Minisforum N5 Pro NAS might replace our home lab servers with AI storage?

I have to say that this is one that I am really excited about. The Minisforum N5 Pro NAS will be Minisforum’s first foray into the NAS world. However, they are already very adept with hardware that is both cutting edge and well reviewed and accepted in the home lab community. I am not sure if this is an unpopular opinion among some, but I think Minisforum makes the best mini PCs for home lab environments. Thir MS-01 and forthcoming MS-A2 are the standard and what I think the new standard will be. However, back to the N5 NAS Pro. Let’s take a look at this new NAS and what it will have to offer and why it is so exciting.

What is the Minisforum N5 NAS Pro?

The upcoming Minisforum N5 Pro NAS was officially announced as launching in June 2025. It was originally teased back at CES in January. It is a NAS that breaks the mold of traditional network-attached storage. It combines a powerful desktop-class CPU with PCIe expandability. But it doesn’t stop there. It also includes AI acceleration with a sleek modular chassis.

This new N5 NAS Pro is definitely blurring the lines of what a traditional NAS is and combines this with an AI workstation, and a modular home server. Let’s look at the CPU that it includes.

AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370

The CPU for this first NAS from Minisforum is the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370. This is a Strix Point processor that has 12 cores and 24 threads of processing power with AI capabilities.

Note the following with this particular CPU:

• 50 TOPS of NPU AI performance
• 16-core RDNA3 integrated graphics
• Support for up to 96GB DDR5-5600 ECC SODIMM memory

I have been excited for what the Strix Point processor line is capable of for quite some time and actually seeing this being put in a NAS with the AI capabilities, paired with storage is very exciting.

This possibly opens the door to AI-powered tasks, like media indexing, face recognition for photo albums, machine learning workloads, running your own LLMs and other tasks.

Storage up to 144TB with HDDs and SSDs

I really like the combination of storage this NAS offers. It offers spinning rust disks along with SSDs, which I think for NAS devices, is a perfect combination of storage. You get the depth of storage capacity with the spindles and the fast responsiveness of the SSDs for high performance workloads like VMs and containers.

The N5 Pro features:

• 5 x 3.5″ HDD bays
• Support for:
  • 3 x M.2 SSDs, or
  • 1 x M.2 SSD + 2 x U.2 drives (with adapters)

With the depth of storage this NAS is capable of, it is a serious contender for media aficionados, homelabbers, and self-hosting enthusiasts. All of those use cases demand lots of storage and various kinds of storage, both fast and deep.

Minisforum MiniSCloud OS with ZFS, AI, and Docker

We heard early on this NAS would possibly come with no OS installed, which would allow installing something like TrueNAS SCALE. However, more recent details have emerged with the fact that Minisforum is going to introduce this NAS with MiniSCloud OS. This is going to be a Linux-based NAS operating system designed for use with a NAS.

It is said to support:

• ZFS Snapshots
• LZA Compression
• Local Permissions & Privacy Tiering
• Private AI-Powered Media Albums
• Docker App Support

This will compete with offerings like TrueNAS SCALE and Unraid by Minisforum combining core NAS features with AI photo albums and Docker management. This will allow self-hosters a powerful tool out of the box, in terms of hardware and software.

That said, users are not locked in with this operating system. If you want, you can wipe the existing MiniSCloudOS and install:

• TrueNAS SCALE or CORE
• Unraid
• Proxmox VE
• Any other Linux or BSD distribution
• Even Windows Server, if you must

It will likely be one of the most adaptable NAS platforms that we have seen on the market.

Ports and Expandability

The ports and options for expandability for the N5 Pro are also very good from what we know. Minisforum has made this from a mini workstation so it has many of the strengths of that DNA, including the following:

• 1 x 10GbE LAN – high speed connectivity like storage targets, VMs, etc
• 1 x 5GbE LAN – backup network for high speed traffic, etc
• 1 x OCuLink (64Gbps) – interesting external PCIe expansion capabilities, like eGPU, NVMe, etc
• 2 x USB4 (40Gbps, with DP Alt Mode) – you can connect displays or storage
• 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) – high speed USB A connections
• 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A – traditional USB
• 1 x HDMI 2.1 – capable of 4K@120Hz output
• 1 x 3.5mm audio jack
• 1 x DC power input (19V / 12.63A)

But something unseen inside the NAS is also very good news also. It sports a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot inside the unit. This will allow for even more expansion possibilities, like cards including GPUs, another network adapter (think 25 gig) or other storage controllers.

I think it has one of the coolest designs that you appreciate when you look at the video from Minisforum. You can slide out the board for upgrades or repairs without touching the drive bays. In fact, it looks like they have built the NAS bays and shell around an MS-A2, etc. When they show pulling this out, it looks like this is what they have in hand.

Actively cooled and modular design

The N5 Pro looks to have a good cooling design, including the following:

• Dual rear exhaust fans
• Dedicated CPU fan
• Well-ventilated drive bays

I think also one of the stand out features again, is the modular pull out, drawer-style internal chassis. I haven’t seen anything like this before with a NAS device. You just pull out the drawer exposing the mini PC to access SODIMM slots or NVMe M.2 drives.

Target Audience: Enthusiasts and Early Adopters

With Synology’s bombshell about locking down hard drives used in their systems to only Synology-branded drives, I think a lot will be in the market for a NAS other than Synology. The Minisforum N5 Pro comes just at the right time and I think it will appeal to those looking for:

• Raw hardware performance
• Full OS flexibility
• Future-proofed networking and PCIe
• AI and container capabilities

It’s really built for self-hosting enthusiasts and those interested in home labs or media editing, AI photo sorting, etc. For those who just want a Plex server without tinkering? You might be better off with a more traditional solution. But if you’re someone who loves the idea of building your own private cloud, the N5 Pro is one of the most exciting entries to hit the market I think this year.

When is it out?

The MINISFORUM N5 Pro NAS is expected to launch according to Minisforum in June 2025, with pricing announced closer to the release date. A 30% discount is available for those who sign up via the official Minisforum website prior to launch.

Minisforum is standing behind a 2-year warranty, and early demos including their official 2.5-hour YouTube livestream) show the unit in detail:

Wrapping up

I think the new Minisforum N5 Pro NAS is extremely exciting and one of the best NAS devices we have seen in a while. It challenges the traditional NAS design in a way that makes total sense and follows the tradition of Minisforum in shaking up the market space with innovative solutions. This, I think, is going to be the NAS of the year to be had. Also, interesting is the new MiniSCloud OS which will be Minisforum’s own entry into the NAS operating system space. However, I think many will also want to load something like TrueNAS on this unit as well, so you have tons of options from a hardware/software operating system perspective. Let me know your thoughts in the comments on this NAS. Is this something you are looking to purchase when it releases?