eicar

Researched a little myself. The USB is just transmitting the data between the Key M slot and the chipset, which is a Diodes/Pericom PI7C9X2G404SL, and that is a switch, so no bifurcation is needed on the board. (Don't even know if M.2 bifurcation is possible directly.) But it's a 4 port 4 lane switch, so it's only using 3 out of 4 possible ports, and it's PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0, so each x1 slot will be bottlenecked at 500 MB/s instead of 1 GB/s. https://www.diodes.com/part/view/PI7C9X2G404SL So not really useful. (Maybe it's better to use a simple M.2 to PCIe x4 riser/extender, and then use a gen3 x4 to quad x1 switch/extension in the PCIe slot… if those even exist.)

Very interesting, especially with the Mini-ITX kit. Though the SATA chipset connects to only one lane of PCIe 3.0, so this is only a good idea, if you plan to use HDDs. (Four SATA SSDs would be bottlenecked.) Question: since the M.2 slot actually has 4 lanes (gen3 x4), could you use something like the M.2 Key M to triple PCIe x1 riser/adapter/extender by Kalea Informatique? It would give you options for adding (a) an x1 4-port SATA controller for a total of eight SATA ports, (b) a gen3 M.2 SSD carrier card (x1) or even more SATA, and (c) an SFP+ 10GbE card like the TRENDnet TEG-10GECSFP 3.0R. (With only one lane, the latter wouldn't run at full 10G speed, of course, but could still reach something like 700–800 MB/s.) You would lose one PCIe lane in the process, though. (But maybe there are extenders with 4 * x1 or 2 * x1 + 1 * x2 PCIe slots. ❓)

TRENDnet TEG-10GECSFP 3.0R? https://www.trendnet.com/langge/products/10g-sfp-pcie-adapter/10-gigabit-pcie-sfp-network-adapter-TEG-10GECSFP-v3 Maximum power coonsumption: 1.5 W

64 GB for N series CPUs would be really nice. I have read so far that only the Intel Core CPUs might enjoy the upcoming memory boost… but of course I could be wrong. Nice to know about the 48 GB. 👍 As for a carrier card: that would be a gen3 single M.2 carrier card for 1 GB/s. A dual card with a PEX would surely work, too, but you'd only get 500 MB/s per SSD. (And then you can just use a dual or quad SATA SSD controller anyway.) One possibility for a PLX/PEX card: https://www.kalea-informatique.com/lrnv9547lp-2i-pci-express-x-8-to-dual-m-2-nvme-ssd-switch-adapter.htm There are also quad PEX cards by Kalea, but then you'd only have 250 MB/s per SSD, but still 1 GB/s overall… so you could actually add 16 TB raw as 12 TB RAID5. 😆

I have a question about the ASMedia chipset ASM1061 for PCIe 2.0 x1 to dual SATA at 500 MB/s each, which is perfect for SATA SSDs at (almost) full speed: https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/77BYq58SX3HyepH7/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5 It has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread, and several controllers using the ASM1061 seem to be on the recommended list, but at least one user also wrote that at least this one older PCIe-2.0-based chipset doesn't play quite so well with regard to power efficiency, ASPM, C-states etc. compared to the newer PCIe-3.0-based ASMedia chipsets, i.e. the ASM1164, ASM1166 & ASM1064, which according to the specs support L0s/L1/L23/L3 power saving states and L1 substate deep power saving mode on the PCIe side, plus Partial/Slumber and Device Sleep power management on the SATA side. So does anyone know for sure if the ASM1061, which doesn't even support SATA Partial/Slumber power management states like its bigger brother ASM1062, should be avoided if one were to build a NAS/server that is to be as power efficient as possible? I'm asking because I stumbled on a yet-to-be-released ATX board, the ASRock Rack W680 WS: https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=W680%20WS#Specifications It has a total of 14 SATA ports, whereas 6 of those beyond the usual 8 are provided using 3 ASM1061 chipsets. (Maybe a bit too big of a board for my taste, but that's when I remembered about the ASM1061.) tia

Good video by Wolfgang — @notthebee ? — on an ASRock N100DC-ITX build. He also briefly mentions the slightly increased power consumption regarding the Realtek NIC, and I have read elsewhere that these can make a build draw more power than when using boards with Intel NICs. His solution according to the video was this command: echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/r8169/0000\:01\:00.0/link/l1_aspm PCIe single SFP+ NIC used for the build is the TRENDnet TEG-10GECSFP : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4FYWUN So the N100DC-ITX is A-OK for a powerful enough but still low-power NAS build, but (as mentioned in passing in the video) the real bottleneck will be the memory with only 32 GB max. (I haven't yet read anything about N100 boards accepting 48 GB of RAM. With an update, some latest gen Intel chips will also be able to work with 64 GB per RAM slot, but I can't say if the N100 will be among those… probably just the Intel Core CPUs.) Personally, I might still use ASRock's N100M Micro-ATX board and live with 2–3 W higher power consumption… that way you would be able to use a standard ATX PSU and wouldn't need to fiddle around with DC power vs SATA power connections and a PSU jumper bridge, and you'd get a second PCIe 3.0 slot (x1), e.g. for 2–4 more SATA drives down the road, or for an M.2 NVMe SSD carrier card.

