CWWK X86 P5 M.2 NVMe NAS Board Review

Video Chapters
00:00 - The Start
00:29 - The Crowded DiY and BYO NAS Market
01:07 - Storage and Design
01:55 - What is NOT Included?
02:16 - PSU / Power Supplier?
02:59 - How the x86 P5 Manages SATA Storage?
03:40 - Power Consumption
03:56 - How Hot Does It Get?
05:10 - BIOS
05:25 - PCI Lanes
05:44 - Read and Write Benchmarks
06:51 - How the M.2 are Mounted
07:42 - WiFi?
08:01 - Ports and Connections
08:52 - Revirew Conclusion

The NAScompares Podcast - Let's Talk Data

buy

[krin-san]

Please prepare more videos like this one, about mini pcs turned into a NAS. The options are numerous but they all come with their downsides and finding something good enough ain’t easy.

[pconnor]

I could easily see someone designing a 3D printable case for this that puts a couple SATA drives on top of it, and then a 120mm fan along the back that would actively cool all of the components. Would love to see that come to fruition.

[StenIsaksson]

Why does the seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they fly over the bay they would be bagels.

[CodeSnowy]

For anyone looking at this in the future.
I bought one of these and put a 48GB 4800Mhz RAM on it and it booted without any issue into BIOS. Have not tested with OS yet but to boot to BIOS means it is fine 99% of the time.

[scottbrooke]

I'm running this system with Proxmox without the 4xNVME. E-Key 64gb boot drive at 3x1 speeds and a 2TB regular NVME at 3x4 speed for CEPH only. Putting the fan on the heat sink was required. 32gb RAM works perfectly fine. It's ok as a Proxmox node as long as you don't expect too much out of it. The 4 E-Cores are obvious at times, but normal operation is great. 3 node Proxmox cluster running CEPH for the only storage and about 3-4 VMs on this node at any time.

[tommybronze]

Hi, actually I’ve got an idea for testing system like this one:
populate it with nvme drives and boot from ubuntu usb or something similar. Make a zfs array (raid5) and copy some large video file to it. Then just copy from one folder to another within that zfs array!
That should tell people how goot the cpu is in terms of calculating checksums and parity data.
You could setup a ram disk and copy data from the array to ram disk and the from ram disk back total the array - that way we would know the read and write performance for at least sequential data.

[Trains-With-Shane]

I ordered the i3-n305 version yesterday. Going to stand up a NAS and run my home network services off of it. I went ahead and spent the extra money for the 32gb/1tb kit as it was only $2 cost difference than ordering the SODIMM and the NVME drive separately, lol. My usage case for this isn't going to require blistering file transfer speeds. Was hoping you'd have some software testing in this video as I plan to run a ZFS pool for the storage and some proxmox/docker stuff.

[paulwoodward]

please do more, can it do raid5, or is that daughterboard not up to it?

[HelloHelloXD]

Yes for more tests. Maybe raid z2 on Truenas?

[Airbag]

Maybe get 20 will have 10gb NIC and proper lanes to saturate the link in read and writes :)
I'm guessing the SATA connectors are for 2.5" drives and don't provide 12V to 3.5" drives?

[RobertoAnile]

i have the i3-n305 variant with the board and 5 (FIVE) nvme attached and running.. 4 nvme on the expansion board (pcie4x4 downgraded to 3x1 each) and the 5th drive in a custom a+e to m-key adapter i built myself.
everything works perfectly fine, running proxmox on the 5th drive and with mdadm raid5 array with lvm on top on the other 4 drives.. lan ports are lacp'd so i get full 2.5gb transfer speed, quite happy and sold my old DS920+.

[franktothemax]

The I hate seagulls bit gets me every time.

[DarthKielbasa]

4:17 - heat was my immediate concern. Perhaps the standoffs can be added to the nvme side so that the device can be flipped and maintain silent operation.

As you said, for $150 knicker and TWO 2.5 gbe, this is a fantastic deal.

[AdamPrtn]

Great review of a very good device, may look at grabbing one of these for homelab use.

Also the Seagulls! God I wish I lived near the seaside!

[THEGEG]

Your best putting a OS disk in the WiFi slot imo

[NathanLayman-gb]

Thanks for the video! I'm very new to all this. How would you say this stacks up against, say, the friendlyelec 3588? They both have 4 M2 Gen3x1 slots. Does the oversaturation problem / cooling issues make up for the difference in CPU performance for a basic home NAS / plex server? Which would you recommend for that purpose?

[הומושמן]

Could you please create a comparison video of CWWK 5P to CM3588 board? or probably there is any ryzen powered alternative with 4 nvme ssd idk that would be the best router/nas/homelab for me tbh

[That_Stealth_Guy]

Quite an interesting little board. What has me more interested is the break out board from PCIe 3x4 to four 3x1 slots. Could that be added to a board that is more robust. I have a Asrock Deskmini B760 that has some interesting features.
Intel 12-14th Gen 65W processors
1 PCIe 5.0 X4 slot
1 PCie 4.0 X4 slot
2 Sata ports (via similar break out cables)
20 GB/s USB Type C,
See where my mind is going with this. It might just be worth the $150ish to get this board and do some tinkering

[Andy_FortyTwo]

I'm confused.... intel says the n100 and n305 only support gen 3 pcie.
The products own specification sheet says the onboard M.2 slot is only gen 3 where did you get gen4 x4 from?

Is that a PCIe switch chip on that daughtercard?

If so, all of this would explain the poor performance when writing the the storage.

[Spreadie]

I already have the exact same mini PC without the NVME adapter and 4 way daughterboard. I wonder if you can buy them separately...