Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are basically small desktop PCs that are designed specifically to let you connect large amounts of storage to a home or business network. So it’s unsurprising that in recent years we’ve seen a number of Chinese companies best known for making mini PCs enter the NAS space by launching models with enhanced networking and/or storage capabilities.
AOOSTAR, MINISFORUM, and GMK have done it. And now Beelink has announced that it will launch its first NAS system by the end of the month. The Beelink ME mini will be the first of at least three Network Attached Storage systems the company plans to bring to market.
The Me mini will measure 99 x 99.2 x 98.3mm (3.9″ x 3.91″ x 3.87″) and features an integrated power supply, allowing you to connect it to a wall outlet with a simple cable rather than a bulky power brick.
That compact design means there’s no room inside the case for the 3.5 inch hard drives that you typically find in NAS systems. Instead, the Me mini has six M.2 slots, each with support for up to a 4TB SSD, allowing the system to support up to 24TB of storage. And while Chinese mini PC makers are known for shipping systems with storage and memory from cheap Chinese brands, Beelink says the ME mini will come with SSDs made by Crucial if you order a model that comes with storage.
While Beelink hasn’t announced full specs for the upcoming ME mini NAS, the company says other features include an unspecified x86 processor, two 2.5 GbE LAN ports, and “convection cooling technology” to keep the SSDs from overheating.
Any computer could theoretically be a NAS, and plenty of folks make a hobby of building their own from scratch. But a handful of companies including Synology, QNAP, and Asustor have dominated the consumer off-the-shelf (COTS) NAS space for years.
I tend to think of these new entries from Chinese PC makers are something in between a DIY system and a COTS model. Most don’t come with the kind of custom Linux-based operating system you’d expect to find on this sort of device, and the Beelink ME mini is no different. It ships with Windows, an operating system that could be used for a NAS, but which isn’t really designed for it. So you may want to bring your own OS like Unraid, OpenMediaVault, or TrueNAS.
Beelink hasn’t announced how much the Beelink ME mini will cost. But given the company’s usual approach to hardware, I’d say it’ll probably be a lot cheaper than models with similar hardware from more established NAS makers.
The company also plans to launch Beelink ME Pro and Beelink ME MAX models in the future, but there are even fewer details available about those upcoming devices.