2026-09-08      2263 words, 11 minutes Build quality BIOS Linux NetBSD 11.0 OpenBSD 7.9 FreeBSD 15.1 Shut up fans! Finding a NAS that provides NVMe and SATA storage while being tiny enough to sit in my 10" rack, have a CPU that’s not hogging, use a small amount of watts and offers usage of a non-proprietary OS is not simple. Especially when you have the “must run any BSD” to the equation. But here we are, the AOOSTAR WTR Pro Ryzen edition meets all my prerequisites. And here’s what I discovered. Note that I aimed this machine at running FreeBSD. So I just had a quick look at other BSDes just to get a rough idea of what you get “by default”. It’s not a fair features and power usage comparison. I spend way more time tuning FreeBSD. Build quality The case is using metal, not plastic. And in a 25-27 degC room, it always feels rather cold to the hands. It also fits pretty well in my 10" rack space. RAM and NVMe slots are located beneath the machine and accessible using screws.…