 have more room for the PCIe expansion slot or is it the same as the MS-01?
        Ow, asked as well last time, does it support bifurcation?
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      32. @nascompares If you get a chance, could you take a look at one piece of info from Aoostar? There seems to be some confusion about support for 96GB RAM configurations, where Aoostar says on their product Q&A that 2*48GB laptop memory will not work because of AMD bug with the 8845HS. I don’t see them putting up a QVL, so perhaps if you could check it out that would be great for prospective buyers.
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      34. One good thing about Synology’s recent choices is they have gotten us a lot more interested in other vendors, including some I’d never have considered before.
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      35. I had to order SOMETHING a week or two ago, and I picked the Aoostar. More comparison of the PCIe lane distributions and real-world performance of them both would be very welcome, but without that information I let ECC memory and price sway me.
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      37. Thank you to Synology for making every other brand a more exciting and enticing proposition. My CWWK AMD-8845HS board is en route from China as we speak. My Fractal Node 304 and the other components I need are on their way from Amazon. All because Synology decided they wanted to be greedy.
        And it means brands like Minisforum and Aoostar get a lot more exposure with their far more affordable and more powerful offerings.
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      39. You keep saying that WTR-MAX wins in the storage category every day of the week, but can’t you just add PCIe to M.2 adapter card to N5 / N5 Pro with few additional M.2 drives?
        I get that WTR-MAX still has one more 5.25″ drive bay, but you should be able to get to 5 HDDs and at least 5 M.2 SSDs in N5/N5 Pro, probably even more, plus have the ability to use U.2 drives.

        I went with the N5 Pro during the initial sale, as even before they released it, my internal pricing idea was very simple: If it’s below 1 000 EUR including all taxes and shipping, it’s a decent price and I am buying it… and well, it was 943 EUR (WTR-MAX would be ~750 EUR).
        I am personally hoping for some decent AI accelerator card I could put in there to have some decent-ish local AI, so I don’t have to use Gemini for everything that e.g. Home Assistant doesn’t understand.
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      40. I had analysis paralysis on these two so I put in my reservation for the Orico CF56 Pro. And, the Kickstarter price of $699 was too attractive to pass up. Yeah, I won’t see it until September at best but it looks like there is a wait for both of these two now as well so I’m good with my decision.

        Also picked up 6x Crucial P310 nvmes at $199 each over the prime days offers so I’ll have my primary 20TB raid 5 on SSDs and the backups going on the same box to the 24TB of spinning rust drives. Tailscale then doing the 321 bit backing up to 20TB drive in a small used Dell Optiplex box parked at family members home 60 miles away.

        Over the past year I went from an easy local 20TB drive with expensive cloud backup to what will be a honking maintenance chore,fully self hosted expensive, cloud by the time the Orico CF56 Pro arrives.

        All thanks to NAScompares. Thanks being a relative term. Could have two interpretations????.
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      41. There is information out there stating that you can put a gpu inside the Minisform n5 for transcoding….? Is that true and witch ones are compatible? Intel Arc 310 for example
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      48. Any links to compatible ecc RAM? 96GB seem an overkill for my needs, I’d rather get 32GB or 48GB but I’m having trouble finding ddr5 sodimm ecc memory from a company I know and thus trust. Don’t know which are good/reputable ECC RAM companies.
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      50. 2025 is a special year for NAS. Thinking back on all the well-known brands (Synology, Qnap, TerraMaster, Asustor), the devices from Ugreen, Aoostar and Minisforum really are something different.
        Another great vid, Robbie! As Sinead O’Connor would have said: Nas’ing compares…. I’ll grab my coat
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      51. tbh, i had been really excited about these 2 systems but ended up going with the ugreen dxp4800 plus instead coz of worries about reliability and aftermarket support.
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      53. I would not go Minisforum unless you want to get scammed. Terrible support and took 6 months for a rebate. I even ended up filing a complaint at the Hongkong Consumers Council.
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      54. sadly these aren’t available at local resellers, I’ve read some gruesome warranty stories about Minisforum. I won’t be buying directly from these companies ????
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      55. Great video, could you introduce aside the tutorials with first time use a segment to recovery procedures in different brands, I think is an aspect no-one covers enough. The basics.
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      57. Great comparison Mr. Andrews. However I feel I must address the elephant in the room. Namely that the hoodie I’ve asked about in the store is being taunted at me again. Here I thought we were friends but you have yet again flaunted this very desirable hoodie in my face. I feel the only reasonable course of action is legal resolution. You shan’t be hearing from my barrister. Good day sir!
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      58. I don’t understand why no manufaturer is implementing hot-swappable NVMe bays (like TBS-h574TX has) alongside existing SATA hot-swappable bays.
        The idea of having all NVMe drives in a single bay/on a single expansion card is so lame ????
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      61. F*** Trump .. we don’t live in the states so who cares, ya you put him in charge. See what that gave you. But ya tough to be an American no matter if you like him or not. It’s about the Items here .. not what the Americans pay for them ????
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      65. Well, Aoostar just emailed me that the July 10th shipdate could not be met because of “factory issues” and that they need time to repair the machines in the factory. Instead of shipping between July 10th and July 15th they said it has changed to “not before July 17th”. Let’s hope it’s just an excuse for “too many people bought our stuff and we didn’t manage to produce enough in time” and that I will actually get my unit in the not so distant future. It certainly is getting me somewhat nervous.
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      68. Could you please recommend the ECC memory for that unit (at least 48GB)? The alternative option I found (ksm56t46bd8km-48hm) is impossible to buy…
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      73. 3:28 you were talking about being enough space for heatsink on the 4 NVMe in the 3.5” bay. Can I (or do I need to) also mount a heatsink on the 5th NVMe on the MB? Thx for a great video! Mine is underway. I’m buying the drives now.
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      74. @lukebeasley the haste in which you assume the America party wouldn’t pull from the democrat party is ill-advised imo. Wondering if it’s part of the comedy persona thing.

