I'm in desperate need to replace my existing aging Unraid server.  I'd prefer to go pre-built.  Does this N5 or N5 Pro look like a good option?

 

Currently I run mainly Plex, NextCloud, and a torrent client.  I'd also like to run a VM or 2.

 

It seems some tech influencers are excited about this but I'm not sure if it's genuine or not.
https://nascompares.com/2025/01/08/minisforum-n5-pro-nas-revealed/

It looks awesome, but who knows when it will ever come out.

Pushing this thread back to the top.

The N5 Pro is now available for pre purchase and will be shipped mid August. Has somebody ordered one?

I was very interested for this pre-build NAS and still am but I didn't expect the 1399 € (without RAM!) price tag to be honest.

There is a non pro option with an AMD Ryzen™ 7 255. It's kind of hard to find information on that CPU. But according to Minisforum it does not come with ECC support. I though all AMD CPUs have that.

Minisforum EU

Minisforum N5 Pro Desktop NAS

Minisforum N5 Pro Redefines Consumer NAS Performance Standards: Powered by AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX PRO 370, Zen5+Zen 5C Architecture, 12 Cores and 24 Threads, Max. Boost Clock up to 5.1 GHz.

soooooooo anyone?

Ooooo so nice! So overkill, so expensive :)

It looks interesting, but as far as I know, has no release date specified. If anyone does see it available, please let all of us know.

@BRiT it was already released but sold out within two days. Next shipment is supposed to be beginning of September.

Wow, was hoping it would be more widely available and not the preorder one or two months in advance of shipping.

I guess if anyone finds additional new reviews or posts about the unit to let us know.

There are multiple reviews and opinions on the YouTube Channel nascompares

I think the device is great. But the price...

Not that there's anything wrong with nascompares (or other YTers or influencers), but I'd like to see normal users reviewing the product for multiple reasons.

well I do have the N5 Pro with Unraid, i mean it works fine as like any NAS Devices that are open, however it does have some limitations atm with regards to using the GPU/APU/NPU of the CPU :3
motherboard lacks drivers for unraid so you are unable to see fans or system temp, GPU Transcoding dont work yet, VM GPU Passthrough dont work as well. I even tried this with a custom updated kernel far newer than the current unraid one to see if it has better driver support, unfortunately it doesnt.

but have been using the N5 Pro since getting it and works fine with everything else, I am waiting for my custom single slot half height gpu cooler then will install an nvidia gpu on it which will solve my transcoding issues and few LLM's. also waiting for the minisforum egpu dock to pair it via oculink which would be another gpu to add (for VM use) but performance is good.

Network do tend to reach 9-10Gbit speed, CPU performance is good as well, I havent looked at wattage use (I could I guess if I want to).

my set up is 5 drives in zfs raidz1 while using 2 nvme as zfs mirror for cache then another nvme as a backup cache for other tasks, it has an internal usb slot(where my unraid is booting)

20 hours ago, Sixie said:

unable to see fans or system temp,

I have one as well. I have problems with detecting the driver for the temp/pwm controller too.
It is not ITE or Nuvoton.

For GPU, i just installed a low profile A310. It is being detected, but I have not tried it in any media server yet.

If anybody has any ideas.. :)

On 9/29/2025 at 12:27 AM, Forty Two said:

I have one as well. I have problems with detecting the driver for the temp/pwm controller too.
It is not ITE or Nuvoton.

For GPU, i just installed a low profile A310. It is being detected, but I have not tried it in any media server yet.

If anybody has any ideas.. :)

i have a RTX 2000 Ada card but waiting for the custom cooler to make it fit in the N5, then will atleast have a dedicated nvidia gpu for any gpu task.

and yes you are right about the temp/pwm.

Some new info:

I have contacted Minisforum and they say that the fans are appropriately controlled for HDD and SSD temperatures by the BIOS.

Some other info here:

https://github.com/frankcrawford/it87/issues/49

and here:

https://github.com/RafalGoslawski/lunar-kernel-driver

I will try to do something about this given some time.

1 minute ago, Forty Two said:

Some new info:

I have contacted Minisforum and they say that the fans are appropriately controlled for HDD and SSD temperatures by the BIOS.

Some other info here:

https://github.com/frankcrawford/it87/issues/49

and here:

https://github.com/RafalGoslawski/lunar-kernel-driver

I will try to do something about this given some time.

2 minutes ago, Forty Two said:

Some new info:

I have contacted Minisforum and they say that the fans are appropriately controlled for HDD and SSD temperatures by the BIOS.

Some other info here:

https://github.com/frankcrawford/it87/issues/49

and here:

https://github.com/RafalGoslawski/lunar-kernel-driver

I will try to do something about this given some time.

I am confident that was the case with the N5 Pro, the curves are controlled properly. Just sad you can't monitor as of yet with unraid

This might be a temporary fix for CPU temps and a few others. Its running great on my N5 Pro.

https://hub.docker.com/r/coolercontrol/coolercontrold

How is the current state of support in thinking about getting the non pro version, but the above messages don’t seem very comforting

Any updates on support for this device?

