MINISFORUM N5 MAX NAS with AMD Strix Halo launches for $2469

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The MINISFORUM N5 Max is a computer with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 Strix Halo processor featuring a 16-core, 32-thread CPU, a discrete-class Radeon 8060S GPU, and high-bandwidth memory.

It’s also a NAS with support for up to 10 storage devices: 5 hard dries and 5 SSDs, as well as dual 10 Gigbit LAN ports, among other features. First unveiled during CES in January, the N5 Max is now available for $2599 (or $2469 when you order by June 15 using the coupon codes: N5MAX100 and AINAS).

For that price you get a system with 64GB of LPDDR5x-8000 onboard memory and a 128GB SSD with the operating system pre-installed. MINISFORUM says the N5 Max should ship in late June.

The company also indicates there will be a higher-priced model with 128GB of RAM at some point, but there’s no word on how much that version will cost or when it will be available for purchase.

While $2599 is a lot of money to spend on a NAS, it’s actually not a bad price for any computer with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 p rocessor, let alone one that can handle up to 200TB of storage. Whether you need that chip in a NAS probably depends largely on what you plan to do with the system. It’s probably overkill for a home media server, but could be useful if you want to set up a local AI system or a gaming PC that can hold your whole game library and then some.

The 199 × 202.4 × 252.3mm (7.83″ x 7.97″ x 9.93″) computer has an aluminum body and features 5 bays for 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch SATA drives plus 5 M.2 2280 slots for solid state storage. There’s support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 6 configurations.

Note that only one of those M.2 slots supports PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds though. Others top out at PCIe 4.0 x1.

The motherboard is on a tray that sits under the hard drive bays, and slides out for easy access. While memory is soldered to the mainboard and cannot be replaced, there is an internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 port on the mainboard that can be used for storage or or dongles.

Other ports include:

The system also features an integrated 250W power supply and a cooling system that includes 5 heat pipes and 5 fans (two for the CPU, two for the hard drives, and one for the SSDs.

The MINISFORUM N5 Max ships with the company’s own (unpopular) MinisCloud OS made for NAS systems, but it should also work with Windows, Linux, or most other operating systems that supports x86 processors, including TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or Unraid.