        There are tons of people who are not happy with either party. At the very least, it could change the spread of priorities in each party so that the voter base shifts as well. There’s a ton of people who have been pushed into unusual spaces by the shift in political focus since Trump. Especially with some republicans not feeling like there was a real option for them and having to vote dem or not at all. Even politicians are resigning and changing parties in numbers I’m not used to seeing due to apathy about their party’s direction.
        It could end up with all voters feeling like there’s a better aligned choice for them.
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      76. Hi, does this NAS support pcie bifurcation? I have submitted this question to Miniforum but nobody answers. I wonder if I could build a RAID-5 with 6 x M.2 SSD with this NAS.
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      77. A tip, you videos be better if you turned down the puns, you also look ( perhaps I missed it ) the only thing that I like to know, is possible to installed other NAS OS systems you do talk about Proxmox but will run HexOS ? ect…
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      78. Can anyone confirm that the UK model will work in the US (with the appropriate adapter)? Presumably it takes a DC barrel adapter… Thanks!
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      80. Could you daily drive this as a Windows PC and game using an eGPU? (The pro model). I ask because it’s the same CPU as my gaming laptop…
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      81. *CORRECTION* !!! Just been investigating an issue I encountered with the Aoostar WTR Max during my testing and discovered I made a mistake in the review, related to the 64GB on-board storage – namely, that there isn’t any! Early documentation of the device back when it was first revealed, showed that it was going to arrive with a 64GB eMMC storage module. And when the unit arrived as “with storage” and when I went into the system to install an OS I saw 64GB partition and assumed (naively, in hindsight) that this was that same eMMC. However, it turns out it was a partition on my installer drive from a previous test video (on the upcoming Xyber Hydra video) and *NOT* an included eMMC 64GB drive. This does not change my thoughts/opinions on the device and does not detract from the system as a whole, however, I wanted to issue this correction and apologise for anyone who will need to reconsider their ‘Day 1’ setup because of this. I am adding corrections, cuts and edits to the affected work and if you do spot any that I have missed, please let me know. Have a fantastic week!.Original post – https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxpSs59y9N3R3wjSS6v6RHzQQUDI1w5eOJ
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      84. The pricing for the regular N5 is very disappointing. It’s using a twice refreshed Hawk Point APU that is nearly 4 years old. It should be $550-600
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      87. Thank you for this video, covered every base I was thinking of. I think I’ll be picking one of these up with an MS A2 for a travel NDI broadcasting/ network storage setup and I think it’ll do the job c:
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      88. Amazon link goes to a search that doesn’t have an N5 Pro in the results in the UK
        Their own website doesn’t show the NAS for sale
        The website has a 30% launch day voucher banner, but I haven’t had a voucher or any notification this device is on available for sale…
        Not sure how you can say they’ve won at NAS when the back plane is only SATA and there aren’t other options for SAS / U.2 or U.3 etc
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      91. Don’t sell yourself short mate – you ARE a businessman. It might not be a business that will make you incredibly wealthy but it’s still a reasonably successful business nonetheless just because you’re able to spin a decent profit after deducting your expenses.
        Just because you *might* be operating out of a residence doesn’t make it any less of a business.
        Keep it up!
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      98. I’m thinking about installing Windows 11 on the N5pro first, with JBOD, and using it as a workstation until the NAS OS is fully developed.
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      99. This is the kind of NAS I’ve looking for in my fairly large 1 bedroom apt but the Barebone +64Gb OS version is $1800.00 CAD ???? at that price it’s not worth it with a half-baked OS
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      103. Hey Robbie, if I may pose two questions for your upcoming comparison between this and the WTR Max.

