this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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No budget for now, and I own the SSDs already I just want to know what's out there and what other people like.

My current setup is cobbled together from random parts and the HDDs are loud in my bedroom. I want all SSD storage (at least 4x) but with enough CPU/Ram to handle a lot of apps/VMs and some above-average demanding tasks (jellyfin, syncthing) than just being a NAS.

The only other criteria is that I would prefer it to be as small as possible (not rack mount).

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https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-me-mini-n150

I have no experience with this. Just sharing so you have more ideas to think about

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Ok, so if you want to do a bunch of drives in a box:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FhPzK8/gigabyte-mw50-sv0-atx-lga2011-3-motherboard-mw50-sv0

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/yFWJ7P/crucial-bx500-4-tb-25-solid-state-drive-ct4000bx500ssd1

However, that's expensive. I would go with spinning disks.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9wVmP6/western-digital-wd-blue-4-tb-35-5400rpm-internal-hard-drive-wd40ezaz

If you want to bring the cost down more,

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4bqPxr/asus-prime-b550-plus-ac-hes-atx-am4-motherboard-prime-b550-plus-ac-hes

https://ebay.us/m/kmgfao

You can drive the price down more by buying a used system.

The pile of SSDs will be easiest to stuff into a box.

You will need to get creative with cooling.

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you that's probably too big for my tastes but I appreciate the insight.

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 1 points 4 hours ago

The last board suggested with 5 ports would handle 4 drives in raidz2.

This is smaller even. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hRBrxr/asrock-motherboard-970mpro3

I would prefer having the smaller board with the hba and putting 8-10 smaller drives in raidz3. That would give you 6 TB with three drives for failure to prevent loss.

Outside the drives, the cost would be under $200 for the board and the hba.

If you have an old system with two PCI-e 16 ports, then your cost is about $90 before you start buying drives.

I'm doing similar with a DDR3 system and spinning 1 TB disks. It's fast enough to serve video streams.

[–] e0qdk@reddthat.com 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Assume an unlimited budget for now, I just want to know what's out there.

I mean, if you're willing to pay the price of a car per SSD they go up to at least 122TB density per drive... (e.g. Solidigm SBFPF2BV0P12001 D5-P5336 -- $16K~$20K depending on supplier from a quick search)

I don't actually recommend that for personal use, but since you were curious about what's out there, there's some absolutely crazy shit in enterprise server gear if you have deep enough pockets.

[–] flork@lemy.lol 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Those are awesome lol what would be a good system to run them in?

EDIT: I feel I need to say I'm not actually going to pay for that, 4x4tb is probably plenty but it's still awesome.

[–] e0qdk@reddthat.com 1 points 4 hours ago

It looks like the connector is U.2 so I'd look for motherboards that indicate support for that explicitly. From a quick search, it looks like SuperMicro makes some. This is getting out of my area of expertise though; I just know the crazy drives exist...

[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

For that kind of money, I would expect the SSD drive to be able to provide some other qualities beyond technical things like capacity/bandwidth/latency.

Some very good qualities.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago

What you get is something with an acceptable warranty and maybe some support.

What you then realize is what you DON'T have on your consumer gear.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

For that kind of money, I would expect the SSD drive

For that kind of money, I would expect breakfast and a blowie every morning.

[–] eskuero@lemmy.fromshado.ws 2 points 7 hours ago

For the price of the car I would expect the SSD drive to grow wheels and be able to actually drive it

[–] moshankey@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Exceptional qualities that usually go for a high price.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

enough, a lot, more demanding.

You need to give some sort of guidance here.

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago

Give me the smallest and fastest that you can come up with as long as it is SILENT

[–] JASN_DE@feddit.org 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's not going to work. You'll have to at least rank your requirements. Is size more important, or is it the number of RAM slots? Also, what is "enough CPU/Ram"?

Also also, "unlimited" will only get you unrealistic things like the 10k+ PCI-E SSDs.

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago

Silence is the only requirement, I just want to know what's out there that other people like. I prefer small. I own SSDs I am interested in the NAS itself.

[–] themachine@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

You're requirements are too vague as "lots of apps/VMs" doesn't describe the expected load. Overall though if you want small just build a mini-ITX system. Then you can put in any x86 chip that fits your needs.

[–] artifex@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

If I/O speed is important the challenge will be getting lots of nvme slots in a small form factor. Many atx motherboards have bifurcated pci-e slots that can be converted to manage 2 nvme drives at once (in addition to on-board nvme slots) but I don’t know if matx boards do that, so if you wanted 3+ drives that would be the first thing to consider. If you just want a bunch of sata ssds there are more options, but all considerably slower.

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago

Silence is the only important aspect, SATA is fine. I see a lot of options out there much smaller than ATX. Here's one example: https://www.lincplustech.com/products/lincstation-n2-network-attached-storage but like I said I am more curious as to what everyone around here is doing.

[–] JohnWorks@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

If you're looking for more compact than powerful asustor has this https://www.asustor.com/en/product?p_id=91 12 nvme sticks with 8tb per stick would give you 96tb of storage in that small form factor. Only problem might be how much power you'd get out of that processor but you can bump the ram up to I think it was 96 gigs

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago

Thank you this looks great

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

NAS only, or storage and workload?

[–] flork@lemy.lol 1 points 5 hours ago

"Home Server" more than "NAS" so I guess, your typical docker apps, but no LLMs or anything. I would like at least 4 hard drives, preferably m.2 but SATA is fine too.