NAS Motherboard N5105,4 Port i226/ i225 2.5GbE LAN,M.2 NVMe, 6*SATA3.0,2*DDR4, 1*PCIe4.0, Mini ITX Soft Router VPN Openwrt Barebone Micro Appliance DIY

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This board’s cheap as hell but still more than fine for a NAS build, which was the major reason for picking it. What would be really nice would be a more cost effective Thunderbolt to PCIE adapter so you could use a bunch of SAS cards/expanders. In any case I've read reports that people had troubles with either the m2 slot or PCIe card and a second ASM1166 controller (there's already a x1 connected ASM1166 for the SATA-Ports onboard). sadly, 4 lanes are needed to support the four i225 NICs, which only leaves four lanes to go around for everything else, leaving PCIe/SATA lanes severly constrained.

They're cramming an LGA 2011 v3 system onto a MicroATXish form factor and they waste board space on freaking audio? AFAIK the PCIe configuration in 2x8 +4 is limited in a few halo Z690/Z790 motherboards, and not present in B-class. In other words, you will need to look into workstation-grade motherboards and I personally do not recommend those because of their cost and rarity.This MSI ProSeries A320M-A Pro motherboard can be another viable entry-level option for many thanks to the various features and options that it offers. It’s where all your components will plug in, so picking the right one will determine the capabilities of your NAS.

I've used the one mentioned in the article and since my chassis had an expander backplane, I didn't need a separate expander card, just the cabling between the backplane and the system I connected it to. Even though Asrock might not be as popular as other motherboard vendors, you can still consider it if you want a budget-friendly motherboard for NAS usage.In short, here we will look into the best motherboards for NAS and also into some tips and pointers that can help you with building your NAS. Ever since my very first EconoNAS build, I’ve been wishing that I would be able to build an affordable, small form factor NAS. Apart from the CPU socket, the chipset used by your motherboard for NAS can also affect its performance as well as compatibility. Similar to most other affordable options, this is also a micro ATX motherboard that happens to be using the AMD A320 chipset. If you’re looking for a case to house this motherboard, visit our guide for the best Mini-ITX cases.