        1. Many have asked, but would love to know if the SATA controller can be passed fully to a TrueNAS VM in Proxmox. I’d love to know for both units.

        2. Aoostar says the WTR Max can’t hot swap HDDs. Would love to know if that’s true, and then know if the N5 can do hot swap.

        Thanks.
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      105. Generally I like Minisforum boxes, and a NAS is overdue from them. I find their implementations sometimes quirky and their BIOS support … lacking. Usually I can get to the important stuff, but it’s a long way from what you might find on an ASUS product for example, and updates are hit or miss. I have yet to run windows on any of my Minis devices, so I can’t really comment, but generally in proxmox they have been pretty good with the occasional strange limitation. I’m not surprised at the pricing, and compared to Syno you’re getting a hell of a box for the price. If it sells well, I’m sure their software will improve over time, but it’s about where I would expect as a Gen 1 release.
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      109. BEcuase of YOU. I ordered the N5pro. I went from ugreen, to zettlabD6 to this. Can’t wait to get this. I plan on using truenas. Can’t wait fro your follow up vids. My plan is to have m2-a2 as VM host
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      110. Any ETA for the teardown video? I’m interested in knowing if it has power switch pins for the power button or if it is possible to solder cables to the button if it is not removable on the PCB to achieve KVM shutdown.

        And how the Info Screen is connected on the mainboard and what is recognized by linux, im willing to write software for it if its not completely proprietary.

        But mine should also arrive in a few weeks
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      111. Hi @NASCompares, will you release a video or review about this NAS and jellifin or plex in other than windows? the only thing that is stopping me to buy this device is the transcoding in linux based OS. I know plex and jellyfin works fine on windows with transcoding but on linux is another story. Thanks and congrats for the channel.
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      115. I am thinking to acquire N5 Pro, install ProxMox to bare metal and install VMs of Open Media Vault (OMV), Win11 Pro (currently running on X1 pro) and Minisforum’s own MinisCloud. With so many options in this product I’m a bit bewildered as to where is best for ProxMox install. I’m thinking to use a 1.2TB SATA SSD in one of the 5-bays. Alternatively, pull the included MinisCloud SSD and replace with 2280 1TB for setup. Thoughts?
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      119. A recent video from another creator has brought into light that I can’t trust you anymore. That and the increasing amount of “member only” videos has led me to remove my subscription. I wish you well going forward.
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      127. I have a MS-01 and love it. Planning to buy 2x N5 (non-Pro) and create a proper Storage Spaces Direct cluster (MS-01 is the first node right now). But I have a few questions I’m waiting to see answered. Does the N5 have more room for its PCIe 16x slot, looking at an Intel Sparkle Arc A310 for the MS-01 but can the N5 hold a A380? Also, does it have the same A+E key so I can replace the WiFi+BT with a Google Coral TPU (done that in the MS-01)? Does the N5 have bifurcation?
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      128. You have been covering so much ground in your videos and putting out an incredible volume with these releases. Thanks for sharing all this information with us.
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      130. I’m so disappointed with the NVMe lane layout as you can’t event run a single x4 SSD at full speed, let alone a pair of them at x2 in a ZFS mirror. I really want to use a mirrored pair of Intel / Solidigm D7-5620 U.2 SSDs for training AI workloads but no way if they have uneven I/O. I would have been happy with them both at x2 and hit the checkout button. Minisforum needs to find more lanes for NMVe and if that means using a PLX chip to mux the lanes with other I/O like Oculink then do that. It’s so close to being great but it’s just not.
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      137. Thank you. Confirmed my purchase of the Pro version was the right one. I can see a lot of homelabers retiring their enterprise gear with this device which can run all their VM’s and run their media servers. Also, love that PCIE slot AND occulink!
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      139. at 1000, ill just build my own system…, sucks there is a lack of the mobile boards id rather those cpu’s than desktop.. but if i was richer i would like it 😛
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      140. SiyouyunOS/ FnOS …same base code, same GUI frame….. just a different vendor …as the Chinese would say Same/Same – Look Minisforum have a good hardware base …the Non Pro Zen 4 Cpu is much faster then anything Ugreem/Terramaster or Synology/Asustor/Qnap etc have (Excepting their Xeon enterprise stuff and the Qnap i9’s at $4500 and frankly the base CPU let alone the ai370 is going to give nearly all NAS Xeons a whipping too) BUT ….. Minisforums main issue is not hardware or even software (fnOS …and lets face it is is FnOs regardless of what Minisforum are saying …just a different vendor …. it is as good as Ugreen was at release and it sold) …what’s the main issue …service …Minisforum are developing a couple of unique reputations #1 for absolutely TERRIBLE post sales service and support (literally Ali-express levels of support and very bad almost scammy return processes) and #2 For absolutely terrible sales support if you buy directly from them ( Totally ignoring posted stock levels, shipping delays, misleading customers are but a few of the more minor ones) You need to address this situation because at this point in time I’d strongly recommend people NOT buy anything directly from any Minisforum store and instead only buy from Amazon. This is where we are seeing the true difference between the chinese brands …from Ugreens dubious marketing practices to Minisfourm’s customer service issues both companies seem to be operating under Chinese consumer law (practically non existant) and ignoring local US and EU laws.
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      142. I’m still miffed they’re limiting this thing to five bays. An eight-bay unit with a built-in flex-ATX PSU would be a monster NAS. Hopefully Minisforum will roll out with an 8-bay next. And redesign that goofy front panel that just chokes off airflow.
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      147. Hey Synology, want to see some magic? Poof … and just like that, your market share has disappeared now that is what I call magic!

