Jonsbo N2 - My First NAS

[erf89]

Inspired by a Linus Tech Tips video two years ago where they built a Home NAS in a Jonsbo N1, and subsequent months... years... of Googling, finding the Jonsbo N2, I decided it was time to finally time to dive in and build my first NAS. Prior to this build, I ran Plex on my main daily PC which was essentially on 24/7. That PC is now only on when I'm actually gaming or working. A lot of the parts were inspired by a previous UCD post, as well as a video of an all-AliExpress NAS on YouTube that I now can't seem to find.

 

OS: Unraid 6.12.8 Basic (since upgraded to Plus and 6.12.9)

CPU: Intel i5-12500H (CPU part of the motherboard)

Motherboard: Erying G660i (CPU part of the motherboard)

RAM: 2x 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz DDR4

Case: Jonsbo N2

PSU: Dragon Storm 600W SFX

SATA Adapter: NVMe 6-port SATA Riser

Cables: 6-port SATA right angle cable

Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i-17xx

Fan: Noctua NF-A12x15 

GPU: AMD Radeon RX6400 Low Profile

 

Cache: 1x 1TB NVMe SSD

Parity: 1x 8TB HGST HDD

Storage: 3x 8TB HGST HDD, 1x 8TB Seagate BarraCuda

 

During build I replaced the case stock fan at the back (exhaust for the HDD's) with the Noctua NF-A12x15, and also plugged this into a motherboard header instead of the included backplate, using the Fan Auto Control plugin to control the speed.

 

Had the build running for around two weeks now, have since been playing around with various plugins and settings and found the SR-IOV plugin for the iGPU to be able to passthrough to VM without binding the whole thing and losing access to it in Plex for Transcoding. I added the RX6400 about a week after build just because it was cheap on eBay, not really sure what to do with it yet, I'm thinking maybe have that bound and passed through to a VM and have the server hooked up to the TV, maybe running Pop!_OS with Steam and a few others.

 

One annoying thing with the motherboard is that all USB ports are on one controller, so can't bind to a VM. However, in my potential use case of hooking up to a TV, it's enough for me to leave a dongle for a wireless Dell keyboard/mouse plugged in, and probably do the same with a Bluetooth adapter and just have those two USB devices passed through, and I could then use a Bluetooth gamepad.

 

The BIOS isn't the friendliest to navigate but eventually all setup with virtualisation, both GPU's enabled and XMP for the RAM, I even have resize bar enabled but not yet tested.

 

Currently using this for Plex and the -arr apps, as well as running a DietPi VM with HAOS. Installed Tailscale to access remotely anything I don't want to open up to the internet, and running NPM to open up some of the -arrs using CloudFlare for outside access. PiHole Local DNS setup for all Containers internally.

 

I still have 1x NVMe slot going spare, so may add another 1-2TB drive, either to boost the cache pool, or perhaps to leave unmounted and passthrough to Pop!_OS with the discrete GPU. Also scope to add 1x 2.5" SSD to the build if I wanted to, the case has mounts for it, although those drives are usually more expensive than the NVMe ones these days!

 

Top of the case (missing the GPU):

 

Front view, currently under my desk:

 

 

Homarr Dashboard shows most of the Containers currently running:

Edited March 31 by erfarrell89

[Hoopster]

Very nice build.  I had never considered that case for a small build, I usually go with the Fractal Node 304, but it looks nice.  Perhaps I will try a build in the Jonsbo N2 some day.

[aim60]

Check out the USB Manager plugin.  It allows you to pass individual usb devices/ports to a vm.

[ydchen2008]

Got the same N2 and Erying 12500H, but power consumption is relatively high in idle(around 30w). C-state can only reach C2.