Today, I got one of these. It was sold by Geekbuying under a T-Bao brand name. I ordered one with 16 gb RAM and a 500 gb ssd. First impression: the preinstalled Win 11 is very basic, indeed. AMD drivers are preinstalled. But no bloatware. During the initialisation of windows I was not asked for a Microsoft account. So it is obviously a customized installation. I added two Seagate Ironwolfs 4 tb -- they were correctly discovered. After shutting down windows and attaching an external drive with Debian preinstalled I tested the speed of the hdd drives, initialised one drive and copied some chunky files to and fro. Everything works as expected. I watched a mp4 movie file. Neither the temperatures nor the noise level did bother me. So, all in all, a pleasant experience. So I expect Truenas and/or Proxmox will run fine on this machine.
I like both this and the baby version, thanks for reviewing them! It's definitely a contender if one of your biggest gripes is 10GBe networking, especially given that an add on card for Synology would cost a 33%-50% of the base price of this - and 2x2.5GBe is still considerably better than the old USRobotics 56K modem Synology are shipping by default... :)
I just received my barebones N100 version of this - have yet to set it up, but I'm a little nervous. The build quality definitely feels lacking, and the Amazon reviews mention some huge issues. Hopefully it goes well! EDIT: so far one issue I've discovered is that the drives are much louder in this system than they were in my previous setup (using a Terramaster DAS). It's loud enough that I may have to switch back - I keep my NAS next to my router in our living room.
I got mine (N100 model, barebone) last week. Build quality is not the best - but at this price point I am not complaining. Installed TrueNas on it - it works great so far. My use case is simple - file hosting, jellyfin, qbittorrent. I even tried Windoes VM on this little machine...it is not good. The processor seems to always run at base clock inside VM for some reason. This combined with the inability to pass igpu to the VM made it not really usable beyond very basic functionality. (To give you a sense of the performance inside VM - it was dropping 50% of the frames in a 1080p CZcams video)
received mine - n100 - three days ago, changed the bottom fan with a noctua fan and set up pwm in bios settings. extrem silent now - running proxmox only with a 2 tb nvme ssd - opnsense, home assistant, xpenology, plex… 10 - 13 watt power… very happy and no problems so far 😊
I’m really impressed with this, thanks for reviewing. I think I would be more in the market for their bigger NAS that you said they are currently developing
@@nascompares Great. You know I am really not that into NAS (other than my home setup) however the videos you make are great.I have watched loads now. I like the way you present and they are so solidly analytical. Just been sticking them on in the background. Awesome work. Hopefully 2024 is a great year for your channel.
I've noticed on AliExpress that there's an Athlon version as well. I'm guessing it falls between the N100 and the 5700U. Similar expansion to the 5700U in terms of RAM and NVME, but cheaper.
Hey there. Any chance you could create a video that’s geared towards people interested in setting up NAS devices or homelab PCs primarily as AI platforms for things like stable diffusion or even AI object recognition in Photoprism to manage large content libraries? I work with a lot of designers who are very interested in setting up compact systems that can do things like generative art on their own private cloud that could be accessed from anywhere. They don’t really have the technical know how or time to tinker. This device seems like it would have the power and simplicity to be a good solution, but also open to seeing other configs that could do that. Guides for setting up gpu virtualization or just getting maybe specific apps in unraid configured currently would be nice. I’ve built an AI tinker system based around the UNAS 410 chassis, Ryzen 5600G, and a Tesla P4 with a 3D printer blower mod, but I think it’s a bit too fussy to set up for the folks i mentioned. Happy holidays and keep up the great work on the channel!
Love this video. I have an Dell R210ii that requires an urgent replacement due to power consumption and noise and I think this fits the bill. Having Unraid and be able to spin a couple of VM, have a ton of docker containers and be able to operate as a NAS also. Simplifies the complexities of XCP-NG and PCI Passthrough (for the HBA). Only question is whether the ethernet ports are Intel or Realtek?
