Minisforum N5 Pro NAS

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Posts
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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
 
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