AIFFRO K100 Mini Flash NAS Review - New Kind of Flash NAS?

Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
00:17 - NAS or Mini PC?
01:29 - Price and First Impressions
02:34 - Design and Size
03:28 - Included Software?
03:55 - The Network...
05:01 - Ports and Connections
06:43 - Included SSD
07:50 - DDR4 or DDR5 Memory?
08:38 - Heat Dissipation
09:13 - Power Use
10:06 - Noise
10:47 - Performance
11:28 - Verdict on the Affiro K100 NAS

The NAScompares Podcast - Let's Talk Data

buy

[fatenevermore]

The N100 only has 9 PCIe lanes, so that would explain the 2 lanes per drive. Given the small footprint and power requirements, I would expect this to be more something that you'd pair with a travel router and take with you than a daily use device.

[majicdude]

This isn’t really a “NAS”. This is just a $150 DDR4 mini PC that they are marketing as a “NAS” for $300+. They just put an extra m.2 slot in a $150 mini pc and are charging double for the extra m.2 slot.

[BillyBobDingledorf]

I've seen a couple of reviews complain about the lack of wifi on a NAS. Why is that a dealbreaker? When I think of NAS, I don't think of wifi.

[zyghom]

I recently bought new mobo with N305 on Ali and put 1x 48GB DDR5, It has 4x2.5Gbps. It is a beast comparing to previous ones i.e. N6005. Considering I put there HDD and used 2x m2 as OS on mirror (zfs) - more than enough for the home NAS. This what you just presented is not really home NAS - maybe traveller storage.

[aureltrouts]

N100 supports 9 PCIe lanes Gen 3, so it would make sense to get PCIE (Gen 3) x2 for all of them (x2 * 4 = 8 lanes, which does not exceed 9), CPU doing its best...

Also the reason why it's not worth buying any flash NAS (or mini PC) when CPU was N5105 or these new N95/N97/N100/N200/N300, cause CPU won't be able to use these SSDs to their full potential (Asustor Flashstor FS6706T is a good example of not picking the right CPU).
CPU don't need to have huge TDP to handle number of lanes (see Ryzen V models like in Synology DS1821+/23+).

If anyone needs/wants to get full-flash NAS, make sure CPU can handle the total number of lanes (x4 * number of SSDs). TBS-h574TX (both versions) can handle 20 PCIe lanes, reason why this NAS offers 5 SSD slots (NAS is overall "balanced/relevant"). Also, NIC can book some PCIE lanes too...

[erock]

When I travel with the family, I bring a MiniPC with 2 4TB nvme drives as a mobile plex/jellyfin minecraft server. This would double the amount of storage within a power budget that can be run off of a powerbank on a cross country flight.

[wayneseymour]

I am a newbie when it comes to networking and NAS solutions, but I have a idea of one I want to try but I’m unsure if it’s feasibility. My solution to a small NAS is to use a mini-PC (Beelink Mini S12 Mini PC) with a 128GB NVME M.2 for the OS and Urbackup as the NAS software solution, a 4Tb SATA 2.5 SSD for interior storage expansion. That’s for the first part, the further expansion plan is to attach a 4 Bay HDD Cage Chassis, connecting it to the Beelink through a NVME M-Key PCI Express to SATA 3.0 Adapter Converter Hard Drive Extension Card. My only unsure portion of the NAS, is my decision to power the 4 Bay Chassis using a Pico UPS (24pin DC ATX PSU 12V DC Input DC 12V 150-watt Pico PSU) as the power source attaching a COMeap ATX Power Jumper Cable to turn the chassis on/off. On paper it seems as if it should work but of course like I stated I’m a newbie. What do you think? Would it work?

[alanpaone]

this gets pretty close to making the compromises I'd want, tbh, I prefer an all-flash NAS just for footprint and noise in my apartment, I even only have 2.5GBe on my router, but 4 drives isn't quite enough, I'd still need expensive 4TB drives, and this is neither cheap enough to offset that, nor expandable enough to let me work around it. I'm pretty sure my next NAS is going to look a lot like this though.

[Ohytos]

It's DDR5, you can check by it's part number and 4800 MT/s speed.

[jasperverkroost]

Would have the potential to be a nice Plex server, but apparantly the fan makes more noise than the one on my Synology 918+.

[annebokma]

Waiting for the flashtor gen 2. 2*10gb.. 😊

[PlanetNr]

What I feel worried about in these... curious brands is the reliability. In a NAS you need reliability, data redundancy, etc.
At this price point I would choose a Synology, QNAP or even TerraMaster, that I've been using for several years without any issues.

[gabest]

Pair it with a NICGIGA switch for perfect synergy.

[jamespistorino]

Absolute newbie to this area and wanted to ask this community questions about upgrading my system to support a "big data" project.
My project is software than has to analyze ~10TB of medical data.
The issues/concerns I have with my current setup are: 1) data transfer speed; and 2) capacity. The data is already backed up on offline drives so I am not concerned with RAID redundancy. I am trying to decide whether to buy a new computer and/or add a NAS (and if so what kind -HDD, SSD, or hybrid).

I have an Alienware R11 (thus PCIe Gen 3), with 32GB of RAM, a 2.5Gb network connection. It has two NVMe slots, one is occupied with a 1TB SSD on which the operating system is stored. In the other slot I installed an 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 SSD. I have also installed two WD Ultrastar 22TB HDDs.

The issue is that the 8TB SSD speed is limited by the motherboard and is also too small to hold all the data. Data transfer speeds from the HDDs max at ~250MB/sec.
Thus, it takes many hours (almost a day) to read the data.
I want a system at least twice as fast with at least 30TB capacity.

Do I buy a new computer with Gen 4/5 PCIe and more NVMe slots that I load with the max TB SSDs I can afford and split the data across (suggestions for specific models appreciated)? Or do I add a NAS (again, suggestions appreciated)? Or do I do both?

Internet wizards share your wisdom!

[iamrenoria]

does the data transfer speed saturate the 2.5G connection? if so then I don’t really see an issue with the PCIe lanes configuration..

[nadtz]

N100 is good for a lot of things but lacks the pcie lanes to make a good flash NAS. Not that something that small and low power wouldn't have use cases, I could definitely see using something like that while travelling or on location, price is way too high though and it's a shame almost none of these support 22110 drives.

[EViL]

Interesting, looks like my previous comment got removed.... Either way, to say it again, many of the N100 boxes currently being sold are way overpriced. I've got a variety of the N100 including Trigkey boxes from Amazon, and Firewall-style box (4x 2.5GbE). But the best one is a barebone N100 with 2x2.5GbE NICS (Intel) and 2x NVMe bays, that I'm using for a CEPH cluster, and they cost me less than £100 each from AliExpress.

[XhawathyDev]

How do you think it would perform with proxmox for home assistant and Plex ?

[nielsdebakker]

N100, that chip has a total lack of pci lanes. Why do you think it has so little connectivity.

[andygardiner]

It's a NAS with "only one 2.5GbE" but what is its purpose? If you have 10GbE and are able to drive the SSDs hard how are you going to cool it and what are you connecting to it? I would contend that this is not a NAS designed with SSDs to be a power box but the physically smallest, portable NAS device they could produce - necessarily requiring the physically smallest storage devices - to put in a bag and take with you ... and it fits that brief reasonably well. I think it seems overpriced for the benefit of portability but I'm not their target market.