        Sarcasm aside, I’ve ordered 3 of the N5 Pro’s (The cost is more tolerable with the 30% discount).. also I’m not doing this on a whim, I’ve been watching these for months. Also, I’ve got several HX 370 devices, so I know the pro’s and con, but have no doubts, it a superb CPU. At present, I’m planning to use these to replace my 3 Synology’s.. but I suspect they’ll also replace my MS-01’s!
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      150. *FWIW* – Purely from a media server POV … would it be fair to say that a directly play of a high-bitrate Dolby Vision Blu-Ray from the drives on the default NAS OS and an open source NAS OS … that this would test the drive controller(s) ( _perhaps more than multi-gig performance_ ) on the machine and its ability to handle that kind of stuff?

        Or am I well off?
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      154. So given your experience with this nas, what would you take Minisforum N5 Pro or Asustor Flashstor FS6812X. It would be awesome is you can compare the 2x and put side by side comparison
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      156. While everyone else is posting a sponsored UGREEN advert, you’ve posted a real review. Have to say I really love the design of this, they were surely inspired a bit by Drobo. Definitely want to get ahold of one of these in the near future although the price is a bit hard to stomach for someone who mostly just uses a NAS for storage.
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      157. I am contemplating consolidating my whole homelab on one of these. Should eliminate two mini PCs, a synology and a switch. While still being MUCH MUCH faster.
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      158. The MSA2 Versions have amazing CPU’s and memory capabilities but the iGPU’s suck in comparison to the 890M iGPU found on the N5/Pro
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      160. Having an 8-core and 16-thread cpu with a powerful onboard iGPU is still light years ahead of old intel i3 and celeron cpu’s that many of the SYNOLOGY NAS devices have been using the past 6-7years that many people like myself have been using. You really don’t need the pro model to see huge improvements.
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      162. What kind of kickback’s are you getting from them?
        At least you should be transparent about it like for example Jeff Greerling is. Only then there might be a trust between the viewer and reviewer.

        I don’t trust these chinese products as is. The price is high when you start to add up disks and nvme ssds.. That’s what they don’t get. The barebone should be way more less expensive.
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      165. Can’t wait to see how after sales support goes. If it’s anything like their past products there will be no updates at all. They need to commit to longterm updates like Synology if they want mass adoption.
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      166. This video just shows you how far behind the times Synology have become regarding design and hardware. Relying on their software being the best just doesn’t cut it anymore. Not to mention the hard drive fiasco.
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      167. 16 minutes about the WTR-MAX, 30 minutes about the NAS 5. It is clear where your hart is, but that doesn’t make it easier for us. Let’s face it: the R7 PRO 8845HS in the WTR-MAX may be a year older and ZEN4, compared to the R7 Pro 255 in the N5, but it does support ECC and it has an a NPU, albeit weak. The 10G copper interface on the N5 is something TrueNAS doesn’t seem to like because they recommend explicitly using direct connection SFPs with glass. It doesn’t make it easier.
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      173. I’m still looking for a NAS with 5-6 m.2 NVMe slots for data.
        I have now a Synology DS620slim whith Sata 4TB SSD’s only on btrfs. Works like a charme, but Synology makes nothing new anymore.
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      175. The idle of around 32-25 W/h is a big dissapointment, especially here in germany, because the energy prices are quiet high, i was hoping to get something like 20-25 w/h.
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      176. Before I buy a NAS, I try to work out how much electricity (in kWh) it will be using when posted on 24/7 with the HDDs in standby (not rotating). With the numbers provided, that isn’t possible. You gave the numbers with disks at idle (rotating) which makes them use much more electricity. The NAS will not be used for the most time which means the disks will be spun down.

