Upgrade: Next step from low power J4105

[ur6969]

I've had a J4105 Unraid server running in a Node 304 for nearly four years.  It's been great.  Primary use is network storage, Emby server (local viewing only), and some light dockers such as Nextcloud (local only) and Omada controller.

 

I'm looking to upgrade but am not sure which direction to go.  I like the Node 304 case and would like to keep it.  Six drives plus an SSD is plenty.  My current Asrock J4105 is out of SATA ports (including a 2 port SATA expansion card) only let's me use 6 drives when the case is capable of 6 plus an SSD or two. 

 

I'd like to have a large NVME cache drive over the SATA SSD I have now and the Asrock mobo does not have a spot for this.

 

I like the low power use and can work within the speed limitations.  I'm sure a 4 year old newer processor will have plenty of speed upgrade.  Intel Quiksync for Emby is a must have.

 

Any recommendations?

[ur6969]

I wanted to bump this back to the top.  I'm still on the hunt for low power, 6 - 3.5 HDDs + 1 nvme cache in mini ITX to fit my Node 304.

[Lolight]

2 hours ago, ur6969 said:

I wanted to bump this back to the top.  I'm still on the hunt for low power, 6 - 3.5 HDDs + 1 nvme cache in mini ITX to fit my Node 304.

You can try this:

 

 

[madmin]

There is also the CWWK J6413 (I think both Topton and CWWK sell Chang Wang hardware).

 

I'd have to look details up, but AFAIK, the J6413 has 1 + 5 SATA, too (via an on-board JMB 685 port multiplier which might not allow lower C-states on these ports because they seem to not support DPMI - But they might share that with the N series mobos that also use a JMB 675/685 port multiplier). But they offer a free PCIe Slot (instead of the 3rd and 4th network port) - which might accept a card for additional native SATA ports, if required. It also has 1 M.2 port (the second seems to be used for a WiFi/BT card, AFAIU). I read reports that it accepts 2x 32 GB DDR4s (I think the Jasperlake N5105 and N6005 accept only 2x 16 GB).

 

The J6413 is a lower powered, but more recent CPU (Intel Celeron Elkhart Lake quad-core low-power platform - up to 3 Ghz?) as I understand it (but I'm not really proficient in these matters, maybe someone can add to that).

 

Edit: just looked it up the N5105 is a Celeron Jasper Lake and seems to have a focus on a more capable iGPU than the one of the J series; the N6005 (up to 3.3 Ghz) is a Pentium Silver with the same iGPU focus, wheras the J series has more focus on memory. The CWWK J6413 board seems to be ca. 50 € less costly, too.

 

Overall, I found the CWWK J6413 more convincing for an NAS with storage focus than the Topton N5105/6005 board. It seems the latter was designed for firewall use, too, with its 4 network ports - But as I said, I'm a Rookie in NAS DIY).

 

I ordered the J6413 today and expect it in a few weeks to test it (especially regarding the energy  state behavior of the 5 multiplier SATA ports.)

Edited August 13, 2023 by madmin

[ur6969]

18 hours ago, madmin said:

There is also the CWWK J6413 (I think both Topton and CWWK sell Chang Wang hardware).

 

I'd have to look details up, but AFAIK, the J6413 has 1 + 5 SATA, too (via an on-board JMB 685 port multiplier which might not allow lower C-states on these ports because they seem to not support DPMI - But they might share that with the N series mobos that also use a JMB 675/685 port multiplier). But they offer a free PCIe Slot (instead of the 3rd and 4th network port) - which might accept a card for additional native SATA ports, if required. It also has 1 M.2 port (the second seems to be used for a WiFi/BT card, AFAIU). I read reports that it accepts 2x 32 GB DDR4s (I think the Jasperlake N5105 and N6005 accept only 2x 16 GB).

 

The J6413 is a lower powered, but more recent CPU (Intel Celeron Elkhart Lake quad-core low-power platform - up to 3 Ghz?) as I understand it (but I'm not really proficient in these matters, maybe someone can add to that).

 

Edit: just looked it up the N5105 is a Celeron Jasper Lake and seems to have a focus on a more capable iGPU than the one of the J series; the N6005 (up to 3.3 Ghz) is a Pentium Silver with the same iGPU focus, wheras the J series has more focus on memory. The CWWK J6413 board seems to be ca. 50 € less costly, too.

 

Overall, I found the CWWK J6413 more convincing for an NAS with storage focus than the Topton N5105/6005 board. It seems the latter was designed for firewall use, too, with its 4 network ports - But as I said, I'm a Rookie in NAS DIY).

 

I ordered the J6413 today and expect it in a few weeks to test it (especially regarding the energy  state behavior of the 5 multiplier SATA ports.)

 

Thank you for the informative post.  I had no idea this existed and it may fit the bill perfectly.

 

Could you explain the C-state concern?  I do not understand that.

 

What is better for an Unraid setup, the 6412 or 6413? 

[madmin]

4 hours ago, ur6969 said:

Could you explain the C-state concern?  I do not understand that.

This was pointed out by @mgutt, in relation to DIPM function of port multipliers like the JMB685. From what I read, C-states are CPU energy saving states that switch of more and more percentage and functions from 0 (100 %) to 10 (shut off completely). Device initiated power management (DIPM) seems to allow the SATA devices to down-power the SATA host. Not sure how this is escalated to the CPU states, and how important it is, depending on how energy efficient the MoBo is. But I asked the seller of the J6413, and he responded that the JMB685 does not support DIPM. I suppose that the Topton boards using the same multiplier would not support it either.

