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CWWK X86-P6 Pocket NAS with i3-N355 N150 2xi226-V 2.5G DDR5 4800MHz 4xM.2 NVMe - Limited by Lanes


Brandon Lee
Posts: 525
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(@brandon-lee)
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Joined: 15 years ago

There are many more of these really cool little network attached storage devices that are making their way onto the market with some pretty cool use cases. The CWWK X86-P6 pocket NAS is no exception to that. It features an Intel i3-N355 or N150 and has multi-gig 2.5 i-226V network adapter, DDR5 memory and 4 x M.2 slots for NVMe.

It also has a pretty neat top cover that has 70*70 fan lock holes and 4 M3 20mm screes are provided by default to install a 7015 USB fan for extra cooling on the passive fins.ย 

The let down with this device is that it is limited by 9 lanes from the Twin Lake processor options. If you want to install and use four NVMe SSDs you will be limited to PCI-e 3.0 x1 speeds..ย 

ntel Twin Lake processors only have 9 lanes of PCIe 3.0.

You can get PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds if you remove the breakout board that gives you four M.2 2280 slots and just use a single SSD. But if you want to use four SSDs youโ€™ll be limited to PCIe 3.0 x1 speeds.

However, it still has pretty compelling I/O and connectivity options for such as small package:

  • You get 2 x 2.5 GbE LAN (Intel i226-V)
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10 Gbps)
  • 2 HDMI ports
  • M.2 B-Key slot for WiFi 6/WiFi7 + Bluetooth modules

You can see this little device on Ali Express here:

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(@dev47)
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I tried this recently with my 4tb WD SN700 Red NAS nvme drives (4x4tbs) and while it was sort off compatible, the 4th drive regardless of which slot it was in caused crashes in unraid or windows or linux. It works 100% fine with 3x4tb Red WD drives though.

I did try to reach out to cwwk support but got no reply and was on the latest bio updates.ย 

Something to be aware if anyone else is going to try a similar route for an all nvme nas build.ย 

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Brandon Lee
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(@brandon-lee)
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@dev47 great insights here. I had a question the other day about building a NAS for Unraid. This is a platform I don't have much experience with outside of testing and playing around in the lab. Have always gravitated towards TrueNAS for an open source offering. I think as the hardware gets more and more powerful we are seeing a lot of really cool NAS solutions like this. But as you mention, there could be some limitations.

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(@dev47)
Joined: 3 weeks ago

Active Member
Posts: 6

@brandon-lee I did not try unraid for almost 10 years, but played around with it for the last 2 weeks and its amazing how simple it is to use.ย 

You can literally set up pools and ZFS Raid options within several clicks and be up and running with in 5 minutes.ย 

Not tried Truenas, but given how quick and easy unraid was I am tempted to just buy the entire license. The license however can only be transferred once to a new system within 12 months, you have to email CS support if you want more sadly.

Perhaps not ideal if you testing or moving to different systems.

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