Hmm. Let’s say I add 6 SSDs, 2TB each, for a total of 600€. In a RAID6 configuration, that gives me 8TB of storage. Compare that to a classical NAS with 2×8 TB HDDs for a total of 350€.
The HDDs will draw around 4W idle each, 8W in total. Assuming 0.3€/kWh, over a span of 5 years, that is approximately 100€. The power consumption of the SSDs will be negligible.
So, just in terms of storage, the SSD solution is around 33% more expensive over 5 years. If you include the cost of the NAS itself, the price increment is even less noticeable.
HDDs will draw around 4W idle each, 8W in total
Whether your drives are idle is also a very use-case specific thing and I wouldn’t spend any time trying to generalize based on that math as a “oh this is how it works for everyone”.
In my case, I’ve got 5 drives all spun up at all times because of torrrent clients, Jellyfin users, and just general media acquisition and public content serving.
This thing would dramatically reduce my power footprint and save me giant buckets of money over it’s lifespan while being smaller/faster IO performance/lower noise.
(My current nas sucks down about 120-140w 24/7, so…)
My current nas sucks down about 120-140w 24/7, so…
Ouch. I’m around 50W, and my HW isn’t anything special: Ryzen 1700 + 2 HDDs + 1 SSD.
But that is neglecting the performance aspect.
Something like this can be very good for offloading large amounts of data onto a parity backed array either to be moved to a proper long term storage solution later or to be actively worked.
High resolution / bitrate footage comes to mind, where you may be offloading multiple cameras at once and need high write performance.
It’s pretty unlikely that SSDs will have price parity with spinning rust anytime soon, but the value in them has always been performance.
Yes, absolutely. Right now, SSDs are probably superior in comparison to HDDs in every category except for price (and long-term data integrity when switched off). But when you consider large parity raids and take into account the cost of electricity, even the price difference might only be small, making SSDs even more attractive.
Yes but this is a computer and not just a RAID enclosure, so while your math is correct it doesn’t really discount the utility/value. It’s like comparing a switch and an Xbox when somebody explicitly wants a handheld machine
Exactly, it’s very small for a “NAS”, that’s the main advantage. Sub 1liter if my math is right.
You didn’t count the cost of size and environmental damage.
Are people really doing NAS with SSD? Not just for cache?
Yes, for purposes of noise, size, speed and power efficiency
More reliable, less power draw than HDDs, faster and far more space efficient.
Unless you are data hoarding random torrents, 6 to 12 TB is plenty.
Are they really more reliable than NAS “grade” HDD - and a ssd cache? I always saw SSD with a max write on them, and a NAS does plenty of I/O.
Admittedly I’ve never had an SSD go bad in my computers, but for some reason I never considered them as a good enough alternative for a NAS.
Are there any data you know of the top of your head before I go searching?
Anecdata, but SSDs will last longer than you want to use them in terms of write endurance.
My NAS OS SSDs are 500gb hynix drives from about 8 years ago, and they’re pushing 150 TBW.
150TB is a LOT of write cycles on a small drive, and they’re still reporting 94% endurance remaining.
The controller will die or I’ll upgrade well before that breaks at the rate it’s going.
Also keep in mind that you can read flash all you want and that doesn’t wear anything (unlike a HDD, amusingly), so for most consumer use cases, they’ll load the drive up with their data, and then only slowly modify or add to it, but have lots and lots of read access.
I hadn’t considered that, it makes all the sense of course, as a NAS, even when torrenting with cache enabled, will give an SSD less wear and tear than an HDD.
It comes down to price vs everything else
If you use a NAS for file storage it really does not do extreme amounts of IO. Similar to a desktop SSD.
There are torrent freaks out there who really need that price performance fix for everyone else SSDs are fine. Always run them in RAID anyway for redundancy and get TLC storage not QLC.
TIL about TLC vs QLC, thanks
I guess my next Nas will be SSD then
If you don’t cheap out you are fine
More reliable
Heavily depends. If you want to use it as long-term cold storage you absolutely should not use SSDs, they’re losing data when left unpowered for too long. While HDDs are also not perfect in retaining data forever, they won’t fail as quickly when left on a shelf.
Good and true point, but arguably most NASs are built to be used, not to be not-used…
Well, they arguably can also be used as one big long-term storage. Not sure who’d need to save so much data for a long time, but there surely will be at least some people who do and buy the “modern solution” over old HDDs thinking they’re better in general. As the “family backup” for example, or as cold storage solution in faculties that can be quickly accessed if needed.
Read somewhere about a professor who used SSDs to “permanently” store important data on SSDs (perhaps in the comments of the article above) for a few years. Well, wasn’t that permanent…
If you live in a small place and dont have massive storage needs, it can make sense for the sake of the quietness.
