Minisforum N5 Pro NAS

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
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This upcoming NAS looks pretty decent for those not wanting to use turnkey solutions such as Synology and QNAP.

AMD 12 core/24 threads, up to 96GB ECC DDR5 RAM, 5 bays, 2x SSD slots, 10 GbE/5GbE, PCI expansion, NVMe support etc.

MInisforum-N5-Pro-NAS-CES-2025-6-2048x1542.webp


Specs copied from the nascompares article.

Code: 
CATEGORY              | SPECIFICATIONS
----------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------
Processor             | AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX PRO 370 (12 Cores / 24 Threads)
                      | Base Clock: 3.5 GHz, Boost Clock: Up to 5.2 GHz
                      | Advanced AMD Zen 5 Architecture
                      | Integrated AI Engine for enhanced data processing and analysis
Memory                | DDR5 SODIMM ×2, Up to 96GB (48GB per slot, Up to 5600MHz)
                      | Real ECC Memory supported
Storage Expansion     | HDD/SSD Bays: 5 x 3.5″/2.5″ SATA HDD/SSD Bays (Up to 22TB per drive, SATA 3.0)
                      | M.2 SSD Slots:
                      |   - 1 x M.2 2230/2280 NVMe SSD (Up to 4TB, PCIe 4.0 x1)
                      |   - 1 x U.2/M.2 2280/22110 NVMe SSD (Up to 15TB, PCIe 4.0 x1)
                      |   - 1 x U.2/M.2 2280/22110 NVMe SSD (Up to 15TB, PCIe 4.0 x2)
PCIe Expansion        | 1 x PCIe x16 (PCIe 4.0 x4)
                      | OCuLink 4i x1 (PCIe 4.0 x4)
Networking            | 1 x 10Gbps Ethernet Port (RJ45)
                      | 1 x 5Gbps Ethernet Port (RJ45)
Peripherals Interface | USB Ports:
                      |   - USB3.2 Gen2 Type-A (10Gbps) x3 (2 rear, 1 front)
                      |   - USB3.2 Gen2 Type-A (10Gbps) x1 (Internal)
                      |   - USB2.0 x1 (Rear)
                      |   - USB4 (40Gbps, Alt DP) Type-C x2 (Front)
                      | Audio Outputs:
                      |   - 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack x1
                      |   - HDMI x1
                      | Video Outputs:
                      |   - HDMI 2.0 x1
                      |   - Type-C (Alt DP2.0) x2
Power                 | DC-IN Jack x1 (19V / 12.63A)
Motherboard Design    | Modular motherboard with removable tray for easy maintenance
Cooling               | Horizontal cooling system with controlled airflow from front to back
Highlights            | Built-in 10Gbps NIC
                      | Enterprise-class SSD support (Up to 2 drives)
                      | Supports standard PCIe expansion
                      | Supports real ECC memory

This box looks ideal for TrueNAS as an example, Unraid or even as a hypervisor. I hope the Plex can make use of transcoding but it can be a bit hit and miss with AMD. TrueNAS historically has played much better with Intel CPUs also.

I'll be keeping an eye on this. I also hope they could come up with a short depth rack mount solution.
 
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With that solid front I can see the HDDs getting very hot. Just like on my N1 until I removed the front plate.

I saw a video which touched on the N5 and what struck me was that the bottom tray with the motherboard slides out which makes maintenance and upgrades very easy so I can see this being favoured by corporates with lots of sites and also exhibitors.
 
Will be interesting how this compares to a DIY build cost wise.

My current NAS is getting a bit long in the tooth, so if this is cheaper than building your own system in a NAS case I'll give it a serious look
 
Still waiting for a U.2/U.3 NAS at under ~£800, the QNAP one with EPYC in is just overkill unless you are using it as a VM host as well, but the specs on this look great on this.
 
I actually ended up ditching my QNAP NAS and gone with a mini PC and HDD enclosure with NVME storage on the front end doing real-time replication to the HDDs.

One of the reasons being the stupid QNAP OS would keep spinning up HDDs to do media scanning/indexing, etc. without the ability to control that, but overall I find it a superior and more versatile solution.
 