Bought this (5700U) from Aliexpress, barebones, £230.31 delivery was within 12 days from ordering. I was previously running a Aliexpress KingNovy mini PC but had to use USB drives (not ideal). Running unraid, all seems fine, if I could just get Jellyfin trancoding to work :(
i think the Aoostar R1 with its Intel N100 might be better for transcoding, which is important for my Jellyfin/plex server... Do you happen to know about this or could show us a comparison? I want the R7 but i know that intel is king when it comes to transcoding..
@@nascomparesIf they don't disrupt their lineups, someone else will. They still have the edge for the full stack experience and support, but for enthusiasts, they're quickly becoming a lot less relevant.
I've just bought a Qnap TS-464 that, after a good 20 years with Windows, i just can't get on with. Think I'll sell that on and buy this, nice chassis AND Windows, could be the answer to my prayers.
Proxmox+(pfSense, Synology NAS, (OS/w Emby server, Torrent downloader), Openwrt/w VPN) is how I would like to runt this router NAS... Really do wish it had 2 more SATA ports/bays and a 10 or 5gb ethernet port. So I guess I would attempt a 5gb usb adapter I already have, otherwise I may attempt pulling the wifi card and putting an adapter in that slot. I really want this router NAS..
I think at this price point 10GBe ain't a dealbreaker. If anybody buys this NAS due to budget constraints I'd guess they don't have a 10GBe Router / Switches / PCI-e Card in their main Computer.
for home usage, htinking in to replace cloud usage, if you have a chance, would you recommend to get a Jonsbo N3 and build your own nas? or build something ready to go? thinking in longebity, also would you pay for Unraid or using Truenas ? in the other hand, do you know if there are 2.5" nas hdd ?
Does anybody know if the M.2 or mPCIe sockets of this mini PC are compatible with Google Coral Edge TPU? The PCIe bus should be MSI-x compatible but of course there's no datasheet so i'm looking for someone that has tested it. Cheers!
Hello, first of all, thank you! Your channel is so helpful. So, I have a question: my setup is an AOOSTAR R7 running Proxmox, and TrueNAS SCALE running as a VM on Proxmox. My question is, should I configure GPU passthrough to my TrueNAS SCALE VM to leverage the benefits from the GPU, or is it not necessary? I have installed Jellyfin under the TrueNAS SCALE VM.
Learning linux (so please be gentle) and getting confused with the way dd was used here, both the read and the write disk tests used if=/dev/ and of=/dev/null, I can see how that wil read from the disk, but which bit writes to the drive?
The write part is "of=/dev/null". In this case, it doesn't write to anything (null). It's a good way to just read the drive only for testing. Otherwise, you'll want to point to a real drive (ex: of=/dev/sdb )
@@aardwolf21 You can write to a file on the volume on the drive you wish to test: dd if=/dev/zero of=./test bs=512k count=2048 oflag=direct then delete the file when done
@@TechieZeddie is exactly my understanding yes, except that is not what is done in the video, of=/dev/null is shown as a write test for the drive, i.e I think the video is wrong.
wow, this is Tianbao or Tianbo NAS, they are a workshop brand based in Guangzhou China, and this one R7 has been out for a little more than a year. The main problem is the cooling isn't good enough as you mentioned in the video, and the drive bay isn't very stable (loud noise) They made a V2 version to improve the cooling and also a N100 version but I don't know if you can get it in the UK.
I did order the Zimacube but my card apparently doesn't like kickstarter and refused the payment so.. Current plan is Chuwi Corebox mini with a HDD bay for a jellyfin server and back ups. Any cons you can think of with this set up?
Interested in the proxmox build with some idea of the performance of a NAS vm running on top. Should be able to run significant number of VMs on this. This device is not found on Amazon UK and the aliexpress links go the BEBEPC Official Store ?? So not available in Europe ?
The back of the device seems to imply USB-C power delivery input given the power symbol. Looking at the Amazon listing it also says "support 100w power suppoly" next to "type-c"... Wonder how reliable that is...
