Recommended Jonsbo N3 NAS Builds for $300 – $500 – $1000+

Posted on 07 Sep 2023 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 Best Jonsbo Builds for $250 / $500 / $1000 (or Pounds, or Euros!)
1.1 Jonsbo N3 NAS Case Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1.2 Jonsbo N3 Build Disclaimers
2 Best Jonsbo N3 Build for Under/Around £250
3 Best Jonsbo N3 Build for Under £500
4 Best Jonsbo N3 Build for £750-1000
5 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Best Jonsbo Builds for $250 / $500 / $1000 (or Pounds, or Euros!)

This is a guide on building your own Jonsbo N3 NAS for less than £300, £500 or £750-1000. With many of us feeling the pinch these days due to global financial issues affecting most of our wallets, it’s unsurprising to hear that many users looking to host their own private server are increasingly drawn to going full DIY. Despite the numerous alternatives out there in the market to build your own NAS drive from scratch, one brand has really built a great reputation for itself – Jonsbo, with its range of compact but exceptionally well-built NAS cases. One particular case that has drawn praise is the Jonsbo N3 case, a 5-6 Bay SATA enclosure that is very easy to build and of quite a high-quality standard, given the price tag. However, the case is only part of building your first NAS, and many users aren’t quite sure of the best components to choose and the best power-to-price ratio they need to consider. Your device may need to be on for days, weeks, months, and years at a time, so choosing the right components on day one is going to be crucial. Today, I want to go through three distinct but impressive Jonsbo N3 builds, that can be built for less than 250, 500, and 1000 pounds. Let’s go through some great Jonsbo N3 NAS builds.

Note – If you want to watch a FULL BUILD TUTORIAL of the Jonsbo N2 NAS with an Intel TopTon Mobo, you can watch our video HERE or use the detailed Step-by-Step Guide HERE.

Alternatively, you can find the video of this article, where we show each of the builds, plus commenting on possible alternatives – HERE on YouTube

Jonsbo N3 NAS Case Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  • I noticed the N3 has 2x PCIe slots, can you confirm the maximum motherboard specification (ie, can this take a larger Motherboard than the N2, which is limited to M-ITX)?

The N3 can only support ITX motherboards or 20.3 x 17MM DTX motherboards.A 10.5MM increase in width compared to the N2, the depth upgrade is to put the power on the motherboard to make room for eight hard drives, and the height increase is to accommodate a higher specification CPU and heat sink as well as a mainstream specification graphics card.

  • Can users purchase the Jonsbo tray handles separately?

Jonsbo can provide tray handles if you message them, but but it will be slower than ordering separately and at their discretion, but the agents or sellers in different countries may not have the inventory of this part. If the users need it, most likely, they can only provide this service (I asked them).

  • Does the additional size of the Jonsbo N3 allow for larger CPU Fan/heatsinks than the 6.5cm/65mm limits of the N2 ? Just so I can tell users the limits/scale of the components they can use.

The N3 can be installed with a 130MM high tower radiator, and two 80*25MM fans can be installed on the rear panel. N3 can install a 130MM high small tower heat sink, and the rear panel can install two 80 * 25MM fans.

  • What Are the maximum Height of the PCIe Slot and Any limits on GFX/GPU/Graphics Card Installation?
CPU can support up to i7 (non-overclocking). The GPU can support up to 4060 or 4060TI dual fan graphics cards. (Graphics card size parameters: length 250MM (excluding L-shaped bending height at the tail of the graphics card), graphics card height limit 130MM from gold finger to top, thickness not exceeding 50MM). Compared to N2, the N3 application layer is not only NAS, but customers can also use it as a small multi-storage PC.
  • What Size is the case and fans?
The Jobsno N3 External chassis is 233mm(W) x 262mm(D) x 298mm(H). The CPU Cooler Height allows ≤130mm, the motherboard space size is 80 x 25mm sq, the PCIe card needs to be under ≤ 250mm and the PSU needs to be an SFX M-ITX style and less than ≤105mm in size.

Jonsbo N3 Build Disclaimers

  • $ / £ / Euro / etc – You probably already noticed that I have had to jump between currencies several times in this guide. This is because lots of users worldwide are going to read this guide. Additionally, many of the components might work out cheaper if purchased in your own region (eg Intel CPUs, especially 12th and 13th Gen are cheaper in the U.S than most of Europe). Additionally, currencies right now at the time of writing are getting closer and closer in value (thank you Global Recession…sigh). So, although the prices are going to differ from country to country, I have had to play a little fast and loose with $500 and £500. Please forgive this, but I am trying my best!

  • Does not include storage media – everyone’s storage needs are different. Some may want to fully populate the device on day one with a couple of drives for redundancy, while others might opt for a more conservative two-drive build in a mirrored array, and then add drives gradually over the years. Therefore, it’s practically impossible to include storage media in these build guides. However, if you are interested in choosing the best value storage media for your Jonsbo N3 NAS build, we recommend the Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS hard drives ($81 at time of writing) and WD Red Plus 10 TB hard drives ($189 at NewEgg) for the best price per terabyte in the market. These two options in this 5x 3.5″ NAS Case would result in £405 for 20TB (16TB RAID5) and $949 FOR 50TB (40TB RAID5). Alternatively, you can use our price per terabyte deal calculator below, which daily checks the prices of hard drives across several retailers and helps you find the best price per terabyte for your needs:

Click Below to use our Price per TB Hard Drive Calculator:

  • Shipping and tax not included – We weren’t able to include the cost of delivery and tax in the following Jonsbo N3 NAS builds. Depending on where you live in the world, shipping and availability of the items described in these builds will differ significantly, so we can’t estimate shipping costs. Tax rates and amounts will also vary from country to country. So, while we’ve included tax in some component prices for export reasons, not all components listed below factor in tax.
  • NAS software not included – The allure of DIY is often the lower cost compared to turnkey solutions like those from Synology or QNAP. But this means you’ll need to find your own NAS software. While many free options are available, like TrueNAS and Open Media Vault, some are subscription-based, like UnRAID. For fairness, we haven’t included the cost of NAS software, as choices will vary among users.

Best Jonsbo N3 Build for Under/Around £250

This is often seen as the budget build for your Jonsbo N3 system. The list below provides a reasonably powerful Plex media server, the ability to run a compact and capable UnRAID server, a few robust container applications, and even lets you set up a combined NAS server and prosumer router using proxmox and pfSense, alongside your chosen open-source NAS software.

Jonsbo N3 + TopTon Intel n5105 Celeron / Pentium n6005 Build (+$35)

  • Jonsbo N3 Case ￡94.25 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Topton N5105 + 128GB NVMe + 4GB RAM ￡193.48 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 2x SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 (note only need 8x, but cheaper to buy 2×6) – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 400W SFX PSU ￡24.36 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE

￡284.85 (128GB M.2 NVMe + 4GB RAM + 400W PSU)

(Optional/Swap) If you want to save some money:

  • Topton N5105 (NO EXTRAS) ￡159.82 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Cheaper 250W SFX PSU ￡13.15 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • (needed for cheaper PSU) SATA to Molex Adapter ￡0.78 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE

￡247.47 (no M.2 NVMe and Cheap PSU)

Note, you need an SSD for TrueNAS OS (USB for UnRAID)

(Component Prices and eShops – 9 Images):

This build, just a bit over 250 pounds, offers a well-built base system, 4 GB of memory to start, and an included gen 3 NVMe SSD for your boot drive. Additionally, it has four individual 2.5G Ethernet ports that can either be solely dedicated to your NAS or divided between your chosen NAS OS and router OS. If you’re on a tight budget or wish to save for storage media later, consider downsizing the PSU to a more economical 250-watt PSU and buying the memory separately. These minor tweaks might save you as much as 40 to 45 pounds, depending on the adjustments you decide on.

Pros:

  • Exceptionally affordable
  • Simple build as many components arrive pre-attached
  • Low power consumption
  • Several avenues for cost-saving
  • Components aren’t overcrowded, reducing heat concerns
  • Compatible with virtually every NAS OS available
  • Flexibility for dual OS to cover both NAS storage and prosumer router needs

Cons:

  • Underpowered for TrueNAS’s full feature set
  • Limited PCI lanes
  • Reduced M.2 NVMe support compared to other builds on this list
  • Not suited for extensive use or demanding business apps

Best Jonsbo N3 Build for Under £500

At this price point, things get serious! Even if you exclude storage media costs and focus on the NAS hardware itself, $500 is substantial for DIY enthusiasts, especially when considering the time spent building the device and buying components from various brands. But if you’re willing to spend up to $500 on your custom-built NAS system with the Jonsbo N3 case, you’ll find a decent amount of flexibility. The subsequent build balances both internal and external performance against your budget. Moreover, the configuration below is priced around $450, allowing you some leeway in either saving extra cash, adding storage, or upgrading existing components (e.g., memory or network ports).

