I'm looking for the sweet spot in terms of noise to capacity ratio NAS drives. The NAS (WD PR2100) stands right next to me (like 50 cm from my head) in my office and since I work from home I spend like 8-10 hours away that close to it. I first have bought 2x Seagate Exos 12TB X16 but they are louder than a washing machine, so I will be returning them.

My current baseline in terms of noise is my WD Home Cloud 2 TB I have for 6 years now and it stands right next to the new PR2100 and it's... dead silent. I've watched couple of your videos and checked what is inside my good old My Home Cloud (WD RED) and my next choice will be one of: WD RED Plus or WD RED Pro. Question is which one will be less loud at 12 TB capacity? Would moving down to 10 TB reduce the noise significantly in comparison to 12 TB? I understand that 12 TB will always be more noisy than 2 TB but I'm looking for the sweet spot

Interested on thoughts on the JMCD 9S2 (or JM CD9S 2?) 9-bay NAS case on AliExpress:

Aliexpress product 1005006950511471.html

Possibly a "Qunhui AIO" brand? Or a KEYYOW brand?

Approx US$255 landed to where I am in NZ

It is not one of the models that tends to appear when you search for NAS on AE, and is not carried by a lot of AE "stores", so it doesn't seem to have a lot of traction, I cannot find any videos on YT about it for instance.

There is also a 12-bay version: Aliexpress product 1005006097893484.html

Approx US$370 landed to where I am in NZ

Things I like the idea of:

1) I like 8+ bay NASes as they allow you to have two 4-drive VDEVs. If you want to run ZFS, and you want expansion options for the future, you need enough free bays to allow you to add an entire VDEV in future. With Z1 VDEVs, you can have 4 populated drives in one VDEV and be able to add capacity with another 4 drive VDEV. 9 bays is nice because it allows you to have a warm spare ready to go at a moment's notice. 12 Bays could be run as two 5-disk VDEVs with two warm spares, or two 6-disk VDEVs (great for Z2!) with cold spares instead of warm spares.

2) Two big 120mm front fans blowing across the m/b mounted in the top section, three 90mm fans sucking air through the drives below.

3) mATX support, with full-height PCI-e card slots. Good for supporting a PCIe 3 x8 for a 10GBe NIC, and a PCIe 3 x8 for an HBA.

4) has a slide-out m/b mounting tray

5) two front USB-A

6) ATX power supply, 170mm deep

7) eight* SAS/SATA drive bays, 12Gbps backplane
* see (b) below

8) option for rack mount ears

9) looks to be well-ventilated

10) lots of headroom for a CPU heatsink/fan

Things that make me go 'Hmm.'

a) says it has a "USB-C reserved hole" whatever that means, and no obvious USB-C port

b) There is a 9th drive bay, but it is SATA only... this doesn't bother me too much as for me that 9th bay would be there solely as a warm spare

c) wastefully large in height (271mm, over 6U) for a 9-bay rack-mount NAS... but I wouldn't use it in a rack and besides, I'm expecting it to be a LOT quieter than a 3U 650mm deep server with hurricane force 40mm fans roaring away. It's 350mmx290mm footprint suits me a lot better than a 19" x 650mm 3U server.

I'm inclined to take a gamble on this and report back, but if someone can see anything that would advise against this, can you let me know?

Hi,

Great content. Been trying to watch you videos on diy builds. I picked up an N3 on Amazon (currently $153 shipped). I was also planning to follow you $599 N3 build but wanted to ask if the parts used should still be used today? Or would you recommend other hardware?

The main use of the nas will be to store our photo/video library. Also to offload/transfer our mobile device during/after trips. I currently have 7TB of photos/videos. My thought was 20/30TB as I learn of other uses the nas is capable of.

Thanks,

Joe in Atlanta,GA

Hi there.

I have hit Data-Hording breakpoint (it was inevitable) and I'm looking for the best NAS Box for Plex (LAN), Data Archival (Creative Content assets, Training materials etc) and possibly the potential for editing 4k video (Single User) although I am still content to work on local drives as currently my LAN switch is only Gigabit.

I have 8x Seagate IronWolf Pro 22TB on their way (payment for a job) so will need a barebones box. Any suggestions would be most welcome, as I am suffering from information overload.

All the best

Nigel

I've been debating a setup for photos and have tested:

- synology photos (which was great but slow couple years back)
- immich (not all the features I want)
- ente (not all the features I want)

Now on paper the ugos seems to have what I want from a photos app, which is basically - smart albums or conditional albums. Like in google photos, a way to make automatic albums and add photos automatically based on face or keyword, etc.

I can't find a demo of ugos, but wanted to know if you've tested it and if it's a viable usable speed and stability.

Love to hear any thoughts or a comparison!!

Planning to setup Terramaster F4-423 and D8 Hybrid together for a 8 bay NAS setup with (4x12TB) and (2x10TB,2x14TB HDD). Already have these.

Still need to get the below based on your advise.

Planning to use Samsung 980 Pro SSD OS Install (500GB) and HyperCache (1TB) setup.
Planning to upgrade the NAS to 32 GB RAM.

Should I use TOS or TrueNas?

Trying to get the best performance for the setup possible.

I have an existing homemade Unraid server with approximately 135TB spread over 15 disks (plus 2 parity) in a rackmount case. It runs Emby in a docker container and uses hardware transcoding using the i7 CPU. Unfortunately I have to replace this with something that sits on a desk/table and needn't be silent but easy to be in the same room with it. Ideally the new system would just be a new Synology/Qnap-like case which can host Unraid with my existing XFS disks, but that doesn't seem possible. Was thinking about TVS-h1688x but unsure about ease of transitioning to Quts-hero and noise level. Havenl't seen a Synology system which looks promising, though I like SHR-2 and their software more than QNAP. Would appreciate any advice you can provide.

Hi There,
I recently watched your review of Terramaster F4-424Pro on youtube. Also other youtube vidoes where you install TrueNAS or unRAID on older Terramaster systems.
I am a novice, and have the following question.
1. After creating a bootable USB (mini flash) of TrueNAS or unRAID on your PC, when you install the OS on Terramaster. Can you install it on another mini USB connected via the USB ports? instead of on a NVME drive? This mini USB with the OS can then replace the bootable USB and you will have all the drives available (2NVME + 4 HDD). If this is possible, could you do a youtube video of this.
2. Also create a video where in you show all the features of TOS 6, and how it compares with other OS (TrueNAS or unRAID)
3. Features of TRAID vs SHR review also would be welcome.

Look forward to see your reply.

Kind Regards
Vinay

Hey! I was wondering if you know whether the ds2413+ can accept more than the official 4GB? I'm about to pull the machine open to clean any dust and have a 4GB module that I bought a few years ago. Figured I'd find out if a larger module would work.

Thanks!

Hello! I hope this message finds you well. I have been looking at buying my first NAS since last October, and have followed this channel since around the same time to learn as much as I can while I saved up the money for a purchase I will be happy with for the foreseeable future.

I have a good amount of experience working with Linux distros and servers as a part of my career field, but am hesitant to buy something with difficult software because while it will be a great learning experience, I want to avoid being turned-off by NAS systems due to a difficult first-time user experience. I want to begin my NAS journey by hosting some private servers for games like Minecraft, setting up a Plex server for 1-4 people, and storing some photos and videos. Being able to experiment with software like Docker and Kubernetes would be nice as well. A 4-Bay would be ideal.

Thank you for any input you have and for the free reviews and knowledge you've armed me with for jumping into the NAS world.