        Can you provide an estimate of that? Either in Watts (current usage) or let it run (with disks in standby) for 24 hours and provide the energy used?
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      177. I will NOT buy any Aoostar product anymore. Their Aoostar WTR Pro has big problem in the cooling department. Better try with difference China brands like Minisforum, maybe?
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      179. Ordered the N5 Pro barebones. I had a few questions though.. is it better to run a low profile/mobile gpu or oculink to a 3080? Also the site says up to 5x 22TB drives.. can we use 5x 24TB instead? Last question.. I know it also says up to 96gb memory but will it support 128?
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      180. Wasn’t there a big bust up about the discount code though initially? The original impression given was it gave early buyers 30% off, then people only got $30 off. No wonder there were lots of annoyed punters!
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      182. I’m getting this NAS just for the U.2 & ECC support. Instead of the OCuLink port, I’d rather have more PCIe lanes for the NVMe SSDs.
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      185. You kill me with some of the British colloquialisms you use. Same language but some times I really have to think about what you are saying!
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      187. Thanks for the review I might reconsider going for the standard model too. Perfect timing. I was just about to hit the accept for the pro version. Just a little question. I seem to have read that the AMD igpu’s don’t support Plex hardware encoding. Am I wrong there ? I currently have Plex running from a desktop AMD 3800X, with 32gb ram and with an older Nvidia GTX1660s, and it can not always run fluently when hardware enc is enabled but it mostly run fine without hardware enc and just “let my CPU sweat” settings. I’m not going to use the U.2 option either. The basic m.2 slots is enough for me. Is there space enough inside to host a small form factor Intel Battlemage card ?
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      191. The Pro version CPU has a Radeon 890M iGPU running at 2.9GHz with 16 graphic cores, and the regular version has a Radeon 780M iGPU running at 2.7 GHz with 12 graphic cores. That should be about a 40% improvement for the Pro.
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      195. I bought the n5pro. Thought about the wrt max also that was 1200 usd + vat so the differance in price was not huge as the n5pro was incl vat. Leys see when/if it arrives
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      198. I waited months for this device and then find the pro, 48gig device is $1639. What a bummer. Going to diy an asrock rack x570 board with 64G and better specs.

        Feeling really let down by the minisforum guys.
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      199. With all due respect, but I believe you are wrong about the cpu presentation:

        https://youtu.be/hSHb1GgYjsY?t=908

        It should be ryzen 7 255 instead of 250 right ?
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      201. I’m looking for a NAS to run Plex, but this isn’t it?!
        Any suggestions? I run Plex on a Raspberry Pi, but I need a NAS that can transcode 100Mbit/s 4K HDR video.
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      204. The regular N5 would be a great option if they used a CPU that supported ECC RAM (which is mandatory if you’re storing anything you care about, IMO). The N5 Pro is too expensive compared to the WRT Max, so it’s easily the WRT Max for me…
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      205. im liking what im seeing but the bigger issue for me is the reputation of minisforum with product reliability and after sales support. at that price, im def gonna be waiting to see how it performs with more use before committing.
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      208. Honestly… not impressed. I was so excited for this, but its overpriced and feels like its pieced together. I hope something changes my mind but right now for me its a hard pass
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      211. Near perfect, but too many SATA bays (for me) and too few PCI-E lanes to the NVMEs (for anybody). The SATA’s do not cost much however except volume. I really wish they could come up with some way to allocate the available PCI-E lanes in the BIOS. I’d like to be able to take the four allocated to Oculink and reallocate them to the NVMEs. While you could certainly get close to saturating the Ethernets from one of the 2-lane M.2, the USB-4 would be bottlenecked by this lane allocation.
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      214. I canceled my WTR MAX order in less than 24hours and went with miniformforum n5 pro aoostar charged me 5% handling fee buyer beware anti consumer practices now I feel better about my choice terrible support experience from aoostar
        Buy nice or buy twice fellow nas enthusiasts!
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      215. Hi @NASCompares, I have a quick question, how did you get those transcoding figures with this chip? was with windows or some other OS? thanks
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      218. It looks almost to good to be true. But i have really a problem to trust those chinese manufactures. I once bought a xiaomi laptop in 2016. on paper it looked really great. In real life the it didnt perform well. The screen cable broke after a few weeks and it was really difficult to get those spare parts. The battery also died 3 times for no reason. I replaced it twice and then retired after two years. Performance in real use was also terrible.
        Are we away from that now? Can Chinese manufacturers be trusted? I need a nas that works.
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      219. I have a wrt pro that I am running unraid on. Anytime sonar or radar movies files around the fans ramp up to 100% and it gets super loud.
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      220. The website is unclear about whether I can run the full 96gb (or maybe even 128gb) using non ECC laptop RAM. Can you share a bit more about the ram configuration you tried? Can you try some high ram with cheaper SODIMMs for us?
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      222. I would love to have two 8x pcie slots free (4x electrical would be fine as well I guess). One for gpu for home AI models for my own voice home assistant and second one for Mellanox NIC (25GbE can be had for CHEAP on ebay).
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      225. I am trying to wait for the N5 Pro, but after seeing the thermals and power usage, It may be worth sacrificing the extra NPU and CPU power for NAS + Container usage. With 11 bays this hardware already surpasses QNap and Synology,
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      229. Sorry I know this is quiet long but I really need help, I’ve currently been using the Synology DS423+ and im looking for an upgrade. I mainly use my nas for jellyfin and other arr platforms. so it’s gotten to the point where I’m running out of storage and my system not being able to transcode 4k, multiple streams smoothly, and generally run things at a fast paste. So I’m looking for a nas that can handle that plus lots of headroom for other tasks. I’ve been researching prebuilt nas’s and most of them arent up to what i need for jellyfin or are rack mounted which is not what i want. So now, I’m going down the rabit hole of trying to figure out what I should build instead. The main issue I’m running into is what chasis/case I should get. I’ve been looking at the Fractal Design 7 Xl and the HL8 because they both offer 8 bays, but I’m just not sure. I also don’t know whether do get a solid gpu or not for transcoding, what motherboard or cpu to get so im just kinda lost. I also don’t really have a budget just somewhere around $2-2.5k USD, want it to be future proof, and run like a fu**ing BEAST! Please HELP!!!
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      230. Thanks for bringing us the Aoostar WTR Max review. I must say that though I don’t need yet another nas, I would want it either way. And because of you I am a QNAP fanboy, but this AOOSTAR company is piking my interest. I hope they come out with an 8 Bay solution soon. So far it ticks off most of my boxes with the exception of the ability to configure that little LCD, it being a problem right now. (I’m sure they’ll get that fixed later on). And it just being a 6 Bay, hard drive unit is not for me. I’ll keep an eye out for the 8 Bay solution, if they ever come out with one. I also hope that via the USB 4, the drives can be accessed as if though it were also a DAS unit.
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      231. I don’t understand how the price can be so low. My DIY unit without 10Gb NICs, without 4xSSDs, without Oculink, on a much less powerful i3-N305 processor costed me 450 USD, and I used a lot of second-hand parts (apart from MoBo).