Jonsbo N3 + Intel Core i5 12th Gen + 16GB RAM + 10GbE Build

  • Jonsbo N3 Case ￡94.25 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 2x SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 (note only need 8x, but cheaper to buy 2×6) – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 400W SFX PSU ￡24.36 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • B660M ITX Motherboard £235.79 + Intel Core i5 12490F CPU + 16GB RAM – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • ARGB CPU Radiator Fan (LGA1700) ￡13.38 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • (better option for CPU Fan) Noctua NH-L9x65 CPU Cooler £49 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • X540-T2 Intel Chipset PCIe x8 Dual Copper RJ45 10Gbps ￡39.34 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Tbkoly Controller Card Motherboard Expansion Card 1 To 5 Port SATA £20.45 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • (Optional) 2x M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 X 8 Card GLOTRENDS Dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE

Total $410.65 (i5 CPU + 16GB RAM + 2x10GbE + 400W PSU + Case + Cables)
Note, you need an SSD for TrueNAS OS (USB for UnRAID)

(Component Prices and eShops – 8 Images):

This design of this build is significantly more future-proof than its predecessor, but it comes with increased power consumption. The build takes advantage of newer generation PCIe lanes, boasts more cores than the previous design, and confidently supports adding top-tier NVMe SSDs to your storage system in the future. It’s essential to note that this build requires a more hands-on approach. The base network port will need an added network adapter card to expand ports or boost existing port bandwidth to 10G. Finding off-the-shelf motherboards in mITX form with numerous Ethernet and SATA ports that also support modern Intel Core processors can be challenging. Because this design demands an Intel i5 12th gen CPU, the motherboard only features four SATA connectors. The Jonsbo N3 case accommodates up to six SATA drives, so to maximize this on this motherboard, you’ll need a PCIe SATA card with two additional SATA ports. Another option is to buy a different motherboard that supports more SATA connectors but sacrifices network speed, CPU support, or other features.

Pros:

  • Lots of power for Plex and virtual machine use
  • Full support for all major NAS software platforms
  • Great for a medium or growing Plex media server
  • Support for 2x NVMe SSDs for cache, Plex metadata, and even a separate SSD volume
  • Option to upgrade to 10Gbe networking, depending on your future needs
  • Lots of room for RAM upgrades

Cons:

  • High power consumption and increased heat concerns
  • Requires an additional PCIe card to maximize SATA drives
  • Limited PCIe expansion due to the inclusion of a PCIe x1 and PCIe x4 slot
  • Reduced options for processor upgrades, given the choice of the motherboard

Best Jonsbo N3 Build for £750-1000

For those who want to build a NAS that rivals even the best off-the-shelf models available today, the following $1000 build offers some incredible performance. With this budget, you can get a truly formidable Plex media server, a robust virtual machine host, and even full surveillance with support for over 40 cameras (assuming you’re using an appropriate NAS software platform). The Jonsbo N3 NAS build is a powerhouse, providing enough capability for nearly any home or small business task.

Jonsbo N3 + Gen4/5 MoBo + Intel Core i5 12th Gen with Int Gfx + 32GB RAM + 10GbE Build

  • Jonsbo N3 Case ￡94.25 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 2X SATA 6 Connector ￡4.19 (note only need 8x, but cheaper to buy 2×6) – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • 600W SFX PSU ￡43.78 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Asrock Z690M-ITX/AX gEN 4/5 Motherboard £171.20 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Intel Core i5-12600K 12th Gen £239 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Re: CPU, features: 1 x 2.5 Gigabit LAN
    802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E Module
    1 x PCIe Gen5x16 Slot*
    4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors
    1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1, Key M), supports type 2280
    PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode*
    • 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_2, Key M), supports type 2280
    SATA3 6.0 Gb/s & PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) modes*
    * Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
    * Supports ASRock U.2 Kit
  • Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) £59.99 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • ARGB CPU Radiator Fan (LGA1700) ￡13.38 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • (better option for CPU Fan) Noctua NH-L9x65 CPU Cooler £49 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • X540-T2 Intel Chipset PCIe x8 Dual Copper RJ45 10Gbps ￡39.34 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • Tbkoly Controller Card Motherboard Expansion Card 1 To 5 Port SATA £20.45 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE
  • (Optional) 2x M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 X 8 Card GLOTRENDS Dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 – Check Amazon HERE – Check AliExpress HERE

Total £586.63 (Amazon) + ￡144.76 (Aliexpress)
Note, you need an SSD for TrueNAS OS (USB for UnRAID)

(Component Prices and eShops – 9 Images):

At the core of this design is the Intel i7 12th gen CPU, boasting six cores and twelve threads. Complementing this, the motherboard has full support for up to 128GB DDR4 memory (with prices still fluctuating for such large kits). But even with 32GB or 64GB kits being relatively affordable, it provides an excellent base for this system. For networking, the base board has two 2.5GbE ports, with the option to upgrade to 10Gbe using a suitable PCIe network card. However, similar to the $500 build, you’ll need to make some compromises if you want to maximize SATA drive connectivity due to the limited SATA ports on the motherboard.

Pros:

  • Extremely powerful for almost any task you throw at it
  • Full support for major NAS software platforms and high-end features
  • Outstanding Plex media server performance
  • Abundant RAM support
  • Flexibility in networking, from 2.5Gbe up to 10Gbe

Cons:

  • High power consumption
  • Likely overkill for casual or home users
  • Requires additional PCIe card to maximize SATA drives
  • Significant heat production, making adequate cooling essential
  • Expensive

Conclusion:

Building a Jonsbo N3 NAS system is an exciting project, allowing you to tailor the system to your specific needs and budget. Whether you’re aiming for a budget-friendly media server or a high-powered machine for intensive tasks, the Jonsbo N3 case provides a solid foundation. Always remember that while building the hardware is crucial, choosing the right software and ensuring that it runs seamlessly is just as important. As the NAS market evolves, DIY solutions like the Jonsbo N3 builds will only become more prevalent, offering enthusiasts and professionals alike more flexibility and options. Happy building!

Jonsbo N3 NAS Build with TopTon Board Build (Complete Guide) – UnRAID/TrueNAS (click below)

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      431 thoughts on “Recommended Jonsbo N3 NAS Builds for $300 – $500 – $1000+”

      1. you deserve a like and sub
        give this man a like
        ????????????????????????????????????????????
        it’s rare to find legend people nowadays
        Thanks man that was super helpful
        ❤
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      3. Those connectors for front panel are standard front panel connectors. They’re not on your motherboard because you bought a cheap ITX one.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      4. Wow. another great video. Thanks so much for all the excellent content. I’ve been gearing up to replace my old Dell PowerEdge r510 12-HDD server. It’s such a noise generator and power hog. I wonder if you could maybe do a video that focuses on daisy-chaining servers for more space. I don’t want to manage multiple Unraid instances. What I’d like to do is set up one server and then attach multiple SANs as my library grows.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      5. Thaks a lot for this! It made building my N2 NAS a breeze. Different motherboard, different power supply, but this video is an excellent resource in any case.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      9. Great experiments! May I ask What’s the power consumption of this DIY NAS? Also if we don’t mind put the power block into the case, can I use my old pc regular power block to power up this DIY NAS? Many thanks!
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      11. In the days of lore, way back, when Drobo first appeared and later all the little NAS boxen were born; I decided that they were too expensive and way under-powered. Then I found a way to build my own home lab NAS, one where I could host containers as well as serve shares, etc. This predates Unraid and TrueNAS. Many pros were building rackmount 4U servers but then came along some very well suited m-ITX server boards. Supermicro, Asrock, Gigabyte, etc. The first build utilized Joyent’s fork of OpenSolaris and their base image called SmartOS, providing ZFS, Zones, networking, etc. in a private cloud. Then Linux became capable of the same (Joyent was bought by Samsung and development slowed). I switched to Ubuntu Server with LXD to manage native containers and VM’s and Microk8s for Kubernetes. I was even able to import my zpool. But now I am thinking I may switch to TrueNAS Scale and build a 3rd generation NAS with a Jonsbo NAS case. Newer m-ITX boards have come a long way. The advent of those M.2 PCIe SATA adapters, will free up the 16x PCIe slot allowing for dual 10GbE network card. Ultimately, home builds can be built for less but if you put a bit more power into the build, you get a lot more out of it. However, you will end up being more expensive but your NAS will be more of a home lab server.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      15. Little late to the party, but they give you more than enought rubber grommets for the drives that you can use four on each drive plus the pull on the front of them.
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      16. I have the same NAS case, and I’m curious about your hard drives’ behavior. Mine are always active and noisy, even when not in use. Do you experience the same issue with your setup?
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      19. Would you make an episode about what’s better? UnRAID or TrueNAS? What gives more possibilities? What is updated more often? And what, in general, will be a better solution?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      22. I have been using this case for a couple months for my Unraid server which hosts PLEX. It’s an amazing case. I use an Intel 12500t which is pretty powerful for my needs and low power usage but I also have an RTX 3060 in the case because I got a really good deal on it and use it to auto convert media to be more compatible with families playback devices. It’s overkill but it’s awesome and this case handles it all fine. The GPU gets fresh air from the side vent and I added two 80mm Noctua fans to the top back for exhaust so they pull in air from the front and sides which gives fresh air to the CPU cooler and gets rid of all of the hot air in the top section. This little case for me holds 164 TB. 160 in HDD(8x20TB) and a 4TB Sata SSD for a cache drive and for Unraid/PLEX meta data. I could use an M.2 for cache but it’s not needed.

        I have my PSU so it pulls in fresh air from the front of the case and exhausts it out of the side and for the extra data ports I used an M.2 to SATA adapter. it has 6 additional SATA ports so with all of what I have I still have an available data slot.