 

4 hours ago, ur6969 said:

What is better for an Unraid setup, the 6412 or 6413? 

The board is sometimes sold with options for the one or the other, so I suppose processor frequency is the main difference. I think the 6412 has a tad slower CPU frequency:

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/de/compare_cpu-intel_celeron_j6413-vs-intel_celeron_j6412

As the price difference is neglectable (like 10 bucks), I decided to go with the faster one.

The same site also shows a comparison of the N5105 (and N6005) and the J6413:

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/de/compare_cpu-intel_celeron_n5105-vs-intel_celeron_j6413

There, you can see the better iGPU performance of the N series compared to better memory performance of the J series.

The Topton is also offered with option of N5105 or N6005, so I suppose Pentium Silver over Celeron and CPU speed is the key difference between the two.

 

The better iGPU of the N series might be an advantage if you expect a lot of movie transcoding. I have no experience there, but both variants have an iGPU, so I'm not sure how much difference it really makes in practical use.

 

For me, the key difference between J and N was the higher memory limit and the more up-to-date architecture, in relation to price (plus, the topton seems to be less available in Germany).

Edited August 14, 2023 by madmin

[madmin]

To be transparent, I just read in the German forum that @mung0 wrote that there were reports in some English forums of the N6005 running with 64 GB RAM. He himself confirmed running 2x 16 GB (= total of 32 GB, as in the specification):

he also mentioned that there is no USB 3.0 in the Topton to provide fire the Jonsbo N2's USB port. The CWWK 6413 seems to provide USB 3.0, according to the description on Amazon.de.

 

Edit: In this excellent build report I just found, it says the J6413 board also does not offer a header for USB3. I will have to wait until it arrives. The build report includes some highly interesting upgrade ideas regarding cooling / fans to the board and the Jonsbo N2 case.

Edited August 14, 2023 by madmin

[mung0]

Hi,

there are 2x USB3.0 Ports on the Board.

But nothing to connect the usb-c Front Port of my Jonsbo N2 case to the Board.

The 2 Ports at the back work fine. I use them for my weekly backup to an external usb drive. 

[Joczek]

Hi,

since my j5005 board is causes some SATA issues I'm now thinking regarding J6413 board vs. some N6005 board. Looking on Amazon (germany) I can see 2 options.
On the J6413 I can already see some issues in the comments (https://amzn.eu/d/gDRNrtq ) . Was it one of you? @mung0@madmin that commented the BIOS updates? And even if not, have you heard of similar issues?

Regarding the N6005 board i'm looking at this one: https://amzn.eu/d/cGGxATU

Think my thoughts atm circle around these points:
* Do I need AC1 decoding? (J6413 supports it, N6005 does not but has higher number of cores 32 instead of 16)

* Do I need more than the 16GB DDR4-2400 i have in my j5005 right now? (probably not, but want to take them over)

* Availability

* Most Important: Is it hassle free to setup? With J6413 I hope @madmin you can share what you experienced?

* @mung0 what was your main reason to go with N6005 instead?

Hope to get in contact with you guys, think that it will help me alot to get it done

 

[madmin]

@Joczek

On 3/11/2024 at 11:44 AM, Joczek said:

On the J6413 I can already see some issues in the comments (https://amzn.eu/d/gDRNrtq ) . Was it one of you? @mung0@madmin that commented the BIOS updates? And even if not, have you heard of similar issues?

Not me. I have not tried to update the BIOS yet. I have very little time, my progress is really slow, and I have not yet gotten to the point of optimization.

 

On 3/11/2024 at 11:44 AM, Joczek said:

* Most Important: Is it hassle free to setup? With J6413 I hope @madmin you can share what you experienced?

No, if you are not referring to optimization. I had to change one BIOS option for it to auto-boot without hitting enter on a keyboard. Other than that, it worked out of the box. But again, this is not advanced requirements level. I am still learning, it's been literally decades that I built mini tower PCs before, I always used notebooks ever since.

From what I read at Amazon, the BIOS update archive is broken because of a wrong flash tool (which can be exchanged, appearently fpt.efi is wrong and fph.efi is right, but it is not clear where to get the fph.efi from the review). I will have to look at that myself, at some point.

 

Sorry if that is not much help.

[mung0]

On 3/11/2024 at 11:44 AM, Joczek said:

Hi Joczek,

 

what kind of SATA Issues do you have? 

I updated my BIOS 2 times since i bought the board - both updates with improvements for me. First reboot after BIOS Update takes a very long time, but works.

* Do I need more than the 16GB DDR4-2400 i have in my j5005 right now? (probably not, but want to take them over)

->> Nope, but i put 32 GB in, and works fine 

 

* Most Important: Is it hassle free to setup? 

->> The CWWK/Topton N6005 works perfectly with Unraid - put in my Unraid USB Stick after assembling everything - and it booted and simply worked 

 

* what was your main reason to go with N6005 instead?

->> No special reason, only that it's slightly faster - cpu & gpu. I want to use my new Unraid NAS System als long as i can.

 

BR,

Mung0