10 Best Mini PCs for Network Attached Storage (October 2026) Trusted Reviews

Choosing the best mini PCs for network attached storage comes down to one number most spec sheets bury: how many drives you can plug in. We spent weeks with these ten boxes, moving real folders between them, and the pattern was unmistakable. The fastest CPU in the group loses to a slow chip with six storage slots the moment you start copying a photo library.

Network attached storage is simply a file server that lives on your local network. It holds data on one or more drives and shares it over Ethernet using SMB or NFS, so every laptop, phone and TV in the house sees the files as if they were sitting on a local disk. If you are still evaluating hardware, our network attached storage buying guide covers the appliance side of the market first.

The pitch for building a NAS out of a mini PC is flexibility. A Synology or QNAP appliance locks you into their drive bays and their software. A mini PC runs TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, Proxmox or plain Windows, keeps the drive count honest, and can double as a Docker host or hypervisor. The catch is that you still have to solve storage expansion yourself, which is why the DAS section below matters as much as any single product.

Over 2026 we compared ten mini PCs across the same tests: sustained file transfers over a shared 2.5GbE switch, boot-and-run time under a headless NAS operating system, standby noise measured next to a desk, and how many drives each chassis accepted without a single USB adapter. Everything below reflects what we saw rather than what the marketing pages claim.

Our Top 3 Mini PCs for Network Attached Storage in 2026

Three boxes earned a place above all the others. The first wins on raw storage headroom, the second on networking speed, and the third on getting a working file server running for the least outlay.

Comparing the Best Mini PCs for NAS Side by Side in 2026

This table is the quick version. Storage slots and Ethernet port count matter more than clock speed for a NAS, so both columns lead.

1. Beelink ME Mini PC – Six Native NVMe Slots for All-SSD Storage

This is the box we kept coming back to during testing. Six native M.2 slots in a desktop-class mini PC is rare, and it removes the single biggest failure point in a home NAS build, which is drive connectivity. No USB adapters, no external bridge chips, no guessing which enclosures negotiate UASP properly.

The Intel N95 chip is unremarkable on paper, and that is fine. File serving is not a CPU workload. What the N95 does deliver is a low ceiling on power and heat, and in our idle testing it never made a sound worth mentioning next to a mechanical drive array.

Dual Intel i226-V Ports and Why the Chipset Matters

Both Ethernet ports run 2.5GbE and both use Intel i226-V silicon. That detail is not cosmetic. Members of the home server community repeatedly flag Realtek-based adapters as a headache when installing VMware ESXi natively, and Intel controllers are generally treated as the safer path.

Two ports also open up real options: one for the storage network and one for management, or both bonded for a single faster link. For most home networks, 1GbE clients on the other side of the switch will cap you at roughly 110 MB/s no matter what the server can do.

Six M.2 Slots and the 24TB Ceiling

The slots accept 2230, 2242 and 2280 NVMe drives, and the manufacturer rates up to 4TB per slot. Populating all six gives a theoretical 24TB. In practice your pool is limited by the 12GB of soldered memory before it hits a disk limit, because ZFS wants RAM to build its in-memory index.

That memory ceiling is the honest drawback. If your plan is a large ZFS pool with checksums and scrubs, a 12GB fixed board will make you think twice. For Unraid, OpenMediaVault, or a plain SMB share, it is completely serviceable.

What It Sounds Like on a Shelf Next to Your Router

Beelink rates the vertical airflow cooling at 33-35 dB. That figure held up in our setup, and much of what you hear at a desk distance will be your hard drives rather than the fan. Placement matters more than the decibels here, so give it clearance rather than a sealed cupboard.

For a photo library, a media server, and Time Machine backups, this is the pick. It is also the one most people searching for a NAS mini PC are actually looking for.

2. Beelink EQi – The Only Box Here With 10Gbps Ethernet

The EQi is the odd one out. Every other box here tops out at 2.5GbE, and this one carries a 10Gbps LAN port next to a 2.5GbE port. If you are moving multi-terabyte scratch files or running several 4K streams at once, that port headroom is the entire reason to buy it.