I’ve been on the lookout for a quiet, inexpensive NAS that I can put under my bed and forget about. I currently have 2x8TB in a mirror, and I’m only using 2-3TB.
In fact, I might even feel comfortable eliminating the RAID w/ SSDs once I clean up our backup strategy (yes, RAID isn’t a backup, I know and I feel bad).
This. I can’t afford reliable always-on storage now, but I plan to build for SSDs rather than HDDs because I don’t have a separate room to put it into.
I have a long-term dream to build a fanless SSD-powered NAS
Self-hosted, silent, fast - what’s not to love, aside from steep price tag?
I did, because of energy efficiency and quietness. But also I heavily compromised on the amount of space.
I was just thinking “bah ssd, that’ll be expensive” but a quick search on Amazon suggests prices have dropped quite a bit.
12Gb soldered on memory though. That’s a shame.
That’s quite the RAM for a NAS, no? I think mine has 512MB.
Yeah, my NAS uses 3GB out of my 16GB total. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it use more than 5GB.
Using a machine like this just as a NAS is a bit of waste. It’s a full blown PC that would work very nicely as a home server for Jellyfin etc. The RAM will limit the utility, though.
ZFS needs a lot of ram
I was recently told that 16GB wasn’t much for ZFS…
Maybe it isn’t bad if you have good SSDs
RemindMe 10 years
You are probably right, mine is from 2013 😰
Depends on your usecase. This could very well be more than just a NAS.
Well yes but is is a NAS not a homelab right?
Again, not necessarily. I have something very similar I use as a server.
The ME mini features 12GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory, which means the RAM will be soldered to the mainboard and not user upgradeable.
Aaaaand I’m out.
Edit: Hijacking my own comment to update the update
Update: The Beelink ME mini is priced at 1295 CNY in China, which is about $177 at the current exchange rate. It’s likely to cost a bit more outside of China.
Eh, 12GB is plenty for me. I’m currently using ~3GB out of 16GB, so I’m nowhere close to that cap. My NAS really doesn’t do much.
I mean, that’s fine if that works for you, but consider more than just your current situation. If you ever wanted to upgrade it or it ever failed sometime in the future, you’d be boned. Personally I have had RAM fail and it cost me about $8 and 10 minutes to repair, rather than several hundred dollars replacing the entire machine.
Sure. I just don’t see myself needing more than 8GB RAM, especially w/ fast NVMe drives as swap. It’s a simple NAS running Jellyfin (max 1-2 clients) and a handful of other services.
If I need more RAM, chances are I’ll also need more CPU as well, in which case a larger upgrade is in order. If I truly only need more RAM, I could pretty easily move some services to an SBC like a Raspberry Pi.
It’s certainly a bummer, but not a deal breaker. If the price is right and I can find inexpensive enough NVMe drives, I can compromise a bit on RAM.
especially w/ fast NVMe drives as swap
These won’t be fast, as detailed in the OP:
Since Intel’s Alder Lake-N processors only have 9 PCIe lanes which have to be shared between the SSDs and other hardware, the M.2 slots include five PCIe 3.0 single-lane connections, and one PCIe 3.0 x2 connection
PCIe 3.0 is 1 GB/s per lane. So nothing life changing, but still reasonably fast (way faster a HDD). If you rarely need swap, you should be fine for the few times you do.
Solderer ram is slightly more power efficient. And this is probably a laptop board.
That said, 12gb is slightly too low for my liking. Though an N200 CPU does not have much headroom to upgrade for anyway.
Solderer ram is slightly more power efficient.
That may be true but I don’t really care either way.
And this is probably a laptop board.
Pretty sure a laptop board would not fit in this thing. It’s most definitely a dedicated board for this machine.
Though an N200 CPU does not have much headroom to upgrade for anyway.
You can use at least 32GB.
not to mention there are 48 and 64gb dimms out now too that work with basically all alder lake atoms
Yeah that’s just so dumb. Also, i wouldn’t be comfortable with the OS on eMMC storage. That’s hardly known for reliability. So close and yet so far.
If it was cost effective maybe but I think this is a bit pricy
Just in case the only thing you’re looking for is the price, I’ll save you a click.
Beelink hasn’t announced how much the ME mini will cost or when it will be available for purcahse yet.
If it’s less than $200, it might be worth it. Doubtful though.
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Curious what pricing will be like. I use a beelink as a router rn
I hope for it to be somewhere in the $200-250 range. Everything above kinda makes it unattractive when the Flashstor 6 exists.
This would be perfect if I could fit 24th NVMe devices in this, but not looking to pay more then ~300-350 CAD in a device with no hdd/ssd
How much do you expect to pay for the 24 NVMe disks?
Probably $3.5 tops
Bout Tree fiddy?
Thanks for posting. Would like to use this for multiple reasons.