I have been using Minisforum N5 Pro and N5 with Unraid for about a month. It is very fast and stable. Great piece of hardware. There is no need to fix anything with cooling. Cooling is great. I even slow down fans in bios because the default is too loud and still temp is ok.

What is not working:
- show cpu temp in Unraid,
- transcoding in Emby/Plex/JellyFin (cpu is still too new?),

I bought Intel Arc A310, and that solved the problem.

Edited January 9Jan 9 by Lukasz.N

On 1/8/2026 at 9:26 PM, Lukasz.N said:

I have been using Minisforum N5 Pro and N5 with Unraid for about a month. It is very fast and stable. Great piece of hardware. There is no need to fix anything with cooling. Cooling is great. I even slow down fans in bios because the default is too loud and still temp is ok.

What is not working:
- show cpu temp in Unraid,
- transcoding in Emby/Plex/JellyFin (cpu is still too new?),

I bought Intel Arc A310, and that solved the problem.

yeah thats fine, nothing really wrong with the cooling to begin with, but the lack of control and sensor availability sucks :) let alone the support on the NPU/APU of the Ryzen chip. (imo this is the most important one, atleast for me).

I would very much love to use the integrated APU (or GPU) in this case the Radeon 890M to be usable for either transcoding or for any GPU tasks that discrete gpu has. let alone the NPU for AI tasks seeing this is still non existent with the chip provided with the N5 Pro.

sure, I have solved this issue by using a GPU (in my case the RTX 2000 Ada) and just installed it on the available PCI Slot on the N5 Pro and now acts my transcoding/AI workhorse but it would be nice to have a 2nd hardware thats already available to also work :)

On 1/20/2026 at 10:50 PM, Sixie said:

yeah thats fine, nothing really wrong with the cooling to begin with, but the lack of control and sensor availability sucks :) let alone the support on the NPU/APU of the Ryzen chip. (imo this is the most important one, atleast for me)....

Yes, I like to control temp also:) I don't use internal PCI Slot. I bought Minisforum PCI adapter on OCULink for graphics card.

GPU transcoding on N5 (AMD Ryzen 7 255 w/ Radeon 780M Graphics) works ok. Only with N5 Pro is problem.

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Lukasz.N

6 hours ago, Lukasz.N said:

Yes, I like to control temp also:) I don't use internal PCI Slot. I bought Minisforum PCI adapter on OCULink for graphics card.

GPU transcoding on N5 (AMD Ryzen 7 255 w/ Radeon 780M Graphics) works ok. Only with N5 Pro is problem.

ohh really? thats intresting the 780M works :)

was this the case for you on the start? or recently started working

19 hours ago, Sixie said:

ohh really? thats intresting the 780M works :)

was this the case for you on the start? or recently started working

I have Minisforum N5 Pro and N5. My main NAS (Unraid) is N5 Pro with AI 9 HX PRO 370. On N5 Pro GPU transcoding is not working that why I bought Intel Arc. Recently I tested GPU transcoding on Minisforum N5 and for my surprise on Ryzen 7 255 works ok.

On 2/1/2026 at 2:21 AM, Lukasz.N said:

I have Minisforum N5 Pro and N5. My main NAS (Unraid) is N5 Pro with AI 9 HX PRO 370. On N5 Pro GPU transcoding is not working that why I bought Intel Arc. Recently I tested GPU transcoding on Minisforum N5 and for my surprise on Ryzen 7 255 works ok.

Where you able to get gpu passthrough working with the N5 pro? that is what i am struggling with, wish i saw the earlier post about gpu passthrough not being supported earlier.

Just leaving a note here to anyone who is trying to figure it out. It took a lot of work and i'm new but this was what finally got the gpu passthrough and VM to show up on HDMI

Boot string edit:

append initrd=/bzroot initcall_blacklist=sysfb_init video=simplefb:off video=efifb:off video=vesafb:off

The blacklist allowed me to finally dump my vbios rom using this command:

cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/VFCT > /mnt/user/isos/vbios/890m_vfct.bin

Used this command to trim out the vbios rom

# 1. Find the byte offset where the VBIOS starts (the 55 AA signature)

OFFSET=$(grep -aobU $'\x55\xAA' /mnt/user/isos/vbios/890m_vfct.bin | head -n 1 | cut -d: -f1)

# 2. Extract exactly 131072 bytes (128KB) starting from that offset

dd if=/mnt/user/isos/vbios/890m_vfct.bin of=/mnt/user/isos/vbios/890m_final.rom bs=1 skip=$OFFSET count=131072

Lastly i had to use XML edit on the VM set up because the simple view just would not work for me. I can't share my hostdev lines because i've made so many edits and changes. I had to switch between VNC so many times trying to get my audio and USB mouse/keyboard working. I'm going to try setting up RDP so i can stop using VNC(which seems to create some odd display/passthrough conflicts). And the AMD driver installation in my windows 10 VM gets stuck so something is isn't quite right.