I have one and can confirm that it did work with my 100-watt USB Type-C power adapter. I didn't really do any stability testing or anything, I just wanted to see if it would work. I still decided to use the original power brick since I won't be disconnecting the power from this device very often.
@@nascompareslooking forward to a transcoding test of the R7 vs the n100 I feel like quicksync will make the n100 bearly move wears the AMD processor will really take a spike with even the easiest of transcodes.. I hope I am wrong so then I csn order myslef a R7 😂
Whatsabout put unraid on the SD Card and use all 4drives? What setup would be good in unraid 1 parity drive hdd, 1hdd drive, 1 nvme drive and 1 nvme cash?
Yet 5700U consumes more power and heats the HDDs more than N100. For a simple RAID1 Plex server to last more and not catch fire during hot summer day, the N100 seems like a better option - cheaper, too.
It's a decent point, but I try to use links that use a system called 'one link' (goes by a bunch of other names) that change the destination for the user that clicks towards the retailer in their own region. However, some e shops don't support it or some shops are US default unless the visitor manually changes. I thought about add onf links to all regions (the way I do on Black Friday etc), but it's just too much to maintain, so I have to rely on the automated redirect/one link thing. Hope that makes sense.
2 bay for raid backup storage is a joke. you Must have at least four drives for failsafe Raid.. In order to do any Raid at all you need at least Two drives but if one of the two drives fail then you no longer have RAID or any storage. If in a Four drive RAID system, One drive fails. You still have RAID and all your data is safe. THEMS THE RAID RULES.
Today, I got one of these. It was sold by Geekbuying under a T-Bao brand name. I ordered one with 16 gb RAM and a 500 gb ssd. First impression: the preinstalled Win 11 is very basic, indeed. AMD drivers are preinstalled. But no bloatware. During the initialisation of windows I was not asked for a Microsoft account. So it is obviously a customized installation. I added two Seagate Ironwolfs 4 tb -- they were correctly discovered. After shutting down windows and attaching an external drive with Debian preinstalled I tested the speed of the hdd drives, initialised one drive and copied some chunky files to and fro. Everything works as expected. I watched a mp4 movie file. Neither the temperatures nor the noise level did bother me. So, all in all, a pleasant experience. So I expect Truenas and/or Proxmox will run fine on this machine.
I like both this and the baby version, thanks for reviewing them! It's definitely a contender if one of your biggest gripes is 10GBe networking, especially given that an add on card for Synology would cost a 33%-50% of the base price of this - and 2x2.5GBe is still considerably better than the old USRobotics 56K modem Synology are shipping by default... :)
I think Aoostar Poptart is a great nickname for these systems.
Any chance you do some power consumption readings and comparisons on the follow-up video?
Hello can you please do a video how to activate IGPU from Ryzen 7 5700u for Plex transcoding on this device, thanks
I just received my barebones N100 version of this - have yet to set it up, but I'm a little nervous. The build quality definitely feels lacking, and the Amazon reviews mention some huge issues. Hopefully it goes well!
EDIT: so far one issue I've discovered is that the drives are much louder in this system than they were in my previous setup (using a Terramaster DAS). It's loud enough that I may have to switch back - I keep my NAS next to my router in our living room.
I got mine (N100 model, barebone) last week. Build quality is not the best - but at this price point I am not complaining.
Installed TrueNas on it - it works great so far. My use case is simple - file hosting, jellyfin, qbittorrent.
I even tried Windoes VM on this little machine...it is not good. The processor seems to always run at base clock inside VM for some reason. This combined with the inability to pass igpu to the VM made it not really usable beyond very basic functionality.
(To give you a sense of the performance inside VM - it was dropping 50% of the frames in a 1080p CZcams video)
received mine - n100 - three days ago, changed the bottom fan with a noctua fan and set up pwm in bios settings. extrem silent now - running proxmox only with a 2 tb nvme ssd - opnsense, home assistant, xpenology, plex… 10 - 13 watt power… very happy and no problems so far 😊
@@rodnheli What model Noctua fan did you order? I have the R7 version ordered and want to have everything ready to upgrade when it arrives.