        If you want a great case for a NAS or home server and want to keep it pretty small, this is the way to go. There are smaller options but this one has the benefit of amazing cooling performance…at least for a NAS case.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      23. Thanks for the great info. 
        I have just built my home made NAS based on this tutorial with Unraid and it is spinning away happily on my table.
        I deviated slightly by going with the Node 304 case which I purchased locally from eBuyer for £74 delivered and the same board with 4 GB memory and the 128 GB NVME from Amazon for £151. With the saving I also added a 10 Gbe PCI card from Ali Express for £71 and a Hisource 4 port 2.5 Gbe + 2 10 Gbe uplink ports for for £29 from Ali Express
        I have to admit that getting the 10 Gbe link working with Unraid (!***!) was a bit stressful, but everything now works as it should.
        Onwards and upwards and thanks again.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      26. I have two Lacie. One in my office and one at home. Can you do a video on how to link these two so that they act as backups of each other? If you already have done something like that, please send me that way.
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      29. Thank you so much for this detailed video. I used it for my own Jonsbo N2 build and it was so helpful with the step-by-step instructions and guidance on the gotchas. It saved me so much time to pre-plan. Excellent video!
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      34. Hey, as this vid is 4 months old, I just wanted to ask if the mobo is holding out good? I’ve been considering it myself, just wondering if theres anything you found out later that someone looking to buy one may want to know before making a decision. Cheers for the good vid ????
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      37. While I get the confusion about several different screws types used, I do generally appreciate hex screws.
        Phillips is a nightmare waiting to strip. For me it could all be torx haha
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      39. HI, Great vid! I must have watched this a few times now, and am currently building my own. Currently unable to track down the pdf for the header pin layout. Did you ever add the link in for that?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      40. Does anyone know anything about the SATA Power Connector on the back plane? I can see the 2 molex connectors powering the drives, but is the SATA necessary or just in case a power supply only has on molex. I’m confused. Jonsbo has answered all of my questions, except that one and of course the instructions are……well you know.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      45. Am not sure whether to lean towards the N2 or N3 ???? probably go with a ROG mini-ITX board and smash in a decent Ryzen processor and bags of memory as-well. Wish to have something that can leave on 24/7 that will run Proxmox to cover all my needs ie. PfSense/OPNSense, Storage and probably a mail server. Would welcome your thoughts please and keep up the great work ????
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      50. This video is really well done. I have been trying to give an answer to this question for four years now. The problem is summarized at the end of the video. My time costs much more than what I save by building it myself “from scratch”. But on the other hand I am too stingy , and I like to build things myself. Frustration.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      51. Have we figured out the power plug weirdness? I am also doubtful that three plugs are required, what makes the most sense to me is one dedicated cable plug for molex, and one dedicated cable plug for sata since most modern psu will only have one cable for molex, i have this on order and want to try it but it seems everyone just plugs in all three
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      53. I am kind of sad that I got this case now. Looks like I am stuck with max 4 drives if I want to do 10gb fiber NIC. I tried to find a way to do bifurcation that would allow 10gb nic + the 8 drives sata. I did buy an NVME to SATA but only support is 3.0 and its rather slow when booting. Not sure I really trust it either for the long hall that would allow 8 drives to be used. But then you loose ability to do mirrored cache pool. Just every little road block that makes this thing not ideal and as stated having it in a bigger form factor would be way better. It would be nice if you could do the ultimate Jonsbo N3 build and show us how to overcome what I perceive are limitations. Support all 8 drives, 10gb network and dual mirrored NVME cache pool.
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      57. The price of the shipping from Aliexpress not only varies, but can make or break your budget so it should definitely not be left out. For example here are the prices as of Nov 2023:
        Jonsbo N2 (Aliexpress): $93 + $97 shipping to the US = $190
        Jonsbo N2 (Amazon): $150
        Jonsbo N2 (Newegg): $140

        Jonsbo N3 (Aliexpress): $117 + $99 shipping = $216
        Jonsbo N3 (Amazon): $170
        Jonsbo N3 (Newegg): $162

        As you can see, if you are in the US it’s a no-brainer to buy the case from Amazon/Newegg as Aliexpress offers an inferior shipping experience.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      62. Imagine they would’ve gone for mATX – its entirely possible in that size and they come with up to 3x PCIe Ports and sometimes 6 SATA ports too …

        I also really don’t like how they’ve not even tought about the possibility of someone using these slots for 2.5 inch e.g. for SATA-SSDS.

        A backplane like this makes it really hard to use without any kind of attempt in proper design by the manufacturer (port multipliers, adapters, what gives, what takes … in the end you can only remove the backplane). For me these two points make these sadly a hard pass 🙁 – as I would gain nothing from those extra 3 slots.

        Who in the world uses just 8 mechanical drives. SSDs are so much better for many things (power consumption too), and are nothing special but more or less a given use-case for many of us looking into slowly adopting many parts towards flash storage as they become cheaper and cheaper …
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      65. Which diy NAS would you recommend to someone who is going to use it as a Jellyfin server for movies and transcoding movies to phones. Also might use it to hold basic documents/photos.
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      67. I love the Jonsbo N2 and N3 builds but if you’re running RAID-6 you really want a minimum of 8 x 3.5″ drives not just 5. Are there any good NAS cases for this?
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      69. Can you confirm that the Asrock mobo will allow 4x+4x+4x+4x lane bifurcation? I cannot confirm it, and the HyperCard requires lane bifurcation to work. An ixt board with two onboard nvme drives plus 4 drives through pcie would be a killer compact, all flash, low power, portable nas.
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      72. I am using my DYI Unraid server serveral years now. And I love it. Additional I installed or rolled out several synology NAS to very small companies. I find the biggest advantage to Unraid is also its biggest disadvantage -> Freedom of choice. With Synology I just buy the device I need for e.g. SMB Share and Client (Windows 10) backup and 1-2 docker. With Unraid it starts with which case, which PSU, which CPU etc. – When you start researching what hardware to buy, you easily fall into the rabbit hole. After hours you still have no shopping list for the unraid server.
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      75. Just a couple notes on this as I have the same case. First if you did NOT use the angled sata cables on the backplane they won’t warranty the case. Second I found a flat dual molex adapter that saved me even more room. Between the angled sata cables (same slim blue your using with 90 degree one end), and the molex adapter I was able to replace that loud inefficient 15mm fan with the standard 25mm one. Also replaced those grates on both side with basic wire grills. Both those things got me better air flow as well as less noise.
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      78. Hi there! Has anyone used one of those china boards a little longer? Can they be trusted the data to throw at them in the long run? What is your opinion?
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      80. i’m a bit disappointed, your title said you were gonna build a NAS, but you just assembled a NAS :/ (i was expecting electronic component tinkering, not computer parts tinkering…)
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      81. I have just built a TopTon board (Same version) with a Jonsbo case. One note is you can actually fit that board out with 64Gb Mem so Truenas has plenty of spare capacity. I also spec’d out a lot better power supply just for the peace of mind. Wish you had done this review earlier as I would have gone with the case you had.
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      85. Looking forward to your N3 build with the i9 mobo – I am planning a very similar build and would love your feedback on the setup (power draw, performance, etc).
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      88. The limitations and drawbacks of this N3 case as you outlined really shoots some major holes in the feasibility of this DIY NAS. Looks like I’ll be sticking to my Synology 8-bay or Asustor (for cheaper 2-6 bay setups) units for awhile longer it seems.

        If Jonsbo ever does a N4 with the fixes/limitations worked out…maybe then I’ll start weighing a “might-try” then. Probably a year or two more wait, I guess…with also more stability with pricing and availability to come as well. Cheers.
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      89. I’m a little confused… Did you show the correct extra parts (Re: video ~35:00)? Of the four parts shown, it seems that I would need (1) of the parts shown (top & bottom right side parts), but nothing from the left top/bottom parts. Additionally, if I select either top or bottom right side parts then I now have (2) 20-pin connectors (one from the front panel USB and one from the adapter (top/bottom right side parts)) which now need to go to a 20-pin + 20-pin splitter (not shown on your display of parts). Unfortunately, my Topton MoBo has not arrived yet so I can’t reference what is there in order to understand what’s what with all the parts you showed. Can you provide any more clarity to this? Thank you so much and thanks, again, for making this very informative video!!!!
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      91. Investing that much time and effort probably isn’t worth it unless you have time to waste or very specific possibly high-end applications.
        Also, you may want to got get a more current ITX board + CPU for more performance and RAM in this case.
        Honestly for a simple setup like that it probably is better connecting something like a TerraMaster D5-300C or ORICO-NS500RC3 to a Raspberry Pi.
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      92. I dont think you save so much time going turn key as you have to learn the software. Easiest is take an old machine, install Nas software learn how it fits in your life. Then upgrade hardware later. As a person whos built many computers, the hardware part wasnt the issue. Learning the Truenas/Proxmox/Unraid interface probably didnt take longer than the Synology interface. Now I have a machine which can grow cheaply if needed.
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      94. Those front USB connectors are standard, USB3 and USB3.1 for the Type A and Type C connector respectively, and are found on most modern motherboards. That Topton board is made as cheaply as possible, so it only has basic USB2 connectors, which is why they wouldn’t fit.
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      96. Totally a great replacement for another orange channel. You explain everything that you had to go through and other options to tackle those issues. Great vid! It s subscribe for me bud!
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      98. I’m coming back in to re-review my overall thoughts on the N2. This past week I updated my hardware so I could utilize NVME, 10gbe and the 8500T cpu I had laying around.

        My reports – This case is not enjoyable for heat when thinking about NVME. My initial thoughts was that everything would be great. I had a proper cpu cooler and then also a heat sink for the nvme. Upon firing up everything looked great…..but then I got warnings. My NVME was getting to temps of almost 60c!

        I quickly shut the system down and pulled the shell off to make sure the heat sink was alright. Everything seemed just fine but after further thought I have always had airflow over the basic heatsink which make a bit difference.

        So what do I do?

        Luckily I had either a 140mm or 120mm BeQuiet! Silent Wings 2 fan laying around and jerry rigged it to the top shell and decided to blast the entire mobo with the airflow. CPU is sub 35c and the NVME is now sub 34c.

