Does the Mini X+ make sense in 2024? EOL looks to be 2027.
I do have some PowerEdge R430’s and a PowerEdge R630 in my homelab. The R630 is 2.5" x8 and the RR430’s are 3.5" x 4. So I’m a little limited in terms of disk space.
My current TrueNAS SCALE system is running on a Dell Precision 5820, which has been having some odd harware issues. I’ve been trying to figure this out, replacing parts I have on hand.
I’ve looked at a few Synology units and while I use them for clients I don’t know if it fits in my homelab.
I’ve been looking at the Mini X+, watch Tom’s and Patrick with STH’s review of the unit and it seem like a solid option. The IPMI will be nice, I manage all of my PowerEdge server’s with iDRAC Enterprise.
I have 5 x 12TB IronWolf NAS drives that need a home, obviously they won’t fit in anything I currently have.
The Mini X+ is still a solid option today, especially if you want ECC RAM and SFP+ interfaces instead of RJ45 10G copper interfaces. The CPU is a bit dated and not the greatest if you want to run a lot of VMs, but just for TrueNAS without VMs and applications it is great. Actually the same as I have put together on my own and I am very happy and not thinking about moving away from the hardware platform.
If you can live without ECC RAM and with RJ45 10G copper interfaces, I’d take a look at the machines TerraMaster are offering. You can install TrueNAS scale on the x86-compatible models and get away with spending less budget.
I have done so with an F4-423. That particular one is an older model, it works nicely but don’t expect it to be a great platform for VMs or a lot of applications either, the C3758 is certainly better than the N5095.
If you consider Synology you need to be aware that (a) you cannot install TrueNAS on those and (b) their pricing covers a lot of their online services and it would only make sense to buy one if you also use their OS.
I owned 2 Synology devices in the past. After some years they were not supported any more and could only be used in the internal network due to vulnerabilites. I’d loved to install TrueNAS on them, but no dice.
I will probably be running nextcloud and a few other things on the Mini X+, I have no reason host host any VM’s on the unit. I have several Dell PowerEdge servers that host everything I need.
As for networking I use an HPE Aruba 2930M with 2 10G SFP+ expansion cards, and this is where all of my hosts and current TrueNAS SCALE server terminate to my network.
My current Precision 5820 has a W-2102 and 64GB RAM, running the same “Applications” I should see similar performance based on the Mini X+ spec.
I have no interest in using a Synology in my homelab, while I have used a rackstation and few other Synology NAS unit’s with clients it’s not really something I would personally buy.
I’m not even considering a TerraMaster device, nor Synology. I will continue to use TrueNAS SCALE. Just thought I would support IXsystems and buy an appliance from them. But the age was really my only concern.
What makes you think the CPU is so incapable? The W-2102 was capable of running a few VM’s. I’ve ran them both under TrueNAS, xcp-ng and ESXi in the past and with SSD drives being the datastore the performance was acceptable. This is a homelab not a production environment in a business. This system might be less wattage but it indeed has more cores and has hyper-threading.
This is not my usecase as I stated above, I’m just curious.
I am still using the TrueNAS Mini-R for all my video editing which is connected at 10G and it works well. The only issue that I have run into is that if you are using encryption on a dataset the CPU will be bottleneck for performance which is why I no longer encrypt my videos so I can get the full speed from the system.
The price of the Mini X+ seems kind of high to me when you could build the same thing from parts for significantly less money. I kind of feel the same way about the 45 Home Labs HL4 and HL8 boxes they are just coming out with.
The TrueNAS Mini-R is really a slightly modified Super Micro so yes, easy to get the parts and built it. The 45Drives cases are very nice and much higher quality than any other case manufacturer.
I found one in a sealed box for $900. I wouldn’t be paying MSRP.
Have you seen a comparable case? I’m not opposed to building something if I can get comparable features at the same price point. With a minimum of 5 drive bays for storage drives, and 2 additional drive bays either m.2 or SATA for SSD cache.
I did look for a rack unit but the price point for newer stuff was a bit more than I’m wanting to spend. The Mini X+ I found is new and in a sealed box with the seller wanting $900 for the unit.
Just curious, does the new one for 900 include some drives? both come with RAM?
Personally I buy used equipment when I can and replace the parts that degradate over time with new parts (like UPS batteries, or NVMe / SSD drives, SFP+ modules).