edit/delete: looked into the wrong manual

Another one: the new CWWK Mini ITX NAS motherboard, which also sells under the Topton brand, either with the N100 or the i3-N305: https://cwwk.net/products/12th-i3-n305-n100-nas-motherboard-6-bay-dc-power-2xm-2-nvme-6xsata3-0-pcie-x1-4x-i226-v-2-5g-lan-ddr5-itx-mainboard Variants with the N97 and the N200 are also possible, it seems. 6 SATA ports, five of them seemingly via the JMicron JMB585 chipset (PCIe 3.0 x2 to 5 SATA), available via a 4i Mini SAS connector and two standard SATA ports. Now, when looking at other N series boards, the Intel chips seem to have the option for either one or two native SATA lanes. (And according to the diagram in the OP, N series can have up to four native SATA lanes via 2 * PCIe 3.0 x1.) However, on this board, and according to the CWWK specs, the N CPU gives us only one native SATA lane, and the JMB585 chipset offers the other five, four of them via Mini SAS, so we won't get full SATA speeds for the 5 chipset SATA lanes, only 393.8 MB/s on paper, real-world surely less. (But that would still yield an internal read speed of around 2 GB/s with six SATA SSDs in a RAID5/RAIDz1.) 2 * backmount M.2 NVMe slots at gen3 x1 speed (0.985 GB/s) each Backmount memory: 1 * DDR5 (32 GB or maybe 48 GB max) Two USB 2.0 Type A slots, good for an Unraid boot drive DC input 4 * 2.5 GbE RJ45 ports with Intel i226-V, which is better for power consumption than Realtek, as e.g. found on the ASRock N100M One additional PCIe 3.0 x1 lane, which you can use for either: PCIe slot (x1 physical, open), or mini PCIe slot (backmount), or SIM card (backmount) Note: the JMB585 might not be friendly, when it comes to ASPM.

Biostar BIADN-IHT (Mini ITX) with options for N97, N100 and i3-N305. https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/ipc/introduction.php?S_ID=92 Not really suited for a NAS build: only one native SATA, only one M.2 Key M x1 slot, no PCIe slot.

Shenzhen Gowin have released three 1U rackmount solutions based on the N100 and i3-N305, including a fanless option… well, semi-fanless (see below). These actually show very well, what you could theoretically achieve with a low-power CPU that has only nine lanes of PCIe 3.0. These machines are primarily meant as a router/firewall and small server, but maybe it's possible to tweak them for home NAS/server use. The N305 flagship models come with either two 25GbE SFP28 ports, provided by an NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx (formerly Mellanox), using the MCX4421A-ACQN chipset, or with two 10GbE SFP+ ports (NIC/chipset unknown). Note: I might have read somewhere that the Mellanox/NVIDIA/Acquantia NICs don't play well in terms of power management/saving, and that Intel NICs/chipsets are superior in this regard. Gowin GW-BS-1UR2-25G (32GB RAM): https://www.gowinfanless.com/products/network-device/1u-2u-server/gw-bs-1ur2-25g Gowin GW-BS-1UR2-10G (32GB RAM): https://www.gowinfanless.com/products/network-device/1u-2u-server/gw-bs-1ur2-10g The base model (N100) "only" comes with dual 10GbE SFP+. Gowin GW-BS-1UR1-10G (only 16GB RAM): https://www.gowinfanless.com/products/network-device/1u-2u-server/gw-bs-1ur1-10g As for storage, the servers provide two PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe slots at x1 speed, and two SATA ports. You could add four more SATA ports with two M.2-to-dual-SATA adapters using the ASMedia ASM1061 chipset (PCIe 2.0 x1 to dual SATA), but you would lose both M.2 slots. You could go with a single quad-SATA or even 6-port SATA solution (ASM1164 or ASM1166), while retaining one M.2 slot, but the SATA drive speeds would be capped at 250 MB/s max and 166 MB/s respectively, because even though the ASM11xx chipsets support PCIe 3.0 x2, the M.2 slots are only x1. At any rate, there seems to be enough space inside the 1U chassis to house four additional 2.5 inch SATA SSDs. You would just need to solve the SATA power issue, either with splitter cables or with a different PSU or maybe some adapter cables for the built-in PSU. Speaking of: the PSU has a fan, so even the "fanless" model wouldn't be quiet, but you can replace the fan… or maybe even the PSU. (?) Back to NAS/server use… one fundamental problem: to accomodate for all the I/O, the two built-in SATA ports are actually not the usual native ports; according to ServerTheHome, the server seems to be using an ASMedia ASM1153E chipset for USB3-to-SATA conversion instead… and I can't say if this would work well with Unraid or ZFS. But all in all, it shows that you can do a lot with only 9 lanes of PCIe. What about power consumption? According to STH, who have tested the i3-N305 25G model, the idle consumption (afaik without storage) is around 27–29W, whereas the 25G NIC would be gobbling up at least 10–12W of that. (It would be less, of course, with a dual SFP+ NIC.) Under load it's about 51W maximum. I assume that the high idle consumption is also due to all the I/O built into these machines, so it's not really a good solution for a home NAS/server imho. And according to one user report at STH, the board, even when the CPU & system have been shut down, will still draw 15W.