        Users Wanting NVME beware and reminder you HAVE to have decent airflow. The N2 simply is not great for airflow with NVME or other pcie adapters that generate any kind of heat.
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      101. 34:29 I see where the 3.1 connector is different, but what’s with the 2.x? Also the ali link for Topton doesn’t seem to come with ram or ssd anymore?
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      103. Great review. I bought this case, it took a very long time to arrive, but when it did the things you pointed out on video is what I felt too. I think the bit of this case that annoys me the most is they use 100mm fans at the back (bottom) and 80mm at the top. 100mm is a odd size, to the point you cannot really buy fans. As in noctua dont make a 100mm. Moreover, I agree with no caddies, dont like the rubber bits. Also the hdds do rattle a lot, so dont feel its that well dampered. I would say its a good case for the money, 8 drives. But I wish the cooling was on the drives, not at the back, which means drives dont get great cooling. Overall, 6/10 for me
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      104. Great review. I bought this case, it took a very long time to arrive, but when it did the things you pointed out on video is what I felt too. I think the bit of this case that annoys me the most is they use 100mm fans at the back (bottom) and 80mm at the top. 100mm is a odd size, to the point you cannot really buy fans. As in noctua dont make a 100mm. Moreover, I agree with no caddies, dont like the rubber bits. Also the hdds do rattle a lot, so dont feel its that well dampered. I would say its a good case for the money, 8 drives. But I wish the cooling was on the drives, not at the back, which means drives dont get great cooling. Overall, 6/10 for me
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      105. Great review. I bought this case, it took a very long time to arrive, but when it did the things you pointed out on video is what I felt too. I think the bit of this case that annoys me the most is they use 100mm fans at the back (bottom) and 80mm at the top. 100mm is a odd size, to the point you cannot really buy fans. As in noctua dont make a 100mm. Moreover, I agree with no caddies, dont like the rubber bits. Also the hdds do rattle a lot, so dont feel its that well dampered. I would say its a good case for the money, 8 drives. But I wish the cooling was on the drives, not at the back, which means drives dont get great cooling. Overall, 6/10 for me
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      106. according to Topton, the pin headers on their motherboards (N5xxx and N6xxx) is only USB 2.0, were you able to confirm/deny it? The blue ports on the mobo however are indeed 3.x
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      109. 12:34 my solution was picking up an M.2 to 5x SATA thing when picked up the Erying board.. seeing as it has 2 m.2’s.. 1 for a 120 GB boot drive and one for SATA ports..
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      111. So, do you have the full sata bandwidth available on this system ? If you’d put sata ssd for example, would you be limited by the pcie lanes of the celeron ?
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      114. On a b550-i strix you can easily use a 5sata port m.2 adapter, use it on the front m.2 4.0 slot and use a nvme boot drive on the back m.2 3.0 port and you have the 2slot pcie slot free for a GPU or whatever. And you were complaining about having 4 pegs on the drive to go into the rail….. In your video you are missing the pegs that screw into the middle of the drive to guide it on the rails.
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      115. Looking at this the N3 for just a bunch of drives, I initially thought about using 2.5″ SSD’s with adapters in place of the 3.5″ drives. But with the price of NVMe drives nearing the price of 2.5″ SSD’s I am mulling over stripping out the SATA board in the bottom of this case and installing a powered USB hub getting power from the molex on the PSU and installing a bank of individual USB enclosures populated with whatever NVMe drives I choose – connected to the USB 3 motherboard connector. Any thoughts or suggestions or limitations on my idea?
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      117. You can use an M.2 breakout card for more SATA connections, for example if you have two M.2 slots or a free WiFi slot the “ChenYang M.2 M-Key PCI adapter” for full length or “MZHOU M.2 SATA Adapter” for WiFi slot length.
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      119. Nice review, but if we are looking at these kind of cases, wouldn’t it make more sense to look at cases like the Fractal Design Node 804, which offers much more flexibility?
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      120. a.) Yes, the PSU should slide-in from the back. IDK why they mount it inside the case.
        b.) You can get PCIM-Key M.2 to 6X SATA 3 adapter and put it the mobo’d 2nd M.2 slot, if you’re willing to give up mirrored boot drives.
        c.) If rubber drive mounting washers really bug you, print some rails to replace them. Still have to deal with the rubber handle, though.

        Would be nice to know about the SATA power connector on the drive backplane. Also, the maximum size CPU cooler that will fit.
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      121. Your point of not being a ATX compatible is a very sore point. Then the build could accommodate a PCI to SATA expansion and a 10 gigabit Ethernet card. This is not good.
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      123. Maybe it’s just me, but I would never buy this to do anything other than handle data and I don’t need an ATX motherboard to do that. I use a board similar to the one you used in your N2 build, but it was designed for openwrt and has a N6005 on it. I have the N2 and I’d never want it or the other anywhere near me due to fan noise (it lives in the garage with the car). While I see your point about the GPU vs using a 10gbe card, I’d rather just go with 2.5gbe as I really don’t think my zfs setups would benefit very much and most modern itx boards will have 2.5gbe. I also love the way they do drive mounting as it cuts down on a ton of vibration. Unless you are taking the drives out all the time, not sure why you need a tray. Yes, if I have a drive failure, it will take me more time to change the drive as I will likely have to take the back off to help push the drive out. . but I still really like the rubber mounting system. My only complaint on the N2 would probably be the same for the N3 – fan noise. I guess I’ll have to wait an see how the PSU goes into that unit, but the N3 is a few years away for me.
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      124. A few critiques of the review:

        1. It is common for ITX boards to have a front and back m.2 slot. Running a 5 or 6 port m.2 to sata adapter is inexpensive and doesn’t interfere with expandability

        2. I’m not sure (and you didn’t really say) why you are hesitant about PSU extension cables, but as long as it is a sufficient gauge (which it is), it’s fine

        3. You can use any two power connectors to power all 8 drives
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      125. I don’t understand the obsession with the ITX NAS cases. Any economy of savings you might enjoy by the DIY nature are absolutely murdered by the limited selection and significantly higher costs ITX mobos present. Give me a full ATX or even mATX any day of the week…

        Personally, my NAS is currently living in a Rosewill Blackhawk ATX case repurposed from an ancient PC build.
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      128. In Australia I had to order my unit through Ali Express. Their store is atrocious! The title of the page CLEARLY stated: “JONSBO N3 N2 N1 Mini NAS Case ITX …” but then the ‘colorway’ defaults to “N2 white’. You had to make sure you pick the right unit (N1, N2 and N3) through the COLORWAY! I didn’t check and purchase the N2 instead of the N3 and they refused to allow for return because it’s CLEARLY stated. I would dispute that. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with the product itself. I agree with your assessment that the fan size is effing crazy! Who makes 100mm and 80mm fans! Other than all that, I like the case. It feels high quality built, it’s the smallest form I can find on the market to fit 8 HDDs!
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      131. Jonsbo seems to make some great cases but the N3 is in a bit of a weird spot for me.
        Though the N3 has some marked improvements over N2, personally I think it is best to either stick with the N2 for a compact NAS, or if you are after more expandability, might as well choose a mATX case for almost the same footprint as the N3 and gain not only more drive slots but also more PCIe slots and usually cheaper motherboards as well.
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      133. Well, I think this wasn’t a very good/informative review. More like 25 min of rambling, why this is a very bad case. Is it a bad case though? The conclusion and the vibe I good during the video are very different.
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      134. Im rather surprised, that there is no mention of the lack of holes for cooling in the backplane. Those two included fans are going to do nothing without them.
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      135. 5:50 The N2 does have drive LEDs, but they’re not visible if you use 3.5″ drives. The backplane has 2 surface mount LEDs for each drive, green for power and blue for activity. If you use 2.5″ drives with a backplane-compatible 2.5″-to-3.5″ adapter, you’ll see diffuse blue flashing through the case’s front as each drive does its thing (the green LED is blocked by the adapter/drive).
        Jonsbo seems to be listening to feedback and improving their designs with each iteration, and I think that’s why the N3 moved the LEDs to the case panel instead.
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      138. What about small mATX boards like the ASRock H610M-HVS or H610M-HDV? Both of them are around 2cm larger than a mITX board and they usually fit in mITX cases that are a bit more roomy
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      141. you can use a breakout board, like risers to make use of the the 2 slots, i have looked through them, and i came up with a pretty nice idea how to do it
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      143. On nas compares web page you indicate the middle/top builds in the cons section higher power consumption, how much more we talking compared to a synology/Qnap 8 bay? considering the price of energy now a days and with these on 24/7.
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      147. Can’t wait for the build video. Watched your N2 build video and looked at your guides and saw the N3. I knew I wanted the N3 for my dream NAS.
        As for the issue with the drive pull, perhaps for those with access to a 3d printer, there may be some solutions on Thingiverse or similar sites. I know it’s not something we should be forced to resort to, but it’s an option.
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      149. Your unit suffer from the same problem mine has, the SATA power connector is not attached to the harddrive backplane. It is not soldered to the backplane.
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      150. @NASCompares – There are M.2 to Multi Sata connector cards as well, and you could get an ITX board with Multiple M.2 or use the internal Sata Drive for OS or a CACHE drive.
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      151. The case is good. Its the mobo offering that sucks. All we need is an itx mobo with 10gbit, ecc ram, 8xsata, 2x m.2 and something like N100 for that 6W TDP passively cooled cpu. For… hmm… 250€
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      152. I think you miss something about the rubber disk mounts. Certain types of rubber under prolonged exposure to heat can disintegrate. In a NAS case a few years from now, it will go sticky and rot away. What then?
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      156. This case is probably one of the best options, but it still has so many problems. That one from Silverstone supports ATX, but supposedly the backplane is shit and the HDD cooling is not good.

        It would just be nice if there was a NAS case with a good backplane, good ventilation for drives, good cooler support, ATX support, good HDD trays, etc.
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      157. 8 bay but still ITX board, cable management still a mess(backboard still use SATA connection instead of SFF-8643), terrible PSU options, HDD tray feels terrible.
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      159. This may be a language difference, but on this side of the ocean, we call them either motherboard or mainboards. The term card is generally reserved for ‘add in cards’. Additionally, PSUs in weird places is somewhat normal for small form factor cases.
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      160. Been waiting for this video after informing you there was this new case incoming.

