Can this make a Mini PC a NAS? [YouTube Release]

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Mini PCs are compact, quiet, and energy-efficient, but can they be repurposed as a DIY NAS (Network Attached Storage) system? In this video, I experiment with turning a Mini PC into a NAS using an NVMe to SATA adapter for storage expansion.

While this isn’t a production-grade setup, it’s an interesting proof of concept that shows how a M.2 NVME adapter can expand storage on small form-factor PCs. This method might be useful for homelab enthusiasts, budget-conscious users, or anyone looking for an unconventional way to build a NAS.

10Gtek M.2 to SATA Adapter

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Chapters
00:00 Minic PC NAS
00:56 M2 NVME Sata Adapter
02:27 Performance and Bencmark Testing
03:54 Limitation of the ASMedia ASM1166 Chip

1 Like
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I think this is not “can you”, it’s a “should you”. I’m all for using mini-PCs for some things. I use NUCs for my firewalls (OPNsense). However for a NAS, it’s my data. I don’t want the thing taking a week to transfer because it’s overheating or worse yet, corrupt data. It needs to be reliable. I noticed Tom even mentioned the heatsink on that NVME card. I know I have fans for my HBA cards.

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The only issue I have is the form factor. I say this because I did build an n100 powered, 6 sata spinning drive NAS for my lab. Performance is “good enough” compared to what I’m getting from a similar server class device with 8 sata spinning drives that are older and slower. Both old and new are on 10gbps, old NAS idles at 100+ watts, new NAS idles at 30 watts, I see 50 watts at full go during a benchmark from a VM (up to 7gbps writes to an NFS share). I consider this to be “not too shabby”.

And if I had SSD installed, I could see another 10+ watt drop on the new NAS, but hard to justify the money for this right now.

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That’s pretty cool. I love mini PCs from a power saving perspective. I just wonder however in this case about your drive selection. Did you pair with enterprise type drives?