help choosing an NVME based NAS!

[ed]

Thanks for reaching out! It sounds like you've got a clear and focused setup in mind — and that’s a good place to be in this sea of choices.

Given your budget, performance needs, and comfort with Linux/OMV/TrueNAS, an N100-based mini PC repurposed as a DIY NAS is honestly your best bet. These boxes are compact, power-efficient, and great for a 1TB NVMe setup.

Here’s a solid plan:

Hardware:
Mini PC with Intel N100 (like Aoostar, Topton, or Beelink EQ12 variants)

Make sure it has two M.2 NVMe slots (some only have one).

Look for 2.5GbE LAN onboard (many N100s include this now).

Passive cooling is a plus for silence and low power.

SSDs:
Stick with WD SN770, Kingston KC3000, or Samsung 980 Pro (for reliability and Linux compatibility).

Get two 1TB NVMe SSDs and mirror them (ZFS mirror or RAID1) in TrueNAS Core for redundancy.

OS:
TrueNAS Core is excellent for ZFS and stability, though slightly more demanding than OMV.

If you find it too heavy, OMV with SnapRAID or ZFS plugin is still a fantastic, lightweight alternative.

Recovery Plan:
As long as you keep backups of your config (TrueNAS makes this easy), you can quickly re-flash the OS to a USB or another SSD and import your pool.

Swapping out a failed NVMe drive is easy — TrueNAS will let you resilver and keep going.