Another factor might be the SATA chipset: the CWWK uses the JMB585, and from what I could gather online, unlike e.g. the ASMedia ASM1166, the JMicron chipset apparently doesn't support ASPM (device sleep), and if true, then with a NAS board based on the JMB585 you would be drawing more power at idle than with one that uses an ASM11xx. However, in their specs PDF for the JMB585, JMicron actually state that they support not only "PCIe link layer power saving mode", but also "SATA link power saving mode (partial and slumber)" and "SATA Partial / Slumber power management state". So I can't say for sure if the reports about problems with JMicron & ASPM are true. Maybe one of you knows more about those chipsets with regard to power management. JMB585 etc.: https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/15 ASM1166: https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/45aYq54sP8Qh7WH8/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5

Turnkey update: Ugreen NASync DXP2400 (2-bay) and Ugreen NASync DXP4800 (4-bay) to be released in a couple of months, both using the N100 CPU. No official page on their site at the moment, but here is one from the Google cache: archived: https://archive.is/saRkb original: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fnasync.ugreen.com%2F And an article here: German: https://www.computerbase.de/2024-01/ugreen-nasync-neun-nas-mit-intel-cpus-und-10-gbe-enthuellt/ Google Translate: https://www-computerbase-de.translate.goog/2024-01/ugreen-nasync-neun-nas-mit-intel-cpus-und-10-gbe-enthuellt/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en Both will come with two M.2 SSD slots, probably x1, one or two 2.5GbE NICs depending on the model, and only 8 GB of DDR5 memory, which you can update to 16 GB (officially), and maybe to 32 GB (inofficially). Unclear if you'll be able to install Unraid, but I assume it will be possible, similar to TerraMaster, Asustor et al.

Another thing to note is that the U300 chipset connects with a DMI at a speed/bandwidth of PCIe 2.0 x8, i.e. 4 GB/s max, so even if you used the 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes on the chipset for two full-speed gen3 M.2 NVMe drives, the DMI wouldn't be able to handle it anyway. I really like the idea of an all-NVMe server build, and imho it's the future, especially for turnkey solutions, but for a DIY build the system should probably have a DMI at PCIe 3.0 x8 (7.8 GB/s) to be able to handle the theoretical speed. And to enjoy that speed in the real-world, you'd need a fast NIC, preferably based on SFP28. You'd need at least four PCIe 4.0 lanes for that, so any board using the U300 would probably not be a good idea anyway. But a case could be made for a dual SFP+ (or 10G RJ45) system with gen3 M.2 NVMe SSDs running at x2 speed. Would be a potent system, too, and you could probably go to as much as 8 SSDs with HBAs or PCX cards.

But not to forget: The U300 has a way larger number of PCIe lanes, among them 8 at PCIe 4.0 (CPU-direct), so there are a lot more options for home server builds & expansion, if we ever get any boards, of course. The current N series is extremely limited in this respect.

There's another Mini-ITX variant by ECS, namely the ECS ADLN-I: https://www.ecs.com.tw/en/Product/Motherboard/ADLN-I/specification Similar to the ADLN-I3 & ADLN-I3 IPC, but with two native SATA ports instead of one, and missing the PCIe 3.0 x1 expansion slot. The Key-M M.2 slot is gen3 x1. This board is geared towards low-TDP builds and comes with three variants: N100, N200 (both 6W) and the i3-N300 (7W). Not a lot will be possible with this board except a humble onsite or offsite backup server. You could add 2.5GbE with an M.2 Key-E adapter. If you go for 10GbE with an M.2 Key-M adapter, you'd be stuck with the two SATA ports. So probably not a good choice except for very special builds.