Is this the perfect Mini NAS?

I'm mini-fying my entire Homelab, but shrinking my NAS has been a problem.

Is the 4-bay NucBox G9 the perfect choice? It fits in 1U, has 4 M.2 NVMe SSD slots, an Intel N150 CPU, and dual 2.5 Gbps networking. The specs seem like they'll do great, but the proof is in the pudding...

Some of the things I mentioned (some links are affiliate links):

- GMKtec G9 4x NVMe N150 mini NAS: https://amzn.to/4cuGRzY
- GMKtec G3 N150 mini PC: https://amzn.to/4jxb8R9
- My Pi 5 SATA NAS build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l30sADfDiM8
- Geekbench test results:
- Quiet / Linux: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/11471182
- Balanced / Windows: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/11470130
- Performance / Linux: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/11471355

*UPDATE* – I've also tested many of the suggestions in the comments to get the system to run cooler, to no avail. See my blog post (specifically the UPDATE section towards the bottom) for all the details: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/almost-perfect-mini-nas-my-mini-rack

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Contents:

00:00 - The need for mini
01:02 - NucBox G9 overview
01:52 - Quick teardown
02:52 - A quick boot into... Windows?
03:39 - Ah, Linux
04:16 - 4x NVMe SSD install
04:58 - Hot hot hot
05:51 - Drive and network benchmarking
06:30 - Uh oh
07:43 - Oh no
08:09 - One drive works
08:23 - Trying other SSDs
09:05 - One more trick, toaster mode!
09:57 - The perfect Mini NAS?