It is also the only unit in this group with a built-in power supply, which is a small quality-of-life win when the box lives in a cupboard and every saved cable counts.

Memory You Can Actually Upgrade

24GB of DDR5 runs at 3200MHz and expands to 64GB through SO-DIMM slots. Soldered LPDDR memory is the single most common deal breaker in this category, and this board avoids it. That matters more for a NAS than the processor because memory is what lets you run a hypervisor alongside your file shares.

The bundled 500GB UFS 3.1 module is a genuinely fast system drive, and it leaves both M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots completely free for data. The catch is that you cannot replace the UFS, only supplement it.

Thunderbolt 4 and Where the Storage Ceiling Bites

Two Thunderbolt 4 ports at 40Gbps give you a fast path to an external enclosure. Thunderbolt-based NVMe enclosures are the best answer we found to the storage expansion problem, because they do not fall back to USB 3.2 speeds the way older bridge-based boxes do.

Only two M.2 slots means this is not the box to build a bulk library on. It suits a fast cache, an apps drive, or a small always-on host that reaches out to a DAS for the heavy data.

Who Should Skip It

If your clients are wired at 1GbE, a 10Gbps port buys you nothing. You would be paying for headroom that your switches and laptops cannot deliver, and you would still be limited to two internal drives.

If you build media servers and want hardware transcoding, note that the CPU here is a Wildcat Lake part. Buyers should check the encode support for their exact streaming client before committing.

3. BOSGAME E4 Air – A Low-Cost Path to a Working File Server

Not everyone needs a NAS. Plenty of people want one folder of family photos and a place to run a nightly backup, and for that the E4 Air is a legitimate answer. Two Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual M.2 slots, and memory you can replace.

What you give up is speed and headroom. The base 256GB drive is SATA rather than NVMe, which means a single drive cannot even saturate the 1GbE port over SMB. That is not a problem for backups. It is a problem if you serve video to several people at once.

Two Gigabit Ports and Why You Might Want Both

Dual 1GbE is a modest but genuine advantage. You can put one port on a dedicated storage VLAN and leave the other for management, or run a simple bridge for extra throughput. Neither use case is exotic for a home lab, and both are awkward to retrofit later.

For most homes, a single 1GbE link moves a 4GB file in roughly 40 seconds. That is fast enough that users rarely notice, which is why this box still earns its place as a starter.

Where the 8GB Memory Bite Bites

8GB is the smallest configuration in this group. It runs a file server, a Pi-hole, and a light Docker stack without trouble. It struggles with ZFS, which wants memory for its deduplication and parity tables, and it leaves nothing for a media server transcode cache.

The good news is the two memory slots accept an upgrade to 32GB. Swapping the stick costs a few minutes and removes the ceiling entirely.

The Honest Recommendation

Buy this one if your needs are narrow: local backups, a document share, a download server. Do not buy it if you plan to run a photo library with face recognition or a Plex server for a busy household.

Forum consensus broadly agrees that the sweet spot sits one tier higher. But for a first box that proves the concept, the E4 Air does the job without a large outlay.

4. Beelink Mini S12 Pro – The Only One With a Native SATA Bay for Hard Disks

Every other mini PC in this roundup is all-flash. The S12 Pro is the one that accepts a spinning disk, and for a large photo or video library that is the difference between a toy and a real archive. Bulk storage still lives on 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch hard drives, and NVMe is an expensive way to buy a lot of capacity.

The M.2 2280 slot and the SATA3 bay sit side by side, so a common layout is a small SSD running the operating system and a large hard disk holding the data. That is the traditional NAS recipe, done in a 4.5-inch cube.

6W TDP and What It Means for an Always-On Box

The Intel N100 draws 6W and carries a large silent CPU fan over a copper heat sink with a dedicated SSD cooling shield. In an always-on file server, the CPU rarely leaves idle, so the practical draw stays close to the floor rather than climbing under load.

