My current NAS is an Aoostar WTR Pro. Amazing on paper!

Pros:

No OS
Fast
2.5 Gigabit interface
4 Bays

Cons:

Loud like a jet engine!

I already tried to silence it. I added a new fan for the drives, but I can’t do anything about the CPU fan. It seems to be a laptop fan, and as many of you may agree, those tend to be quite loud!

Given the noisy nature of my current setup, I wanted to explore quieter alternatives, which led me to the FrankenNAS. Let’s see how it stacks up against this powerhouse.

🚀 Network Performance

Network performance is quite important for NAS. So lets see how that plays out.

System	Protocol	NAS Read	NAS Write	FrankenNAS Read	FrankenNAS Write
Linux	SMB	~100MB/s	~90MB/s	~100MB/s	~90MB/s
	SCP/SFTP	~110MB/s	~105MB/s	~108MB/s	~105MB/s
Windows	SMB	~114MB/s	~105MB/s	~112MB/s	~105MB/s
	SCP/SFTP	~89MB/s	~92MB/s	~80MB/s	~90MB/s
Mac	SMB	~122MB/s	~100MB/s	~122MB/s	~95MB/s
	SCP/SFTP	~111MB/s	~111MB/s	~111MB/s	~90MB/s

The Mac values for SMB might not be 100% accurate, as I needed to use the System Monitor to get the values.

🔊 Noise Level

To get the CPU fan to ramp up, I reinstalled atuin on the machines:

  cargo install -f atuin

Aoostar WTR Pro

FrankenNAS

As you can hear, the WTR Pro is way louder than the Pi. Having the WTR Pro running next to you while working or gaming can be frustrating. >Just as a side note: Turning off the WTR Pro felt like switching on ANC in headphones—suddenly, everything was peaceful.

🔌 Power Draw

With rising power costs, I wanted to find a solution that draws less power.

NAS	Idle	Busy
FrankenNAS	8.7W	13W
Aoostar WTR Pro	25W	76W

🚄 Speed

CPU performance isn’t the most important factor in a NAS, but if you plan to run Docker containers or other services, more CPU power makes a noticeable difference. I tested the performance via reinstalling atuin.

Aoostar WTR Pro

  1276.04s user
  95.15s system
  1239% cpu
  1:50.67 total

FrankenNAS

  3616.43s user
  120.78s system
  385% cpu
  16:10.30 total

CPU speedwise, the Pi loses by a landslide against the WTR Pro.

🤔 Conclusion

The FrankenNAS is far from being as powerful as my other NAS, but I like it better. I can live with it taking longer to install programs or taking slightly longer to copy files onto it. However, the fact that it is whisper-quiet, with only occasional drive noises, is a huge plus in my book.