        This Aoostar is a total steal for us, consumers.
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      234. 5:08 that’s not completely true. As long as you’re on the same vlan, you can just add a 2nd IP to your computer and it’ll first try talking layer2 to that IP. I do it all the time for this exact situation.
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      235. Time to dump my expensive and useless QNAP. The amount of money spend on QNAP, one can get 2-3 units of Aoostar WTR Max! And QNAP specs are lower and with terrible over heating issues. I have to shutdown daily due to overheating.
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      236. I’ll stick with my qnap 874, some things are worth the price. Better cpu and better solution. Given how their goverment floods markets and breaks treaties and has free access to your data? I’ll pass…
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      237. Assuming the hardware will be reliable, I have a feeling it’s going to sell like hotcakes and take away business from a lot of other NAS makers. I was researching hardware for a DIY NAS with TrueNAS, I think I found it.
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      243. As a non tech I need a big reason to move away from Synology OS, despite the obvious hardware shortcomings. When will someone finally release a Synology like os… please.
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      244. Thank you for the video. I have ordered mine, but wasn’t sure if the NAS will be any good. Glad I’ve made my decision. Already got 2 synology NAS devices but wanted to move away from DSM. I don’t want to be tided into a ecosystem. So I’ll be installing TrueNAS with open-source dockers like Immich, NextCloud etc… Looking forward to it. Can’t wait to see video with OSes running on it
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      245. What the zimacube should have been. I’m so annoyed with myself for getting it. This looks great. Waiting to see the N5 Pro. I’ll need to upgrade from my Synology 918+ at some point, and it’s looking like it will be this or the N5 Pro
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      251. Already made my pre-order from HK, planning to install fnOS. truenas, & windows under VMware ESXi to operate, the hardware performance is very capable in doing my needs. Of course somebody want to know the Minisforum N5 pro, but there is no exact date for the release, the performance will not be huge and the design of WTR Max is quite fancy to me.
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      252. This would be damn near perfect if it had a pcie slot instead of occulink. There is so much more you could do with a slot instead, including occulink if you needed it.
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      253. excellent video, you touched on many important points of interest however I think you have neglected to Deep dive into the network security side of this device given the origins of Aoostar. I think it is necessary the fact that their software has to connect to a specific IP address on the device makes me suspicious. if doing a complete bios dump is out of the question for you, at the very least would you do some packet analysis with Wireshark?
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      254. dang, 3 (ideally 4 for HA) of those plus a couple 10G switches might make a pretty sick Proxmox/Ceph cluster with both SSD and HDD pools…
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      258. Hey quick question I’m a tech noob but what would you recommend as a 1st nas between this and ugreen just for a plex server or a emulation storage ? Thanks
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      259. The issue with this is the software…. DIY NAS as a segment is niche on niche ….botrh of these companies are major MiniPC makers (this this Aoostar while a new model itself is not a new product family… it has been around for a long time in China) and neither of these companies have any kind of good support track record (well Minisforum does and its bad …Aoostar isn’t great either) ….but the biggest issue is it is niche upon a niche ….What we really need to do is get Ugreen/Terramaster etc etc etc to make a NAS OS (a straight copy of DSM like TOS seems to be would work) and ship it on all NAS’s to get the scale required for real security etc Or else Synology should go out of the hardware business and sell DSM (the perfect solution)
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      262. You just made the wait for mine so much worse!! ????

        What i want to do is Proxmox with a TrueNAS vm. Question is, can you pass through the SATA controller
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      264. This seems to leverage everything they learnt with the R1/R7, then the WRT PRO (which they seemed to sell faster than they could manufacture!) into a bigger & more powerful device.

        The drive to drive bottleneck would seem the only weakness. It’s curious as it’s the same kind of bottleneck seen with numerous N100-N355 devices. And it remains weird that it’s only in internal transfers.
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      268. Thank you. My backup Synology died last week and I am looking to move to TrueNAS. This looks like a perfect option to start my migration off Synology.
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      276. finally! A well priced, well speccd NAS replacement for my aging ASUSTOR AS5010T! Hope its available to purchase in Australia locally or option on Amazon/AliExpress for Australia etc.
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      277. 500-600MB between drives? On pause for now. Been looking at this for months, but that is a show stopper for me. The rest of the specs are nice.
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      282. Hi everyone! Noob here, please don’t judge me harshly. Thank you for an amazing presentation. I think it is a great price / features report. My nooby question is: May I install ZimaOS on it? I need something novice friendly. My other option would be UGreen. I’ve been watching your reviews, what a fantastic resource! Thank you for your work and dedication! Many thanks in advance ????????
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      285. Thanks for the video. Is there an option in the bios to manage/reduce cpu power consumption (eco mode or quiet mode or something like that …) ?
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      286. I think you just sold me…. I may get this over the N5 pro. The N5 is interesting because I can get an internal gpu but this is as amazing as it looks. I already have a Gem10 and WTR Pro and they are both solid TrueNAS boxes. I want to replace both of those with this and drop the WTR Pro off somewhere for a remote backup. Need that comparison video now Robbie lol !!
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      288. Seems like a no-brainer instead of the MS-01 and similar. Basically just a stacked version with 7 storage bays on top. Interesting choice on the NVMe bay… I think most people would just leave those installed forever, and a bottom or side-accessible panel would have made more sense. Then we could use 7 bays for spinners.
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      289. I’ve spent so much time and money on cases, Dell servers, drives, etc trying to find the perfect cheap DIY Nas and now suddenly there it is. Off to ebay all my Nas crap…
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      290. Just when uou jeed some tome for yourself.. kids… Now 4 hours late.. aaarghhh
        Ok want 2. These are NOT expensive. Lot of money for sure. But finally at a level where you can’t build it yourself for this price/performance.
        One at home, one at my son. unRAID and syncthing.. yeah should be golden .
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      293. very nice kit, I’m also interested in the Orico CF56 and CF1000 which are also released to kickstarter supporters in early July. Haven’t decided on either Orico or AOOSTAR but thankfully we’re getting more options now in a nice form factor
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      296. Too bad spinning down the HDD is not something that is common/supported anymore… the idle consumption jump is huge :
        anyway looks like by far the best low-ish power consumption machine for an all in one virtualization/nas/firewall homelab on the market right now (at least under 1k$)
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      297. Nice Video, thanks for going in to the details.
        18 Watt at idle does seem a bit high, wonder if that’s still configurable.