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I moved from QNAP to Synology for a few reasons. Many vulnerabilities due to hard coded passwords, performance issues, lacklustre support etc. The Synology is great, but does lack some of the more advanced features such as the ability to create sub interfaces. I also tried TrueNAS and did have some issues, I hope they're fixed those now. Tempted to get one of these to try it out but I'd really prefer a 2/3U rack mount option rather than tower enclosure.
 
ChrisD. said:
Ah, yes I missed that. They don't seem to be putting those interfaces on the kind of units people on here would buy which is a shame.
Click to expand...

I just picked up 4x 15.36TB WD Ultrastar SN650's for £700 each, they came with 10 hours on them and a few GB written. 2x cost of a NAS disk, but much better overall I think. Be great if Minisforum or similar brought our a convertor bay to use the PCI-E bus.
 
If you building your own you can use the ASUS hyper M2 card with M2 to U2 adapters to add 4 U2 ports to a system relatively cheaply.

Would be great to see U2/3 ports being added to more enthusiast NAS systems though
 
Rroff said:
I actually ended up ditching my QNAP NAS and gone with a mini PC and HDD enclosure with NVME storage on the front end doing real-time replication to the HDDs.

One of the reasons being the stupid QNAP OS would keep spinning up HDDs to do media scanning/indexing, etc. without the ability to control that, but overall I find it a superior and more versatile solution.
Click to expand...
Hi! Would you mind telling me what enclosure you use and how it is connected to your pc? I have a mini pc as well and I am constantly thinking about building my own NAS like you did. But i learned that there might to be issues with connecting the enclosure via USB instead of SATA as you would have it in a “real” NAS. I’m curious how your setup/connection looks like and if your happy with your solution!
 
DulliTamTam said:
Hi! Would you mind telling me what enclosure you use and how it is connected to your pc? I have a mini pc as well and I am constantly thinking about building my own NAS like you did. But i learned that there might to be issues with connecting the enclosure via USB instead of SATA as you would have it in a “real” NAS. I’m curious how your setup/connection looks like and if your happy with your solution!
Click to expand...

It isn't an off the shelf solution, I've got an old SATA enclosure modified to USB-C, with a 2TB Samsung 980 NVME in the mini PC itself which acts as the frontend storage with robocopy scripts I created to do real time replication from the NVME to the external HDDs, and using a mix of software on the mini PC for NAS functionality. It works for me (I don't have massive storage requirements).
 
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Interested to see how this stacks up price wise.

I’ve been pondering an upgrade for my Gen10 Microserver as the little AMD APU is starting to show its lack of grunt and so is 4 disk bays.

This fits the bill perfectly. 2 NVMEs with one for cache one for parity on unraid, then 5 3.5” slow drives
 
Still not settled on what upgrade option I should go with for my Emby server (Ryzen 2400G, 16GB RAM, 4 HDD). I was considering just doing a straight upgrade and use the same chassis (but it's a tad loud) to a 8700G but this has definitely caught my attention.

Just recommended a Minisforum mini PC (UM790 Pro) to my brother-in-law for a family/first computer for my niece and they love it.

Keen to see how this APU stacks against a 8700G.
 
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doodah said:
Just recommended a Minisforum mini PC to my brother-in-law for a family/first computer for my niece and they love it.
Click to expand...

I was kind of tempted to upgrade my City of Heroes server to a Minisforum 795S7 with the Ryzen 7945HX LOL but the case is too wide for my 10" rack setup. Totally overkill but the game server does like a lot of cores and 32GB RAM, despite working fine on less and I do spin up other game servers from time to time - will probably build something around the MS-01 instead.
 
Well this all sent me down a rabbit hole I didn't necessarily need to but I've just pulled the trigger on a DIY Equivalent.

Topton N17 Ryzen 7840HS MITX Board
Jonsbo N3
350W SilverStone Flex Series FX350-G
32GB DDR5 Vengeance Grey
2x 500GB Crucial P3

I just need to decide on a HBA situation but all in all gives me a 8c/16t 8 Bay NAS for a little under £600, and I'll no doubt recoup a little back selling the Gen10 Microserver
 
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