@@iECJ
Didn't open the case but sure this is a Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM from my old nh9li cooler
@@rodnheli Thanks.
I think 2 bays are very important as many many home users just can't justify the cost of 4 or 8 bay drives and tons of expensive hard drives.
I’m really impressed with this, thanks for reviewing. I think I would be more in the market for their bigger NAS that you said they are currently developing
Yes, the 6 bay NVMe+SATA one of particularly interesting
Awesome video. Top drawer. I was just wondering what the power usage would be like idling with a 3rd party OS. Hope to see more on this model.
You will definitely see more on this one, part way through a proxmox build for the channel
@@nascompares Great. You know I am really not that into NAS (other than my home setup) however the videos you make are great.I have watched loads now. I like the way you present and they are so solidly analytical. Just been sticking them on in the background. Awesome work. Hopefully 2024 is a great year for your channel.
When is the follow-up video going to be published? 🙂
This is the one I've been waiting on a review for!
Hope it delivers man!
I've noticed on AliExpress that there's an Athlon version as well. I'm guessing it falls between the N100 and the 5700U. Similar expansion to the 5700U in terms of RAM and NVME, but cheaper.
Will be interesting If any one gets Xpenology to run well on it
Hey there. Any chance you could create a video that’s geared towards people interested in setting up NAS devices or homelab PCs primarily as AI platforms for things like stable diffusion or even AI object recognition in Photoprism to manage large content libraries? I work with a lot of designers who are very interested in setting up compact systems that can do things like generative art on their own private cloud that could be accessed from anywhere. They don’t really have the technical know how or time to tinker. This device seems like it would have the power and simplicity to be a good solution, but also open to seeing other configs that could do that. Guides for setting up gpu virtualization or just getting maybe specific apps in unraid configured currently would be nice.
I’ve built an AI tinker system based around the UNAS 410 chassis, Ryzen 5600G, and a Tesla P4 with a 3D printer blower mod, but I think it’s a bit too fussy to set up for the folks i mentioned.
Happy holidays and keep up the great work on the channel!
Love this video. I have an Dell R210ii that requires an urgent replacement due to power consumption and noise and I think this fits the bill. Having Unraid and be able to spin a couple of VM, have a ton of docker containers and be able to operate as a NAS also. Simplifies the complexities of XCP-NG and PCI Passthrough (for the HBA).
Only question is whether the ethernet ports are Intel or Realtek?
Looked like I saw when he showed the hardware on screen it said Intel i226 NICS when he was in BIOS
if intel should run esxi 8 also
Bought this (5700U) from Aliexpress, barebones, £230.31 delivery was within 12 days from ordering. I was previously running a Aliexpress KingNovy mini PC but had to use USB drives (not ideal). Running unraid, all seems fine, if I could just get Jellyfin trancoding to work :(
It works but pegs the cpu at 100 % LOL
i think the Aoostar R1 with its Intel N100 might be better for transcoding, which is important for my Jellyfin/plex server... Do you happen to know about this or could show us a comparison? I want the R7 but i know that intel is king when it comes to transcoding..
Imagine the Q or S selling 2bay nas with this spec , that probably price tag 800+ 😂
Nah it will be minimum 1000+
Tbh I don't think they every would, as it would immediately bugger up the portfolio and product brackets too much.
@@nascomparesIf they don't disrupt their lineups, someone else will.
They still have the edge for the full stack experience and support, but for enthusiasts, they're quickly becoming a lot less relevant.
I've just bought a Qnap TS-464 that, after a good 20 years with Windows, i just can't get on with. Think I'll sell that on and buy this, nice chassis AND Windows, could be the answer to my prayers.