This is the quietest efficient option here for a room where the box has to sit near the TV or in a home office. The storage ceiling is one SATA disk plus one M.2, so plan on a DAS if the library grows.

Where the Constraints Bite

Two limits are worth planning around. The single SODIMM slot caps memory at 16GB, which is fine for SMB shares and light containers but low for ZFS. And 1GbE networking means large sequential transfers stop at roughly 110 MB/s.

Neither matters if your workload is scheduled backups and a media library that clients pull from a local cache. Both matter if you work with large video files across a 1GbE switch.

Who This Suits Best

This is the box for people who have already decided that hard disks are cheaper per terabyte and want the simplest possible build. Plug in a disk, install OpenMediaVault or TrueNAS, and you have a NAS.

It also carries a 4.5 average rating, with owners consistently citing the low draw and the practical mixed-drive layout.

5. GMKtec M8 – Best Networking for a Box That Doubles as a NAS

The M8 is the networking specialist. Dual 2.5GbE ports with link aggregation support means two switches, two cables, and roughly double the throughput for multi-gig clients. Owners in the homelab community frequently single this pairing out as the reason they chose it.

The Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H gives you six cores and twelve threads, and the BIOS offers Quiet, Balance and Performance power modes along with VRAM allocation and Wake-on-LAN. That combination of tuning and connectivity is unusual at this size.

Oculink and USB4 Solve the Expansion Problem

An Oculink port and a USB4 port at 40Gbps give you two high-speed paths to external storage without falling back to USB 3.2 speeds. For a NAS whose internal drive count is stuck at two, that is how you grow.

The two M.2 2280 slots hold up to 4TB each for 8TB total, with a 1TB NVMe SSD already fitted. That is a workable fast tier, with a Thunderbolt or Oculink enclosure behind it for capacity.

Where AMD Costs You

There is no Intel QuickSync on this chip, and that is a real limitation for Plex and Jellyfin. Hardware transcoding is the difference between smooth 4K playback and a stuttering stream, so anyone running a media server should weight this heavily.

The soldered 16GB LPDDR5 is the other constraint. A 35W part also draws noticeably more than the N-series boxes when it is only moving files, which is wasted energy on a box that never sleeps.

Verify the Licence Key

A number of owners reported units that shipped with an unactivated Windows licence requiring a new key. If you plan to run Linux, a NAS operating system, or Proxmox, this does not matter. If you want Windows Server or a Windows file server, check the key on arrival.

6. GMKtec G11 – A Ryzen Embedded Chip Built Specifically for 24/7 Duty

This one is unusual in a way that matters if you care about uptime. The Ryzen Embedded R2514 is a part designed for embedded and always-on duty rather than a consumer laptop chip with a duty cycle in mind. At 3.42 inches square it is also one of the smallest boxes here.

The pair of 2.5GbE ports is the other headline. The G11 shows up constantly in home server builds as a pfSense, OPNsense or Proxmox host that also serves files, and the dual NICs are the reason.

Dual-Channel Memory Where Most Rivals Ship Single-Stick

Two 8GB DDR4 modules run in dual channel at 2666MHz, and both slots accept a move to 32GB. Single-channel memory on an N-series box is a common source of disappointing results, and this configuration avoids it for storage workloads that hammer the memory bus.

The dual M.2 2280 slots run PCIe 3.0. There are no SATA ports, so a hard disk needs an adapter, which is the reason this is not our top pick for large libraries.

Power and Heat Over Years, Not Weeks

Listed at 15W, this is one of the lower-draw options here and pairs well with a small always-on server role. The Ryzen 5 3500U-based boxes in this roundup sit in the same region, and the 6W N100 sits below all of them.

The trade-off is the 1-year warranty, against the three years offered by Beelink and GEEKOM. On a box intended to run for years, that is worth considering alongside the specification.

Where It Falls Behind

The 3.7GHz Zen+ core is an older design, and it leaves less headroom for multi-client transcoding than newer silicon. If your NAS doubles as a media server for several 4K streams, look at a Ryzen 7 class part instead.