        Looking forward to a teardown and more testing etc.
        Also with regards to upgradability as the way the case is build/configured is quite nice.
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      299. I’m a diy NAS guy but for the price honestly this is pretty solid. I personally can’t see the point of oculink when it’s basically dead at this point but i also get that OEM’s are figuring out ways to use it so it is what it is. My main concern would be long term support, if Aoostar can keep on top of that glad to see them and Ugreen (and others) giving the bigger whitebox NAS vendors some competition.
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      301. @nascompares Could you please test power consumption with Proxmox, several vm running and hdds in spindown mode? I’ve heard it could draw around 40W but that sounds too high in my opinion.
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      303. That price is ridiculous. Most of us will have spare components to get this bad boy up and running. The Oculink expansion is the icing on the cake.
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      304. the 127 network address is localhost. You should have used a crossover cable, then you’d have only needed to change the IP on your PC/laptop.
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      305. Wish someone manufacture a case with those trays, but support a regular itx motherboards. I don’t think is that hard to manufacture something with a build-in pcie bifurcation card considering that a lot of AMD motherboards support x4x4x4x4 bifurcation and intel ones support x8x4x4. Or even better, a dedicated pcie card with controller that support all those nvme without the need of any special motherboard that support bifurcation.
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      306. I have the WTR pro. And its serving me very well. This seemes an evolution of it and in multiple ways more polished. Im quite excited where the brand is taking things. I have only once missed the intel chip for the transcoding, otherwise im team AMD for my next NAS.
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      308. really stoked i put an order in on the current batch, it seems like it will do everything i could want a nas/home server to do for the foreseeable future. just a note, maybe you’re really tired from running all those tests, but it looked like the specific IP address listed was 127.0.0.1 which is just localhost
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      317. I guess my next question is this. Outside of 45 drives, is anybody outside of QNAP and Synology trying to make rack-based NASs? I would love a short-depth storage solution to just sit near my router. Noise wouldn’t matter, heat wouldn’t matter (as much). But if all the good and/or interesting NASs coming out in their own little box-like shape, it makes it hard to ‘stack’ or place them without them all just making a mess. If this came in a 2u-short depth case, even with nearly $500 more, it’d be worth it for me.

        Also, a test you could do, is recoverability. Either power loss to see how the hardware handles it, or transferring a setup over from one nas to another. For the transfer, you could setup a terraform script from a nas/server you already have running, and see how long a complete restoration or migration takes. Considering the synology noise, it might be worth it. Let me know what you think.
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      318. Does this motherboard support reporting ECC errors to the kernel logs? (have gotten the impression that there is varying support for this despite the motherboards supporting ECC)
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      319. Thank you for keeping us up to date. I have some money burning in my trousers for a NAS that wants to get out. The test scenario I would like to see is Proxmox with TrueNAS inside it.
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      321. Keeping my preorder I think! Hopefully that screen isn’t something mental and can be driven with open source software… either as a monitor on the integrated graphics or a really basic image dump to whatever is driving it.
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      326. This NAS seems perfect. I’m in the middle of choosing the parts for my first ever DIY NAS, but it’s hard getting something with a small form factor that has all the features I want. I would go this, but when researching I kept seeing people saying I need to go into for Intel Quicksync for Plex transcoding. But if this AMD cpu has no issues transcoding then what do I need Quicksync for? I’d rather just go for this and have the ECC support.
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      328. I have one question, bring some os like dsm of synology?, i see the cheapest option come without OS, but the more expensive “i understand” that it comes with some kind of operating system, did you test this os?, can you make a review about?. If come without os, what system would you put?, thanks!!!
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      330. Excellent presentation. Thank you. My only wish “wish/complaint” with this unit is the x1 and x2 NVME PCIe-4 slots. I just have an issue handcapping my blistering PCIe-4 drives with only 25% or 50% of their performance. I would happily take a single 10GbE port, no secondary 10GbE port, no 2.5 ports, no SD slot, no occulink, even less NVMe slots and whatnot, if the existing NVMe slots could all (or most all) operate at full x4 speeds. A good NAS will be about the storage, storage performance and network performance primarly and I think this unit falls short here.
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      335. This is seriously all I could ever want from a hardware point of view. I’m quite likely in the minority on my next point: I would gladly trade in the LCD panel for an internal power supply with a kettle plug 😀
        The only thing we need now is for AnyRaid to become fully available for ZFS, after which I can’t think of a better all-in-one virtualization + NAS system
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