Proxmox+(pfSense, Synology NAS, (OS/w Emby server, Torrent downloader), Openwrt/w VPN) is how I would like to runt this router NAS... Really do wish it had 2 more SATA ports/bays and a 10 or 5gb ethernet port. So I guess I would attempt a 5gb usb adapter I already have, otherwise I may attempt pulling the wifi card and putting an adapter in that slot. I really want this router NAS..
Would love to see the video transcoding performance of this newer ryzen cpu.
Me 2 but I suspect the n100 would win do to it having quicksync
I think at this price point 10GBe ain't a dealbreaker. If anybody buys this NAS due to budget constraints I'd guess they don't have a 10GBe Router / Switches / PCI-e Card in their main Computer.
That would make a nice edge router +nas +Pi-Hole
If you want to 10gbe you could use one of the m.2.slots
for home usage, htinking in to replace cloud usage, if you have a chance, would you recommend to get a Jonsbo N3 and build your own nas? or build something ready to go? thinking in longebity, also would you pay for Unraid or using Truenas ? in the other hand, do you know if there are 2.5" nas hdd ?
Does anybody know if the M.2 or mPCIe sockets of this mini PC are compatible with Google Coral Edge TPU? The PCIe bus should be MSI-x compatible but of course there's no datasheet so i'm looking for someone that has tested it. Cheers!
Hello, first of all, thank you! Your channel is so helpful.
So, I have a question: my setup is an AOOSTAR R7 running Proxmox, and TrueNAS SCALE running as a VM on Proxmox. My question is, should I configure GPU passthrough to my TrueNAS SCALE VM to leverage the benefits from the GPU, or is it not necessary? I have installed Jellyfin under the TrueNAS SCALE VM.
Since you have Proxmox installed, I would recommend installing Jellyfin as a Proxmox LXC. That is what I did with Plex. Tteck scripts make it easy.
Learning linux (so please be gentle) and getting confused with the way dd was used here, both the read and the write disk tests used if=/dev/ and of=/dev/null, I can see how that wil read from the disk, but which bit writes to the drive?
The write part is "of=/dev/null". In this case, it doesn't write to anything (null). It's a good way to just read the drive only for testing. Otherwise, you'll want to point to a real drive (ex: of=/dev/sdb )
@@TechieZeddie spot on, so how is the write test that uses of=/dev/null writing to the drive?
@@aardwolf21 You can write to a file on the volume on the drive you wish to test: dd if=/dev/zero of=./test bs=512k count=2048 oflag=direct then delete the file when done
@@TechieZeddie is exactly my understanding yes, except that is not what is done in the video, of=/dev/null is shown as a write test for the drive, i.e I think the video is wrong.
wow, this is Tianbao or Tianbo NAS, they are a workshop brand based in Guangzhou China, and this one R7 has been out for a little more than a year.
The main problem is the cooling isn't good enough as you mentioned in the video, and the drive bay isn't very stable (loud noise)
They made a V2 version to improve the cooling and also a N100 version but I don't know if you can get it in the UK.
Er... We do have a brand in China called tianbao, but we're in Shenzhen, China. And the R7 only went on sale in November of '23
@@cigijelisia4251 maybe I remember it wrong, but the AMD version seems out long ago.
Looks like an ideal box to be use as a roon server. Does the BIOS offfer an option to do raid via the bios?
That's required only for Windows though. If you run the usual proxmox/truenas/unRAID you don't need BIOS to do raid
@@marcogenovesi8570Windows does software RAID
When will you do your next SSD review?
One of the Amazon reviews said he put in ECC, but didn't elaborate. Does this thing really make use of ECC???
I did order the Zimacube but my card apparently doesn't like kickstarter and refused the payment so.. Current plan is Chuwi Corebox mini with a HDD bay for a jellyfin server and back ups. Any cons you can think of with this set up?
Interested in the proxmox build with some idea of the performance of a NAS vm running on top. Should be able to run significant number of VMs on this. This device is not found on Amazon UK and the aliexpress links go the BEBEPC Official Store ?? So not available in Europe ?