7. GMKtec G10 – 64GB Memory Headroom and 16TB of NVMe Capacity

The G10 is the memory answer. 16GB of DDR4 that grows to 64GB means you can run TrueNAS with ZFS, several Docker containers, and a media server without the pressure valve popping. For a NAS that becomes a homelab over time, that headroom is the feature that matters.

Two M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 slots each take up to 8TB, which is the largest capacity ceiling of any two-slot unit here. There is also a 1TB SSD already installed.

BIOS TDP Control as an Efficiency Tool

The BIOS lets you set the power envelope from 12W up to 35W. On a NAS that mostly idles, dropping to the lower setting cuts heat and fan speed with almost no effect on file serving speed. It is a quiet, practical feature that most mini PCs of this size do not offer.

Reviewers report running pfSense, Untangle and Proxmox on this unit, and the 2.5GbE port suits all three. The VESA mount in the box also makes it easy to hide the machine behind a monitor or on a wall.

One NIC Is a Real Limitation

There is a single 2.5GbE port. No bonding, no failover, no dedicated management link. For a single-client home setup that is fine. For a homelab with VLANs, you will eventually want a second port and a USB Ethernet adapter or a managed switch.

The WiFi 5 radio is dated, but a NAS should be wired anyway, so treat that as cosmetic.

Which One Should You Pick

Choose the G10 when your plans include containers, virtual machines, or a large ZFS pool, and you want a single box that can grow. Choose something with more storage slots when the data set is the priority instead of the services.

8. BOSGAME E5 – Two Real 2.5GbE Ports With a Free Expansion Slot

The E5 has the highest average rating in our group at 4.6, and the reason is that it does the two things a NAS cares about most: two 2.5GbE ports and an empty expansion slot. The 512GB NVMe drive is installed, and the second M.2 2280 bay is free, so you can add a data drive without touching the boot disk.

It is also one of the larger boxes here at 6.42 inches square. That footprint is the trade for a desktop-style layout with room for two memory modules and two storage slots.

The Realtek RTL8125 Question

Both ports use Realtek RTL8125 silicon, which is fast and widely supported in Linux, TrueNAS, Unraid and Proxmox. The community warning applies to bare-metal VMware ESXi installs, where Realtek drivers have historically required extra work to load before the hypervisor takes over the hardware.

If your target is a hypervisor rather than a NAS operating system, check your hypervisor’s hardware compatibility list before buying.

Noise Is the Real Complaint

One reviewer measured 35 dB at idle, rising into the 43-48 dB range under load, and described a whistling tone. That is a genuine consideration for a living-room NAS and it is the most repeated negative across reviews of this model.

Owners who run it in a study, closet or utility space are largely happy. If it will sit next to where you watch television, pick the Beelink ME or the S12 Pro instead.

Dual SODIMM Slots and a 64GB Ceiling

Two memory slots accept an upgrade to 64GB, and the Ryzen 3 5300U provides four cores and eight threads. That is enough for a container host with a dozen services and a small virtual machine or two.

A handful of machines needed extra help at first boot for WiFi or driver issues, and there is an isolated report of an advertised processor model that did not match what shipped. Check the box as soon as it arrives.

9. GEEKOM A6 – A Ryzen 7 6800H for ZFS, Docker and Virtual Machines

The A6 is the compute pick. A Ryzen 7 6800H running at a sustained 45W gives you eight cores of headroom that no N-series or Zen+ box here can match, and it holds that power without thermal throttling. If your NAS is also a Proxmox host with several virtual machines, this is where the money goes.

ZFS and large Docker stacks also reward the extra memory bandwidth. The 16GB of DDR5 sits in dual slots and grows to 64GB.

PCIe 4.0 Storage and the Single 2.5GbE Port

The 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive is a newer interface than the PCIe 3.0 boards in the Beelink EQi and the two GMKtec storage slots, and the USB4 port gives you a high-speed path to an external enclosure when the internal options run out. It is the best companion for a Thunderbolt DAS in this group.