        Could you not use a nvme sata adapter that has the data ports on them, yh I know it will use the slot up but some itx mb have more than 1
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      162. Is there a DIP switch on the backplane to control staggered power up on this?
        The new ones come with it, you can adjust 200ms/400ms/or no staggered on the DIP switch.
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      163. your antiquated selection is crap in 2023.
        Fractal Design Node 804 – Black
        MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi ProSeries Motherboard
        Ryzen 7 5700G 8-core, 16-Thread Processor
        Thermalright AXP120-X67 WHITE ARGB Low Profile CPU Air Cooler
        Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz
        WD_BLUE SN570 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3
        IBM M5015 Array Card, Megaraid 9260-8i SATA/SAS Controller RAID 6G PCI-E x8
        INTEL Original X540-T2 Ethernet Converged Network Adaptor X540T2BLK
        8×3.5 drives, + 8x 2.5 drives & small cage
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      165. Congratulations on the 100K it is quite an accomplishment. Brilliant video. Fantastic presentation. I have a big unraid system featuring a Xeon E3 with 16 bays. but I do EVERTHIING on this. I have never regretted building my own NAS.
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      171. Define “better”!

        One of the slower builds I have seen but for next time:

        Step number ONE:
        Test 100% of the components BEFORE cramming them into the case!
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      173. Looking forward to the N3 build, as I’m considering doing a build in that chassis for UnRAID or TrueNAS Scale, then I could transition my Synology NAS to being a backup box.
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      175. Beautiful build, nicely done, and I love the “on the cheap” side of things (so much, must be the Scottish in me ????) Makes me want to do this rather than get another Synology. I have the skills, but Synology just made things so “easy” that I got lazy. Thanks for the video and congrats on 100K! Here’s to the next 900K ????
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      177. WTF the Jonsbo N2 price is double what you paid for, and I’m in continental Europe so if anything I should pay less than you! that’s insane, the price doubled in a month…
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      186. I have both N1 & N2. Amazing little cases, I highly recommend them if you want to save space. If you have an old itx pc it can live an incredible second life as a NAS in one of these.
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      187. I built one from used parts on eBay, for the magic price of about £187, 10 SAS 2tb drives i picked up for 80 quid, Dell H200 perc 24 quid( needed firmware changing to LSI SAS 9210-8i ), the motherboard (FM2 with 8gb of DDR 3 and 500w PSU) came to together from what someone was tipping, 64gb SSD OS disk i picked up for around 7 quid, eBay again, the only build that was new was the Mini SAS 36Pin SFF-8088 to 4 x 29Pin SFF-8482 SATA Power Cable 0.5m 20 quid, 2 x Molex to 4 SATA power cable 10 quid and a new ATX case from Amazon for around 30 quid, i manage to pick up 6 BEQUIET 120mm fans for 16 quid, i used TrueNas 12 at the time, now been updated to version13, it runs as my SMB and plex server, its on a 1Gb Lan of which i can use nearly all of the bandwidth maintaining 110MB all the time download(single user at a time), at the end of the day, i really enjoyed building it, it was fun, Im planning on building more, good stuff
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      190. I can afford to buy a branded NAS, but I prefer to go through similar to what you see in this video, not because I want to appear tech savvy, but because of the drinking involved during and after the build. I especially relish the heavy drinking involved when it fails and I have no one to blame but myself. Cheers!
        ????????
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      192. Hi. I built your big NAS build. I would have two questions:

        A) I use Samsung QVO 8 TB drives. Is there anything I have to do / setup because I use SSDs?
        B) Your amazon Link to the SATA-Port Replicator says “Tbkoly Controller Card”, if I use the link it leads to “SaiDian 1 x SATA-Port-Multiplier Controller Riser Card Adapter 6 Gbit/s 1 auf 5 Port SATA 3.0 Motherboard”, there is no Tbkoly Controller Card on Amazon. I couldn’t find one and used the replacement instead, but it didn’t work. It works perfect if only one drive is connected, the second drive does not appear. Any idea, or like a new link to a working port multiplier?
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      197. I got the same mobo (justo with the intel N6005)… there’s an internal USB port… just sayin its safer tu put the usb in ther so no one “accidentally ” pulls it out… huge mistake I made with going with a pico PSU… changed it to a 400w… no working fine… thank you for your videos! ther really helped deciding what to get!… went also with unraid
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      198. “Best Jonsbo N2 Build for Under/Around £250”
        You need a maths lesson, parts included in this comes to around £300 not £250 (based on your pricing shown)
        Also pricing is a lot higher than you stated form the sources you stated, and you use both £ and $ which is confusing /constructive criticism use one or the other
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      199. 49:16 Well I personally usually chek that 127 other things in the BIOS to make sure I don’t have to reinstall the whole system just because I changed something like SecureBoot only after I installed the OS. 🙂
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      201. Hey – nice job here. There is also the value of the learning that is in depth – you can also upgrade individual components to go with as you need. The cost of upgrading a turn key is quite a bit larger – you have about the same 2x factor I think. Interesting – worth the hour invested to watch here!
        And congratulations!
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      202. I ordered the parts for the 1.000 £ built. Thank you very much! I would have used your amazon-links (I actually did) but Amazon does not want to deliver anything to me. When I ordered, they asked me for a read-access to my bank account till the end of the year. So I had to order elsewhere. I think, you would need an amazon-alternative that is not 4 weeks away from my location.

        But anyway, great built! Looking forward to an five ssd drive nas, with 5*8 TB SSDs ????
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      203. It is a lot more work to set up your own but it is so much more powerful and cheaper. There is no comparison really. I used a retired PC and bought a multibay drive caddy.
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      204. I just built one for my friend, N6005 + 16 RAM + H6 case + 1 TB NVME SSD + 250W PSU + Unraid Plus, and spent nearly £330.

        Of course, I was building this while in China, so the shipping cost is way lower, but spent another £25 mailing it to UK.
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      206. Hey, I’ve been looking for an alternative to my NAS as mine is currently my old gamingpc, which is complete overkill and higher than ideal power consumption.

        Can I as, why this wouldn’t be good to use with TrueNAS at it seemingly fits their hardware requirements.

        I’m a bit new to all this, so please excuse me if this is a dumb question.
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      209. I *loved* this build video. So much detail, great explanation, and it is clearly a done with love for this topic. I’d be interested in a similar build video if you can find a low-cost build with drive trays rather than those off rubber-pull attachments.
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      212. It’s not just about the time spent. It’s about how much your data is worth. If you’re not thinking about things like patrol reads and notifications on disk failures. Rebuild processes for the array. Those types of things… you can end up with bit rot or data loss when not noticing hardware failures.
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      213. It’s so weird to me that JONSBO is a brand of NAS now, when fifteen years ago JONSBO was a line of table lamps at IKEA. (Rather nice ones, too!)

        (Unlike a lot of other IKEA product names, JONSBO does not appear to be a Swedish placename, but there was a 20th Century Norwegian artist named Kåre Mikkelsen Jonsborg so maybe that’s the etymology idk)
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      216. When i go shopping for the sheep build on Amazon i get the following prices:
        case Jonsbo N2 = €225
        N5105 Motherboard 8MB RAM/ 128GB NVMe=€221.93
        SATA cable = €14
        etc,
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      217. Pretty Nice Video of this build! But the most important question i have is how high is the power consumption ? Is it the same like the Qnap / Synology or is the power consumption much higher because Qnap / Synology did some optimization of their used components ?
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      219. “Sorry Captain Planet” you had a few clever comments. I have a Synology DS213 that I now realize is 10 years old but it’s all I need with 2 1TB WD Red drives in hybrid. If I had the need I’d be into building my own.
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      220. New to your channel. NASCompares and you’ve never built a NAS from scratch before?! You can build one better than any QNAP, Synology, etc. for less. As for the USB connectors from the case. They match EXACTLY what they are since one is USB 3.0 and the other is USB-C 3.2. There is nothing non-standard about them. The issue is your motherboard only has USB 2.0.
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      226. There was no throughput test results ???? Cited MB comprises 1 SATA shared by 5 interfaces. That’s the main drawback for this NAS. Or is it meant to be for the first DIY device?
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      227. Brilliant video! This is the best tutorial and guide I’ve seen for building a fully-functional, do-it-yourself NAS. I especially appreciated the step-by-step details, and your objective, brand and device-specific recommendations, evaluations, and critiques of each of the components. The Unraid solution allowing the use of such an enormous variety and size of SATA disk drives is likewise amazing. You have motivated me to take this on myself. Thank you! Now subscribed.
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      234. Been down both paths for 20+ years. If I want to impress my peers I build my own servers. If I want to impress my family get a Synology. Played with Unraid to make hardware pass through setups with Windows XP/98 systems and 3DFX and Creative EAX cards and its an ongoing project, fraught with many many issues. They are fun projects, but you will get to the stage that other hobbies call you and a Synology is the way to go. After all, we don’t live forever and the kids will inherit them, so they need something less IT knowledge base intensive.
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      235. I’ve been looking to upgrade my Synology to a DS423+ or similar, that’s what brought me here.
        But, from what I could see, this build is just not worth the cost or hassle when I can get a pre-built unit with Synology’s DSM that is basically plug and play. Great if you want to build your own system for the hell of it, but personally I just can’t justify the time.
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      236. One recomendation I would make is using a way better power supply like an FSP or Sparkle to enhance the reliability and stability of the build (start with a good foundation) and to turn the power supply around so the vents allow the power supply to suck in cool air and the rear to exit the heat. Most newer motherboard do use the USB3 connectors provided by Jonsbo. The rest of the video is great. Congratulations to your subscriptions! Dr. Dave
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      239. Hmm way less money then i thought. Built my own stuff sense my early teens but never looked in to NAS. Now days whit all the data we have on our hands this might be a good time to start my first NAS project. Grats on 100k and thanks for the info.
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      240. What a fantastic guide! I THANK YOU!
        I’ve assembled PC last time probably 35 years ago – not many things have changed since then I can see.
        Btw why did you go with 5105 rather than 6005? No big price difference there…

        You have kept the t-shirt but you have changed the watch between the recordings – even 2 times !!! 😉
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      241. Great video as always. I was just curious about something in the £500 build with the F CPU. I’ve never used an F CPU but I always thought that it would not boot or display video without a discrete GPU or does motherboard you mentioned itself allow video output maybe through the onboard VGA/HDMI/DVI port? I apologise in advance if it was already answered in other comments or maybe the seagulls addressed it in the video!
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      244. I bought synology for moments and photos to get away from Google photos after they brought in their caps.

