This silent all-flash NAS with 10GbE and dual USB4 is cheaper if you buy it bare-bone and add your own SSDs

Minisforum’s fanless NAS supports five NVMe SSDs and up to 40TB Intel’s five-core processor reaches boost speeds of 4.3GHz The system combines 10GbE, 2.5GbE networking, and dual 40Gbps USB4 Minisforum's S5 is a fanless network-attached storage system designed for users who need fast shared storage without mechanical drive noise.

Its five M.2 NVMe slots support up to 40TB of solid-state storage, allowing owners to choose capacities that match their requirements.

The NAS also combines high-speed networking, USB4 connectivity and local artificial intelligence processing in a compact, passively cooled design.

Five NVMe slots combine speed with silent operation The S5 uses Intel’s Core 3 304 processor, featuring five cores and boost speeds of up to 4.3 GHz.

Minisforum claims sequential read speeds can reach six times those of hard disk drives, with random reads reaching up to 100 times faster.

However, the actual performance of this device will depend on the installed SSDs , workload characteristics and the storage configuration.

Connectivity includes one 10GbE port, one 2.5GbE port, Wi-Fi, and two USB4 interfaces supporting transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps.

These connections allow the S5 to serve multiple users while supporting external storage devices and compatible peripherals.

Instead of using conventional fans, the system relies on heat pipes and cooling fins to dissipate heat.

The company says its system draws about 15W of CPU power under combined stress testing at a 25°C ambient temperature, although that figure does not represent total system electricity consumption.

The S5 also includes an NPU rated at 15 TOPS for INT8 operations, supporting local AI applications alongside conventional storage functions.

Its proposed uses include running background agents continuously, maintaining shared creative project files, and serving household entertainment libraries.

Calculate the savings before choosing your SSDs Minisforum lists the bare-bones S5 at $599, discounted from $749, with 12GB of LPDDR5x memory and 128GB of UFS storage.

Its five NVMe slots remain available for buyers to populate with compatible drives purchased separately.