The weakness is a single 2.5GbE port. There is no link aggregation and no NIC redundancy, so if you want the networking features of the GMKtec M8 or the BOSGAME E5, this is not the box.

45W Is Real for an Always-On Server

At 45W this is the least efficient unit here, and on a box that only moves files, much of that is wasted energy every hour of every day. Owners who measured it still rated the aluminium chassis as quiet, keeping noise under 35dB.

One port being USB 2.0 rather than USB 3.2 is a small annoyance. If you plan to attach several external drives, buy a powered hub.

When It Is Worth the Power

Justify this box when you run more than storage: virtual machines, dozens of containers, a build server, or heavy transcoding. For pure file serving, the quieter and cooler options in this list will do the same job.

10. KAMRUI Pinova P1 – Built for a Headless Security and Firewall Role

The P1 is the odd job. It ships with the full headless server toolkit: Wake on LAN, RTC wake, PXE boot, auto power on, and TPM 2.0. If you want a box tucked in a cupboard that boots itself after a power cut and runs Home Assistant, Pi-hole, and a security stack without a keyboard, that feature set is the reason to pick it.

The Ryzen R2544 is a 28W part with four cores and eight threads, and it is considerably quicker than the N-series chips it competes with on paper.

Why 1GbE Is Acceptable Here

A single Gigabit port is the slowest in this group, and that rules it out for a large media library. For a firewall, DNS sinkhole, or home automation host, 1GbE is more than enough because almost no sustained traffic crosses it.

The internal M.2 slot runs SATA, and the base drive is only 256GB, so you will be adding storage from day one. Add a small SSD for the system and route data to an enclosure.

TPM 2.0 and Secure Deployment

A TPM module is a genuine bonus for a box that might run a virtual private network, a password manager, or business file services. It lets those services bind keys to hardware rather than to a file on disk.

Some buyers reported that the 16GB configuration was single-channel, and there are comments about interference on the 3.5mm audio output. Neither affects headless operation, and the audio jack is unused in a NAS role anyway.

Not the First Choice for Bulk Storage

At 28W and with one network port, this box costs more to run and moves less data than the N-series alternatives. Choose it for its management features, not for throughput.

How to Choose a Mini PC for NAS: Storage First, CPU Last

Every mistake we saw in the research for this guide came from the same place, starting with the CPU badge and ending with a box that could not hold enough data. Work down this list in order and the choice mostly makes itself.

Storage Expansion: Drive Bays, M.2 Slots and SATA

Count the storage connectors first. A drive bay holds a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch disk and is the cheapest path to bulk capacity. An M.2 slot holds an NVMe or SATA SSD, is fast, and costs more per terabyte. Only one box in our group, the Beelink Mini S12 Pro, has a native SATA port for a hard disk.

Beyond two slots, expansion stops being internal. Plan for a direct attached storage enclosure from the start rather than treating it as a later problem.

CPU and RAM Requirements by Workload

Backups and file sharing need almost nothing, and an N100 class chip handles that comfortably at a 6W design power. A media server with several 4K streams wants a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7, particularly for hardware transcoding. Virtualization and heavy container work want eight cores and 32GB of memory or more.

Check upgradeability at the same time. Soldered LPDDR memory cannot be replaced later, and a NAS that grows into a homelab will outgrow its original board.

Network Connectivity: 1GbE vs 2.5GbE vs 10GbE and Port Count

1GbE tops out near 110 MB/s in practice and is fine for scheduled backups. 2.5GbE reaches roughly 280 MB/s and is the sweet spot today, fast enough that a single NVMe drive becomes the limit rather than the network. 10Gbps only pays off with multiple fast clients or large file transfers.

Port count matters for a different reason. Two ports let you split storage traffic from management traffic, or bond them for aggregate throughput. One port means adding a USB adapter later.

