Is this a good idea? Cost effective & fast NAS with all m.2 SSD storage.

[jazbar]

NAS. All placed in micro ATX case (small factor):
1. MB: Asus Prime H670-Plus D4, micro ATX. link
With: 1x 2.5 Gb Ethernet, 3x m.2 slots and 3x PCIe 4.0 slots.
2. 3x m.2 to PCIe adapter. link
3. 6x m.2 SSD
- 1x for OS, (m.2 slot)
- 2x for storage on m.2 slots
- 3x for storage mounted on addapters attached to PCIe 4.0 slots
Not to flashy hardware, for example: Intel Core i3 CPU & 8 Gb RAM.
I think this should work, since m.2 and PCIe slots are managed by the same chipset.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Welcome.

There's an old saying along the lines of "fast, cheap, and reliable - pick two" that might apply broadly here.

Can you share some more information about what you'd like to use this NAS for?

Is physical footprint a major concern (I assume so, with the desire for M.2 drives)? There are options for multiple drives in a 5.25" bay, and drives like the WD Blue/Red come in 2.5" with a 7mm Z-height that will let you pack them in quite closely. You're probably limiting yourself with the M.2 choice here.

You won't necessarily need a really fast CPU, but if you're after speed, one of the most effective (and least expensive) ways is to use lots of RAM.

 

[Davvo]

TrueNAS suggested minimum RAM is 16GB, also you want it to be ECC (which means you want a compatible CPU and MoBo).
And if you go with SSDs you will need 10Gbit to properly use those speedies.

Edit: that mobo uses a realtek nic, which on this forum is known to cause issues (fixable) and sadly it also doesn't support ECC RAM.

 

[rvassar]

M.2 drives tend to overheat in NAS applications. If you're trying to get away from legacy SAS/SATA SFF-8639 connections, there's a new spec out, but I doubt the hardware is available yet. Search for EDSFF, E.3S drives, ala:

11 Myths About New EDSFF E3 SSD Form Factors

How well do you understand new EDSFF SSD form factors? This article addresses myths that have already popped up regarding this new technology.

www.electronicdesign.com

 

[Ericloewe]

TrueNAS suggested minimum RAM is 16GB

Minimum requirement would be a more apt description. Of course, that really means "minimum requirement to make people interested in helping you instead of dismissing your issue because you probably need more RAM before we waste more time on this while others have more interesting problems to solve that are more applicable to my interests or those of whom I work for or otherwise provide expertise to". That's kinda long and marketing hates that, though.

Is this a good idea? Cost effective & fast NAS with all m.2 SSD storage.​

Is it a good idea? Probably not, more like a solution looking for a problem. Does it have lots of "screw it, why not" potential for fun and tinkering? Hell yeah! But your comfort zone is holding you back. Six M.2 SSDs? And room for little else? We can do better!

We'll need:

1. Your choice of Xeon E5 v3/v4 motherboard
   1. Let's go overboard with a dual-socket board.
   2. Let's get a system that supports x4/x4/x4/x4 bifurcation on the CPU PCIe controllers without BIOS hacks. Say a Supermicro X10DRi-T, which, at a glance, exposes most of the 80 ports the CPUs have across them.
   3. Move up to Xeon Scalable or AMD Epyc for additional PCIe lanes if this isn't enough for you!
2. Your choice of two appropriate CPUs and all the RAM you can afford once you're done with the rest of the list.
3. A monster chassis large enough to hold the motherboard. PSU would also be a good idea.
4. Suitable slots for M.2 NVMe drives
   1. Let's stick with 16 for now, we want some PCIe free for our networking. The onboard 10GbE solution is puny compared to 16 NVMe drives.
   2. We'll add two Icy Dock MB873MP-B enclosures.
5. We'll also need adapters and cables for all these SSDs
   1. We don't need PCIe switches unless we want more SSDs, better networking, or really hate money.
   2. That makes three quad and two double retimer cards with Oculink connectors. You can certainly find competing connectors out there if so inclined.
   3. Don't forget the cables! And good luck figuring that out, PCIe cabling is a mess of competing standards.
   4. Also available in quad or double PCIe 4.0, with SlimSAS connectors, for extra hours of fun researching cables and contacting factories in China to see if they can produce a small run of just the right cable for you.

Alternatively, do this on the cheap with any old SP Xeon E5 v3/v4 motherboard and two quad M.2 adapters. The key is that you need to step up to Xeon E5, Xeon Scalable or AMD Epyc to get the x16 controllers on the CPU to bifurcate down to x4/x4/x4/x4 (and the x8 to x4/x4).

 

[jazbar]

NAS I,m thinking about will be for personal use. For me and some family members. Why 6 SSD not less, because is cheaper to use more in number with less storage capacity. Later can be upgraded with more capacity ones after price go down. More RAM is not a problem.

 

[jazbar]

About SSD overheating. Such tendency has only SSD 4.0 PCIe if not come with a proper heatsink. Well I can buy 2 and test it, later can be replaced with 3.0 PCIe ones.

 

[Davvo]

Yeah, PCIE 4.0 needs a heatsink (and proper cooling).

 

[joeschmuck]

NAS I,m thinking about will be for personal use. For me and some family members. Why 6 SSD not less, because is cheaper to use more in number with less storage capacity. Later can be upgraded with more capacity ones after price go down. More RAM is not a problem.

So you really have not provided what you plan to use this NAS for. Personal use does not depict if you need to store very important financial data and you must have high redundancy, or if you plan to store 20TB of video content and use Plex to host the content. Or maybe you want to edit video content directly on the NAS shares. These are the things we need to know in order to provide you good information on system recommendations. SSD's while fast in general are not as fast as rotating hard drives in the proper configuration, but SSD's do offer a smaller size and use less power and are quiet. Maybe you need something small and silent and are hosting movies but want to transcode 4K.

So be specific with your use case, otherwise you are just asking everyone to recommend a small, cheap, fast, reliable general purpose NAS. Hum, seems I heard somewhere, pick two. If we had a one size fits all solution, we would all have it.

As for why 6 SSD's, it's because SSD's have a smaller capacity compared to HDD's, and SSD's cost a lot more as well so if price is a factor, you will end up using HDD's, except for the boot device, that should be a SSD.

Good luck if you do decide to build a TrueNAS system, it really is the most bang for your buck system. I really like mine and don't have a single complaint.