AOOSTAR has a website
Very interesting device. I don’t think the 2.5Gb is that much of an issue here in the UK. 10Gb networking is not that common here.
I would argue the same is true here in the USA. I'm not about to upgrade all my NICs, cables, switches, routers to 10Gb anytime soon.
I think wifi 7 will make 10gb redundant so I'm not going to upgrade from 2.5gb anytime soon either.
The back of the device seems to imply USB-C power delivery input given the power symbol. Looking at the Amazon listing it also says "support 100w power suppoly" next to "type-c"... Wonder how reliable that is...
I only ever got it to power a client device..but I never played with it in the native win 11 OS. I think it's client power only, but tbc
@@nascompares - Thanks for the reply. They seem to imply it can be powered by a 100w USB-C power supply but with some of these brands who knows.
I have one and can confirm that it did work with my 100-watt USB Type-C power adapter. I didn't really do any stability testing or anything, I just wanted to see if it would work. I still decided to use the original power brick since I won't be disconnecting the power from this device very often.
Would it be crazy or stupid to desoldar the NIC there and replace them with 10G?
I don't like the power button being in front.
I would love to see Plex performance on this! I have been looking for a standalone Plex server and this looks like a great option!
Plex tests are done, just need to edit the vid. Tbc
By any chance can you just comment how it did with Plex?, I’m looking to buy one tomorrow
@@nascompareslooking forward to a transcoding test of the R7 vs the n100 I feel like quicksync will make the n100 bearly move wears the AMD processor will really take a spike with even the easiest of transcodes.. I hope I am wrong so then I csn order myslef a R7 😂
The reviews on Amazon for n100 model are turning out to not be stellar. Makes me question buy in the n100.
Just hearing bits on this, will check them out
Could you review the ORICO MetaCube Pro/Metabox Pro NAS if they're any good at all. tnx
Trying to!
I don't know if I can trust ORICO or not, there is a lot of mixed reviews but user error is rife so it's difficult to tell
Whatsabout put unraid on the SD Card and use all 4drives? What setup would be good in unraid 1 parity drive hdd, 1hdd drive, 1 nvme drive and 1 nvme cash?
Unraid don’t run on sd card
SD card are a unreliable.
Supposedly it has a USB C port on it that you can use to power it if you wish. Have you tried powering it with a USB C brick?
Yes, it does work. I got it to turn on with a 100-watt USB Type-C power brick.
Literally a mini PC with 2 NAS bays. Specs look good and super cheap! Too bad it's only a 2 Bay.
5700U is far more powerful than the N100. Really cool.
Yet 5700U consumes more power and heats the HDDs more than N100. For a simple RAID1 Plex server to last more and not catch fire during hot summer day, the N100 seems like a better option - cheaper, too.
Shame the links only go to US sites, how about some for UK (after all you are based in UK) the links you give take me to unrelated page on Amazon UK
It's a decent point, but I try to use links that use a system called 'one link' (goes by a bunch of other names) that change the destination for the user that clicks towards the retailer in their own region. However, some e shops don't support it or some shops are US default unless the visitor manually changes. I thought about add onf links to all regions (the way I do on Black Friday etc), but it's just too much to maintain, so I have to rely on the automated redirect/one link thing. Hope that makes sense.
"Rrrrrrrripe for VM deployment"... nope. AMD iGPUs can't really be passed through.
Great NAS, but the "design" absolutely sucks.
2 bay for raid backup storage is a joke. you Must have at least four drives for failsafe Raid.. In order to do any Raid at all you need at least Two drives but if one of the two drives fail then you no longer have RAID or any storage. If in a Four drive RAID system, One drive fails. You still have RAID and all your data is safe.
THEMS THE RAID RULES.
RAID is not a substitute for backup. RAID is for reliability, availability, performance, and capacity.
Raid is not a backup solution... You already wasted all your credit.. Next