        But overall it’s fairly disappointing, I was expecting more updates and features. I’m here watching this to work out whether to sell my synology and just go with unraid.
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      249. some times i think this man live on a boat and has the greatest stabilization software on the planet because the seagulls use him ass a pit stop. good content, i have a asustor and im not fallowing the 123 or 321.
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      250. No, thank you for the fantastic video. Hope you hit 200k soon you guys deserve it. Really appreciate the thorough details My one tip would be to invest in a build mat for that poor old scratched table, helps dampen noise, stops things rolling, can be anti static or have a brand logo.
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      251. Maybe its where your from, but here in the states, I think most of us would go for a cheap, used Asrock Rack or Supermicro motherboard and cheap used CPU. Will have to jump to matx, as itx server boards are harder to find used. My truenas build is a $100 supermicro board, $35 Intel 7100, 32GB of cheap used ECC ram. Has 3 pcie slots, 1 m.2 and 8 sata ports, 2 onboard NICs and ipmi to play with. Mine is just a file server, so pretty minimal horsepower needed. Pushes 10Gbe easily. Might need something a little newer if running apps/VMs, like an 8th/9th gen Intel with more cores.
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      252. Thks Robbie buts I likes your Sabrent DS-UCTB 10-Bay USB 3.2 Enclosure (~US$350) Review a lot better or maybes the cheaper Mediasonic Probox 8 bay USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure (~US$250) ;
        Hey, I heard more from that Sea-Gull than Eddie lately (?Where’s the old Eddie-nator at?)
        Oh, justs-likes the Eddie-nator, that Sea-Gull shows-is quite enlightening 😉
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      254. Could you provide a download link for N5105 motherboard technical layout pdf? I’m curious about the details of the various headers on the mobo you used in the build.
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      255. When you do the N3 NAS build it would be interesting to find out if the Asrock H610M-HDV Motherboard will fit, it is an m-atx board but is only 19.7 cm x 18.8 cm so might fit and would allow use of both PCIe slots.
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      256. Congrats on 100k! This was an interesting video… I look forward to seeing you put it through it’s paces. It’s a shame that the Jonesbo case only holds five 3.5″ drives, though… if it at least held the full 6 that motherboard and cable supported, it might be more of a contender for my next upgrade dollars, once my 4-bay Synology is no longer adequate. (Doesn’t seem worth the money to upgrade and add only a single drive)
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      257. I do like these DIY Nas Video a lot. Thank you. Please more!
        How reliable is all that „crap“ from ali express anyway? I have serious doubts that the 500buck build mobo will post without a gpu. And why all that questionable stuff anyway, why not a Corsair psu and a ie msi motherboard?
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      261. The SATA cables for the Jonsbo N series cases must have right-angle plugs on one side. Don’t forget that.

        Those Topton (and other names) motherboards seem to be riddled with bugs and weirdly high idle power consumption (still low, but could be lower). Much like their pfsense appliances, they seem cheap and they have the right hardware, in theory, but it seems they have weird behaviors all around.

        Name brand motherboards can be finicky enough. While the chinese ones are cheap, I would not put one of those in charge of my data.
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      262. the fact that we can even think of building a DIY NAS for 250$ is great, though at that budget I would really consider buying used (which I understand it was not the scope of the video), in the end CPUs, RAM, SSDs and cases do not really age, sometimes I even buy used HDDs if they don’t have a lot of hours on them and I can pick them up personally
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      264. Shame that if you live in Denmark the case costs a whopping 40 quid in shipping (same online shop as the one used in the video for the purchase) while it ships free to the UK, which in reality turns it into a 140 quid case for me = budget build is not really an option….
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      267. General advice: do not cheap out on PSUs, to some it might look like a waste of money but consider that the machine you are building has to last many years and will most probably be on 24/7 or almost, the PSU is not only in charge of powering your system but also to protect it, a short circuit or a power loss in the house can harm/kill components or even effect their lifespan if the delivered voltage (by the PSU) is unstable. Also when it comes to cheap PSUs do not trust what the label says, it is normally best to check out what the community’s suggestion is before pulling the trigger.
        Its fine to buy a 25$ PSU, but please consider the downsides, in my view my HDDs and hardware (and arguably data) are worth and extra 20$ even for my low budget.

        The video war really helpful though, will there also be a video regarding the setup (software side)? I’m still hesitant to build my own NAS mostly because I’m not sure how difficult it is to replicate various services offered by synology and qnap (like Synology Drive easily available on PC and Smartphones) and how secure it would be on something like TrueNAS and others
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      270. Congratulations on 100K I have been interested in building my own NAS and have been watching your channel for some time now. Tons of information you guys are doing a great job!
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      273. I watched this vid and got the Tipton, I can’t work out how to turn down the fan header which seems to run at full whack all the time which is annoying, I don’t see it in the bios only the cpu. Is there another way to control the fan header?
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      274. For a future video, I would be interested to know how that Jonsbo N2 case handles the heat of a 13th gen i3 or i5 or i7. Does it throttle badly? Does it cook the drive underneath?
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      275. congrats on the 100k I can’t believe you don’t have more. You’ve been around for a long time and have helped tons of people me included. Thank you for all you do.
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      279. I’ve built many computers over the years. For me, assembling the hardware is fairly easy, configuring the software/OS is what will be a challenge for me. I have two old synology NASes and they’re ok. I’m looking to upgrade, so having the option to build a new NAS is a good thing to have. Knowing me, I probably won’t build because the software seems like something I would have to invest time into learning (and I don’t have the time unfortunately). The detailed guide on the website is really good and I will be bookmarking it in case I change my mind.
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      283. Congrats on 100k subs! I also built a NAS/HTPC (with TrueNAS) in this case recently. For the most part, I love it and would absolutely recommend it for DIY NAS/HTPC builds.

        Regarding the not-so-quiet case fan: if your motherboard has an extra fan header, connect the fan to that instead of the drive backplane. The backplane has no speed control and runs it at 100% speed 100% of the time. But hooked into the motherboard you can set the speed in the system’s BIOS. Mine now runs very quietly while still keeping the drives at 30-45°C (depending on load).

        My only gripes with the case are:
        1/ I wish the shank (the unthreaded part) of the bolts for the drive track grommets were longer so that they could be screwed in tightly.
        2/ Why is the dust-catching mesh only on the side grills of the motherboard section but not on the top grill? It should be the opposite since the top is where most air intake will be happening and the sides would be exhaust (or they could have put mesh on all the grills). I removed the mesh from the sides of the motherboard area and hot-glued a mesh to the top.
        3/ Too many different bolt types for the exterior. One part has Phillips thumbscrews, another has small hex flat head bolts, another has Phillips truss head bolts, and still another uses the standard Phillips hex head case bolts. If those hex flat head bolts were Phillips instead, the whole case could be managed with a single Phillips screwdriver. And the truss head bolts could have just been standard case bolts.
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      286. Just to point out the metal thing you call “backplane” is actually called “i/o shield”. There’s a backplane on this case though and that’s the green board on the drive bay where you connect your drivers.

        TrueNAS would’ve worked, although it’d have complained about not enough memory. it would’ve probably been fine though.

        And congrats on 100k subscribers mate.
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      288. Actually great to see this option being shown, between an off the shelf ready to go NAS and a rack mounted NAS (but not everyone has the space for 1U, 2U or even 4U racks). I might go down this route next time.
        If you can find one get the Intel N100 board instead, for a little more money (coz it’s newer) it’s way more powerful then the N5105, I’m running pfSense on the Intel N100 as my router, but I haven’t seen a board only version on Aliexpress yet although the search is terrible, it’s just what I’d do, especially if you wanna run lots of containers or CCTV recording, the N5105 can do that just fine, coz I’m doing it on my QNAP TS–464, just thinking more longer term.
        Robbie, one thing that might be worth testing is PSU orientation and temperatures, I see you put the fan facing inwards, would be interesting to see if temps on the motherboard and in fact drives were higher or lower if the PSU was facing out through the case vents, and thinking about after seeing Gamers Nexus test a Fractal Design mini ITX case, if there’s any sound difference the orientation.
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      289. Robbie, how about a video where you give us a glimpse of your upcoming videos and open the comments to request videos. I watch a lot of your older videos as I tackle new projects and find that many are out of date due to software updates, many need clarification ( I need the Step By Step Guide For Complete Idiots type instruction), and asking questions generally gets no replies from anyone.
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      290. Nice project but some improvements are possible. For example some cable management should be in order in the space behind your fan. As it is now the cables are obstructing the airflow to the Sata backplate. And the airflow is already disputable as it is with such constructions. And by the way: that “backplate” is also known as an i/o shield.
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      292. Great video, exactly what I was looking for.
        I would like to point out a detail that was left out about the total cost, standard low budget PSUs normally have abysmal power efficiency under light load which means that the PSU could even pull double the required wattage from the wall (so, half goes to waste because of inefficiency), over a span of 5y this could add up to a substantial difference in the final price.
        (this is based on the fact that normally a NAS comes with a 12V power supply which is designed for that type of load while a standard PSU for PCs has 3V, 5V and 12V rails and the unit normally has its peak efficiency around 50-65% load)
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      294. I’ve been thinking about building a NAS myself but conflicted with platform. I want storage but also the ability to run a plex server and a small vm or two for system monitoring and other random things.
        Would a topton N6005 board suffice for this or, do I need to go with a ryzen 5700G?
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      299. Great video, and congrats on the 100K although I’m only just finding the channel now. Currently running 3x Buffalo Linkstation units on RAID 1 each and looking for something to increase my capacity/drive use efficiency and this has been a huge help. Any recommended 6x 3.5″ bay cases out there?
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      300. “Nas is like” for the ringtone is just sublime! ???? Congratulations on 100K subs! This channel guided me on HDD choices for my Jonsbo N1 NAS. Keep up the great work!
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      301. Great Video. I got motivated to build my own NAS, but when I checked out current prices on the recommended parts, I ended up with a $500 shopping cart on Amazon. Bummer. I guess word got out. That’s generally what happens. Still looking to keep the cost to about $250 – $300 . . .
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      302. Does any air actually flow out between the drives? I mean, that’s the point of that case fan right?

