Similar to the previous mini-ITX NAS motherboards, but now with a 10Gbe LAN port. RJ45, not SFP+.
Specs-wise it's pretty much the ideal server motherboard: mini-ITX for low-power, 10Gbe for file transfers, two more ethernet ports for virtualizing pfSense, 6 SATA ports for large storage and two M.2 slots.
Weren’t these sub $200 a few weeks ago?
No, those were the ones without 10Gbe.
This one is brand new.
Ooooo damn. I just got the other ones.
Now I want to upgrade already lol
You and me both…
I really hope that deal comes back again…
Need PCIE slot
You can always use an M.2 to PCIe riser cable.
With that configuration, it looks like all 9 lanes of PCIe gen 3 have been used up. Those 3 ethernet ports take up 6 lanes (x1 + x1 + x4) + 2 NVMe (both x1) + extra 4 SATA ports (x1).
Of all the itx nas boards ive used without a doubt the cwwk h670 or q670 nas motherboards are the best, pair it with 12500t or 13500t, brute power
Review
Is a build like this expensive?
N100 really isn’t much power at all for a “server”. My Dell wyse 5070 (n5105 chip roughly equal to this) barely works only as a Jellyfin server. If I try to download anything (with VPN) I get bottlenecked and stream stutters.
Is it trying to do transcoding?
Or maybe the drive or memory is the bottleneck?
Mine does multiple streams and downloads without issues.
Ah interesting, yes it is transcoding. Memory and drive seemed fine, despising having a hardware transcoding you can’t really stream very large 4K movies very well when they are doing other small tasks like torrenting even (especially when their own VPNSVP and cryptography takes a lot of toll on cpu)
Nah if you want bare bones nas for back ups n100 ok, transcoding , vms its not gonna handle them just doesnt have the brute power.
Oh as a nas, yes absolutely more then enough…
Description says “ideal for a server board” which is what I am taking issue with here. “Server” It’s quite a bit of broad term, but generally speaking it’s really not capable beyond basic one or two streams at all. Let alone doing other “Server” things…
Sure 1080p single stream, but definitely not 4k.
@Wayne7497: It can definitely transcode multiple 4K streams with Intel Quick Sync (iGPU) hardware acceleration.
personally I don't get transcoding.. but then again I like to watch 1080p and 4K videos on the actual tv an not on a teeny tiny screen like my phone or tablet. To me it's as bad as watching a camjob of a new movie - experience totally ruined.
My 800Mhz AMD Neo CPU NAS (plural) can serve 2 x 4K streams with no issues - though I have just bought an N5095 based ITX motherboard with 12x SATA connectors to replace my N36l micro-servers being used as the NAS.
Transcoding is mainly for watching on a TV where source doesn't match tv specs
But you can buy a firestick that supports most specs, regularly on sale here. Download a file that suits the spec if you need to…
@Wayne7497 - that is what the media player does.. it handles resizing to the native tv resolution and real-time audio conversion if needed. If people are downloading 4K video and then mainly watching it on a 1080p or lower device - then download the lower resolution file in the first place. It'll be quicker and take up less storage space.
Yeah mate, it’s the opposite problem to what you are thinking.
Best TV boxes out there right now does not support some of the extravagant formats.
For example Apple TV 4K does not support a 4K TRUED Blu-ray with 7.1 dolby vision. So you need to transcode it to the next best format….
So no, my server doesn’t struggle because I am watching 720p, it struggles because I am watching a high-bitrate 100gb per movie video files….
Nope its exactly what i said.
@Larsson my ancient Amlogic S905X2 android media player (running coreelec o/s and KODI app) happily plays 4K HDR DV 7.1 atmos high bitrate UHD bluray rips (legal, of course). My LG OLED displays the image and my soundbar plays the atmos audio. If I want to hobble it I switch audio to stereo and listen to it through the tv (but why the hell would you want to?). Apple tv is a walled garden where they only want you watching what you pay them to watch.
I watch on my TV at home, but I also might want to watch the last 20 minutes of a show on my phone while on my 30 min lunch break.
Otherwise it’s only really transcoding when my mum or in-laws watch stuff from my server and only then because I’ve capped upload bandwidth to 24Mbps total and most of my video content runs at a higher bitrate.
If you want to stream to devices outside of your network, then transcoding is absolutely needed. This country still has bad upload speed because ISPs insist on using outdated technology.
personally I copy the file to my laptop etc. if I plan on watching something when not at home. Same applies to my large music collection on my phone, so I can bluetooth listen to it while I'm driving.
I ordered the last n100 deal with the plan for it to run low demand nas, Plex and home assistant. The current one is a decade old Ubuntu pc with ha running in docker.
Is it possible or worth it to configure an N100 build with unraid and virtualised HA, plex?
N100 boards are entry level, theyll do limited hardware transcoding and streaming 1080p no problems if you want vms etc your best to look something a bit higher spec.
This board is only SINGLE CHANNEL RAM as well
An N100 can absolutely transcode 4K.
Yeah, trying to work out if my use case is "entry level". At the moment, I'm in the "it works, but there are better ways to configure & maintain and the hardware is old".
Currently running a Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 from 2008?? with 8gb for this. With Ubuntu 16.04 for SMB. This was mostly set up in ~2016, but I had that PC doing mythtv, SMB and various other stuff from new in 2010.
MythTV was in the pre-streaming era of my life but now it's just plex installed from the deb file and Home Assistant in docker.
It still works but I could use a little more storage and HA needs to be re-configured.
I was thinking about stripping down a laptop and re-purposing that but the N100 seems cleaner and more appropriate.
an N100 is about twice as powerful as the Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550, so should be able to handle everything you had it doing before really easily.
Limited how? Integrated GPU will do this entirely in hardware. CPU used to transcode audio but should cope with that?
FYI, sata controller is JMB58x AHCI SATA controller
Apparently runs at PCI 3.0 x2, so you're limited to 2GB/s. Keep in mind if using SSDs.
Sata controller may actaully be from the case? Jansbo N4
Only one sold?