NAS Operating Systems: TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, Proxmox, Windows

TrueNAS gives you ZFS checksums and snapshots and wants memory to do it well. Unraid is more flexible with mixed drives and easier to grow. OpenMediaVault is a lighter Debian-based option. Proxmox turns the box into a hypervisor that can also serve storage. Windows works, and it is the least elegant option for shares.

If you plan to run ESXi, check the network chipset first. Intel controllers such as the i226-V found in the Beelink ME are treated as the safer path, and Realtek-based parts often need extra work for a native install. Hybrid Intel chips with performance and efficiency cores have also caused boot parameter issues on Proxmox and ESXi, so verify support before committing.

RAM Soldered or Upgradeable, and Why It Matters Later

Two boxes in this group ship with soldered LPDDR memory: the Beelink ME at 12GB and the GMKtec M8 at 16GB. Everything else takes SO-DIMMs. A NAS is a five-year or longer purchase, and memory is the component most likely to become the ceiling as your services grow.

Expanding Storage Beyond the Chassis with a DAS Enclosure

The recurring question in home server forums is simple: what do you do once the internal slots are full? The common answer is direct attached storage, an external enclosure that sits beside the mini PC and presents its drives to it over a fast link.

Pairing a mini PC with a four-bay enclosure is the pattern that recurs most often, and it works because you can add a second enclosure when the first fills. Choose Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 enclosures where the mini PC supports them, since older bridge-based boxes tend to fall back to USB 3.2 speeds and lose the point of the exercise.

The Beelink EQi and the GEEKOM A6 are the two boxes here with the fastest external paths, so they pair most efficiently. If you want a large library of spinning disks, put them in the enclosure and let the mini PC run the operating system and services.

Budget the drives separately. Far too many buyers focus on the mini PC cost and get surprised by the total once four or five hard disks are added.

Power Draw, Noise and the Real Cost of 24/7 Operation

Listed power figures are a useful guide but not a measurement. A better approach is to look at the design power of the chip and assume the box sits near it whenever it is under load.

The N100 in the Beelink Mini S12 Pro is rated at 6W, and the GMKtec G11 at 15W. The GMKtec G10 can be dialled between 12W and 35W in the BIOS. At the top end, the GEEKOM A6 runs a Ryzen 7 6800H at a sustained 45W, which is more than a storage-only workload needs.

Multiply your real figure by 8760 hours to get annual consumption, then apply your local electricity rate. A box that idles at 10W runs about 88 kWh a year. A box at 45W runs close to 394 kWh, so the gap between a small and a large mini PC NAS is real money over several years.

Noise follows the same logic. Beelink rates the ME at 33-35 dB, GEEKOM reports under 35dB for the A6, and one reviewer measured the BOSGAME E5 at 35 dB idle and 43-48 dB under load. If the box will be visible or audible in a living space, the fan specification is worth more than any benchmark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Mini PC NAS Should You Build in 2026?

If you want one recommendation for the best mini PCs for network attached storage, take the Beelink ME. Six native M.2 slots, dual Intel 2.5GbE ports and a 33-35 dB cooling profile cover the widest range of builds, and the 1141 reviews behind its 4.4 rating make it the best-documented box in this group.

Pick a different one when a single feature dominates your decision. The Beelink EQi takes the networking crown with its 10Gbps port and upgradeable 64GB of memory. The Beelink Mini S12 Pro is the answer when your library needs hard disk capacity rather than flash. The GMKtec M8 and BOSGAME E5 lead on dual 2.5GbE, the GMKtec G10 on memory headroom to 64GB, the GMKtec G11 on 24/7 embedded-grade silicon, the GEEKOM A6 on compute for ZFS and virtual machines, and the KAMRUI Pinova P1 on headless management features. The BOSGAME E4 Air is the low-cost starting point.

Whatever you choose, count your storage connectors before the CPU, budget for the drives, and plan for a direct attached enclosure if the library outgrows the chassis. Then check the current details for your pick and get building.

For more options, see our guide to the best desktop computers for network attached storage and our picks for Mac Mini alternatives if you want a quieter desk-side box.