        Why would you run the OS from the USB stick? Wouldn’t it be considered better practice to use the nvme or the last sata for a small ssd?
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      307. I may have missed it, but was there a power consumption figure mentioned for this? PSU efficiency is quite important when you’re leaving something running 24/7! I was tempted to build one with a pico itx psu but daisy chaining power connectors is very frowned upon to get the necessary molex/sata connections!
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      311. Nice video, thankyou congratulations to 100k subs. I am horrified by the psu. This thing looks like fire hazard, I would not connect anything to it. Was probably the cheapest shit money could buy.
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      312. Wouldn’t it be better to put the power supply the other way around, so the fan is drawing the air through it’s dedicated grill on the NAS side? Or there was a particular reason to not do that that I haven’t noticed?
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      318. Fun! Wish I had build it like this myself last year, but that motherboard didn’t exist back then. Man, what a beautiful case. Mine is huge.

        Just as you’ve described, both NAS solutions have their ups and downs. I like both. My Asustor has been nice to me. The ones I built are used to back it up.
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      323. Congrats, for lightweight use should of gone Open MediaVault (OMV) nice easy JBOD system. Works really well for my home NAS, and of course it’s cheap and open source.
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      327. Another great video, and congrats on the 100K subs.
        You’re gonna have to do A LOT more content with this new bad boy. Detailed setup, apps, containers etc. Can’t wait for more!!!
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      331. Im curious about power supply install. Is the PSU fan supposed to be facing the interior of case rather than the “slotted/vents” in exterior wall of case?
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      340. Thank you so mutch @Robbie and eddy for the great videos and geting to 100K you both deserve this and more @NASCompares ps how about a DIY nas with a APU 8 or more cores and 32 gig of ram or 16 gig 6 m.2 0r 6 sata ssd`s and a nic 2.5 or 5 or 10 gig so on you get what i mean then plex test it with a vm and prox mox thanks as ever Kenny
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      341. The sad thing is that buying a modular PSU and short cables, in order not to have to deal with cable management, would cost more than the entire build.

        I really would ike to see a standard to make PC builds as cable-less as possible. Think about HP and lenovo workstations, or the old Mac pro.

        Congrats on the 100K milestone.
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      342. Great video! I’d love you to do a higher spec version of this video and see what you can put together on a £1000 budget. Even if it’s just a demo of what components you’d put together on that budget without the actual build! Would be great!
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      343. It’s not the peace-of-mind that’s worth the difference in price between the home built unit and a, say, Synology unit. It’s the support you get on an off-the-shelf unit and, specifically with Synology, it’s the software suite; DSM and all the wonderful Synology packages.
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      345. I do not yet have my first NAS. Even so, to my mind, these videos are informative, helpful and entertaining . Well done and Much appreciated. 100K well deserved.
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      346. So the total cost in cash terms (but not time clearly) would be in the same order as say a TERRAMASTER F4-423 at around £450. So on that basis what does your DIY approach offer over the prebuilt solution? ????????‍♂
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      349. Thanks for the video and congratulations on reaching 100k subs. Definitely a major landmark for any channel.

        I’d be very interested in how this compares to the Storaxa if that ever arrives.
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      350. Congrats!
        You’ve read my thoughts with this DIY NAS. But I had some doubts about noise level of each part (PSU fan, motherboard fan, etc.), then got tired of reading reviews for each potential part of this build… Finaly, I’ve bought terramaster and cleaned up my shopping cart at Ali. )))
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      353. Robbie, thanks a lot for doing this! I have a couple of questions: (#1) About 23:18 you stacked up all the PSU wires (of the DOA PSU) behind the fan intake guard. Are you concerned about the reduced airflow from the cabling obstruction, and if not, why not? (#2) The RMA PSU came without cables, how did you handle that? One last note, your closing comments on being time rich-money poor and the expertise needed to do all of this are GREAT! So many people just forget about all of that and it’s really important to remember. Thanks again for another very informative video.
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      355. Thanks! After being retired for 8 years from IT at a fortune 50 company, I have spent the last 6 weeks watching network and nas videos on YouTube because I got a knee replacement and have lots of time. @Nascompares is one of the better channels and to celebrate thier 100k here’s a tip. If you can afford it, you can too!
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      357. Yeah, Roll-your-own!… Here goes, DSM.7.2 with RedPill on Xeon E3-1226, 16GB Ram, 10 Sata ports (6 active now), two NVME drives) and a Four Port 2.5GB LAN. All for less than that NAS board plus its ram!. Oh, Container Manager in 7.2 is just brilliant!.
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      358. Greetings from Germany. I also discovered your channel a few months ago and subscribed. Congratulations on 100k subscribers. I like to watch your channel and it has also helped me in the decision which NAS I buy and then landed on the Synology DS 920+. Self-build is no longer an option for me. I used to assemble my PC myself, but that’s long gone. The professionals can still better assemble a system than me and it’s enough for me if I then only perform the one or other upgrade.
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      359. Congratulation for you 100k subscribers, well done.
        Just a stupid question. Why did you install the PSU with the fan pointing into the housing instead towards the housing? At least I would have installed it the other way around so that it could freely suck or blow air directly outside…
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      365. I subscribed when there were only a couple thousand subs. I thought to myself that this channel would never break 10K because NAS is such a small market. But here you are, 100K. Congrats!
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      368. Congratulations mate. I’m a recent subscriber, and I don’t watch every video (I mainly skip the ones on low-end NAS’s like the Synology 225X or whatever, as I know I’ll never get those), but you’ve provided great information and even when I feel I have a pretty different lean on a lot of things, I enjoy it nonetheless.

        And here I was expecting the 100K special would be Robbie embarking on The Great Seagull Massacre of 2023. Maybe an idea for 200K!
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      375. Congrats! Pretty soon you can slap a shiny plaque behind you, or maybe make a NAS case out of it!. A channel I run needs just 8k to hit 100k. Man is it slow going once you start watching the subscriber count 😀
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      376. This was fun…nice to see you build that in an hour ????

