Gigabyte Brix question

[dbosman]

Hello, My name is Don and I'm a Windows hardware support tech. 

I setup one instance of Xpenology on a refurbished Dell desktop. I want another system as I've had issues with not having multiple backup options. 

What I'd like to use is a Gigabyte Brix with an Intel i5 - which boots from NVME and has four SATA ports. 

My question is, can the internal NVmE be used as a boot drive?

I'd like to boot from the NVmE so I can use the four USB 2.0 connectors for four SATA drives using USB to SATA adapters. Three in a RAID with one as a hot swap.  Speed is not an issue as this will strictly be a backup device, not online storage. 

I've seen from searches that NUCs and thin clients with USB boot, but not found anything yet on NVmE boot. 

 

Thanks.

[flyride]

DSM installs OS and data to the same devices.  This is intrinsic to the system and not really negotiable.

The USB key is not a boot drive, it's a bootloader that stages the OS to be loaded from the partitions on the disk devices.

 

I think it is "possible" to use the ESXi version of the bootloader and install it to a generic boot device in lieu of the USB key, but it's not straightforward.  It's also "possible" to use the USB devices in DSM but only after modifying the disk bitmask, which you can't easily do until after you've installed (which you can't do because there is no addressable disk in the system). Bottom line, everything you are trying to do will be a lot of trouble and will probably break your system on every update.

 

With all candor, the Brix platform really isn't suitable for DSM and you should find something else.

[dbosman]

That's what I was thinking, but hoped not to find out its true.

It looks like one USB port for the loader and just three for drives. Two in RAID 1 and one hot spare. If that works.

Thanks.