        Would have been nice to use a faster motherboard with more memory that can handle more complex VM duties… This seems like something you’d find in prebuilts
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      377. Congrats on 100K subscribers.
        Yeah, I can easily see 10+ hours of build time which at any reasonable hourly rate would easily add $200 to $400 dollars unless one was doing it as a learning experience and was extremely cash poor and time abundant (a student or someone laid off in a severe recession). Reminds me of the old Heath Kits for radios and other electronic devices. Even if one would do it once, would one do it twice, let alone half a dozen times? I am still puzzled by the price disparity between a laptop and a NAS. If I go to my local Target department store I can see laptops from an i7 all the way down to a Celeron. A NAS doesn’t have a large screen or a keyboard why does it cost more to manufacture than a laptop? Or the disparity between a NAS and an Apple Mac Mini. A NAS is brain dead, but has lots of storage, while an Apple Mac Mini has lots of processing power, but little storage and needs a “Time Machine” (which Apple no longer manufactures) for backup. Perhaps there is a synergistic setup between an Apple Mac Mini and a NAS. But, unless there is a new Apple product announcement Docker X86 is crippled on Apple Mac Mini with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, etc) and one is dependent on a limited and aging supply of Apple Mac Minis (which are soon going to lack security upgrades).
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      380. I get the budget objectives of this build but personally I’d want a more standardised components setup. Brand name PSU for sure (e.g. seasonic sgx-500 fully modular), a major brand ITX or matx mboard running a recent gen intel (for transcoding ability so no need for gpu) and a matching case to suit either a storage or performance server bias or both. Unraid has the flexibility for sure I have mine on a 12 year old system running backup for other devices as its main function. I was going to throw it out for ewaste otherwise but it got me thinking with the case it was in being about to hold 10 hdds. That’s often the first time you come across unraid when you wonder what do with old hardware after an upgrade.
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      384. congrats on the subs! great video. How high are the heatsinks on the mobo? I have an ye olde HP microserver with nice pro-level drive caddies that I’ve been wondering about updgrading for a while. In the microserver the proprietary size HP Mobo has 30mm high heatsinks, and is squeezed in under the drive bays at the bottom. Do any of the BKHD mobo heatsinks/connectors stick up higher than that? Might work if I can urge the microserver case to develop a new hole for the backplane.
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      385. Interesting video. But please get your mic off your desk. I listen mostly on headphones and the constant low frequency banging makes the video almost unwatchable. ????
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      389. Congratulation on 100K subscribers. Keep it up and thank you for sharing quality contents and mainly your passion to share unbiased info with us! Fantastic job! ????????
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      403. I wish I would have know about Unraid before I bought my expensive qNap. Not shortly after I purchased, they had the issue with the software and many qNaps being bricked unless you paid to unlock. I did my research first on the NAS but never considered or thought about building my own from left over parts. I have had nothing but problems in which the company did not know why and them not wanting to replace. So now to ensure I have all my data, I off sync weekly to a cloud system till I am able build an Unraid System for myself. What irritated me most was how my network was a home private network that the qNAP allowed invaders now into my home. So then after, i watched more videos of how to keep my self protected; did what they asked and had issues with creating their containers for pfsense then to the qNap to be told, my model is too old or missing the necessary specs. Well, it turns out to be my specific qNap — that has the issues not specifically the model. The help is not there from qNAP if the warranty is gone. That to me made me realize its better to build your own know everything is possible. Now I am looking to turn my qNAP into an unRaid once i figure out how to do it. When I found about SpaceInvaderOne — I watched all his videos from the beginning to current and was amazed with the community that was there willing to help. But I enjoy the discussions! Thanks
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      405. I think I can make a good comparison, since I am using 2 x qnap NAS one is TS473A with 32GB ram and 2 x NVME plus 4 x 4TB SSDs and the second one is only a 2 Bay 8GB ram 2 x 12 TB hdd, at the same time as a main home server I am using an Unraid with 3900x AMD 64GB ram 4 x 8TB U.2 zfs pool with a couple of NVMe caches without a reel Array, since an Array is too slow for me. I like really QTS especially QuTS Hero, because it is really very straight and easy to use. As a normal Nas just for file sharing using smb, qsync, hmb backup and a couple of small.comtainers it works very well, but sometimes I get crazy because it gets too slow since the compute power is really very bad. You pay 1000 bugs for only quite good nas like TS473A with 32 ram, then you get a terrible cpu which stocks if it needs to make parallel a couple of works. But in case unraid I can for same price much better hardware, besides that you can make thanks speceinvaders videos nearly everything what you need for a server and consumer pc.together. you can expand unlimited and use every app.docker or vm. Sometimes it is a little bit difficult to understand why it should be exactly that way, but this is really not a con. The TS473A is working with my unraid almost redundant, all shares are being synchronized immediately and the Ts231 is only for backup, which has no regular internet connection. Qnap has very good mobile apps, for example qsync is in my opinion one of the best in its class or qfile, since I am using still qfile if I am outside, instead unraid with vpn. The snapshots in QuTS are just fantastic compared in umraid, because in unraid it is not so easy and managable like in qts. Finally I recommend both unraid and a turnkey Solution, since a turnkey solution is good for backup and file-sharing, but who wants to make experiments on a home lab cheaper then they should try unraid but for unraid and co. You need o bring some linux knowledge
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      408. I just watched this video from techone about how most modern raid systems don’t properly correct bit rot or parity errors. This was shocking to me. Seems like only ZFS provides the error checking and correction and all of these NAS systems are not protecting our data? Please provide your opinion on this problem.
        https://youtu.be/l55GfAwa8RI
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      412. After more than 12 years of Synology (1621+ was the last one), I’ve been using an Unraid system for 4 months and don’t really look back to Synology. For users without interest to look under the surface, Turnkey is 100% the right choice. Unraid and similar systems require an interest in the system. In principle, you have to have a basic understanding of Linux. The more, the better 😉
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      414. Great discussion. Ed’s the best.

        Both solutions definitely have their benefits depending on your need and desire for tinkering. I got started with Unraid on a old PC and it’s been great getting me started down the rabbit hole. Obviously, spaceinvader has been invaluable. I’ve since bought a DS923+ to get familiarized so it can eventually be set up for remote backup at the parent’s house. Definitely seemed to be the best solution to set up for them as something that they can also actually use. Honestly, I might keep a synology around in house just for Photos as it seems to be the best option for my needs that I’ve come across so far. Otherwise, the flexibility of unraid is just what I want for everything else. And, yes, it’s fun.
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      416. Both paths have big plusses and minus to them and it comes down to what someone *really* wants when managing their data.

        The big differentiator for me though is usually when things don’t go right. For instance, sure you can buy an HP retail server to then install Unraid, or other, onto it. But the thing is when you are having issues what help and support will you get from HP when it goes wrong. In so many cases with mixed environments I’ve seen one provider point the finger at another. So one really has to be careful with what warranty one actually gets when you go off reservation. In a lot of cases 1st party manufacturers will require a specific software install to be present before they’ll even help you. Support costs actually make up a surprisingly large part of a unit’s overall cost.

        As for having to send your turnkey NAS in to the manufacturer for any sort of repair. Yes that’s entirely true and often for such small things. That said, for many of the Synology NAS devices you can get the extended warranty for something like $50. This not only give extra warranty but it also opens the door whats of greater value to me and that’s the expedited exchange service where once an RMA is agreed, Synology will send give you the option of having them send you out a replacement *BEFORE* you need to send in your RMA device. You then have 28 days to get the RMA device back to them. This is handled with Synology directly and not through your reseller/wholesaler.

        The other big differentiator is the ease at which you can get high system density. Yes, you can DIY yourself some very dense systems but the easiest way to get it is with turnkey. I don’t know about anyone else but my floor and shelf space costs money.

        PS My Synology RS1221+, 2 x DS620slims, RT6600ax wifi, Ubiquiti DM-SE and 24 PoE switch all operate in under 100W.
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      417. I don’t think you should talk about winners here. Both solutions have a different approach to the same problem. I have a little experience with TrueNAS and I’ve been looking to move to unraid, but it required time investment to do the things I want, while a turnkey solution has them out of the box with little configuration. If someone who’s not tech savvy ask me for what NAS to get I would tell them a turnkey, but if it’s someone tech savvy I’ll definitely point them to any of the free solutions (and he probably has an old pc lying around to use). It almost feel like, do you want take out or do you want to learn to cook, one is easy the other takes time but in the long run is more rewarding. And also, when I was job hunting, putting in my curriculum that I know how to deploy a NAS, even if it was not relevant to the job, it gave me some talking time to at least show I can self teach me things and pretty much gave me the title of the tech guy (for better or worst).
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      420. Excellent comparison video. Great high-level overview of each platform. Thanks!

        Just bought my first turnkey solution for ease of maintenance and low power consumption, but as a tinkerer, the UnRAID DIY environment speaks to my heart.
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      421. I had Unraid before going to Synology DSM. The reason I switched was because I found installing apps/dockers on Unraid to be unnecessarily complicated. One really has to know their way around Linux to make it work. Synology DSM is just easy and I can install all the apps I need.
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      422. Space invaders videos have helped me learn unraid and the videos have been invaluable. I love unraid! I tried truenas scale and I couldn’t get any apps or VMs to work, and OMV is kinda underpowered especially on a Pi4 (which is what started me down this road)

        If turnkey floats your boat, do it. If an old Pc as all you can afford, do it. I built a modern NAS using a fractal define R5 and a couple 8 terabyte ironwolfs
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      424. awesome conversations with very smart people, both of you; as “turnkey” nas user (and very happy about it) i will continue using it, but i do understand the point of spaceinvaderone during the conversation.

        P.S. i found the turnkey nas, as fun as the builted from scratch ones; servers are awesome
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      426. Great video. I’m on team turn key but I think we could add “hardware reliability”. Thanks to the fanless power brick and low heat emission we have an extra layer of durability and reliability.

        Although it was a great video to peek in to Unraid. Looks fun to play around on used parts.
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      427. It’s great you have a free Q&A service but I asked a question about three weeks ago that therefore has not been answered within the 3-5 days
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      428. considering im buuilding a NAS tester box, this is a great vid for me to get ideas of alternates to my great Qnap box, i already know there are limitations of it, but i use the poor thing to its limits, and already need more storage as 32TB doesnt seem to be enough for my wife, holy crap she can fill that box up. (my ripping bluerays and stuffing the mildly compressed MKV’s dont help i guess.
        im glad i moved to a RAID box, i already had 1 scare where drive 3 had a super minor glitch and the raid took it offline for me to check, and rebuilt it back after i found there was nothing wrong and has been working flawlessly ever since, im sold on these types of solutions. oddly enough even being in the tech field since ’80’s i still never bothered with RAID even though i owned IDE raid card, i never even tried to use it beyond a simple IDE controller. well, im trying it now.
        it is my opinion, if you are buying a NAS settup and only plan on having a couple of terrabytes or loading it up with drives smaller than 10TB, do NOT waste your time with turnkey.
        i also dont like the idea of TK NAS boxes using chips old enough to be in my old dell netbook.
        i would like more info on using boxes like Qnap’s jbod boxes (ie: TL-D800C or TL-R1200S-RP) with unraid/TruNAS setups. (video please, yes ill check his site on this stuff too)
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      430. Enjoyed the video thanks 🙂 I ordered the DS1522+ recently (got it used for $550 from Amazon and will have in a few days). Also acquired 3 x 14TB Seagate Exos HDD for $115 a piece from Ebay — will get those about the same time. The Synology can do a lot of neat things and I think I’ll use it for a while and perhaps also setup an Unraid or Truenas. I used to have an unraid system about 10 years ago but sold it after using it for a year because I needed the money at the time. Nice to know unraid supports virtual machines, containers, zfs, etc. now. I’ll probably setup a TrueNAS Scale system next and then perhaps an Unraid as well, just to learn them all for fun.

        But looking at what all Synology can do so easily it’s giving me a lot of good feelings inside lol. Much like Novell Netware 3.11 did back in 1991 🙂

        Part of my challenge for setting up a Truenas or Unraid system is finding something that is power efficient and also works with ECC memory. I was considering the Dell Precision 7820 but I read it uses like 130 watts idle. Bleh.
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