eRacks Systems Tech Blog
Open Source Experts Since 1999
eRacks NAS, Rebuilt for Q2 2026: Xeon 6, 30TB CMR Drives, and Built Right for ZFS
A NAS is only as good as the parts under the hood – and the parts that make a great ZFS server are not the ones most “NAS appliances” ship. So we went through the entire eRacks rackmount NAS line, from the NAS12 to the NAS100, and rebuilt it around what actually matters for modern open-source storage. Here’s what changed.
Current-Generation CPUs, the Way You’d Actually Spec Them
Every NAS now configures from a single CPU platform selector with current-generation silicon: Intel Xeon 6 – both Granite Rapids (P-core, for throughput) and Sierra Forest (E-core, for density and efficiency) – alongside AMD EPYC, with Ryzen and Threadripper available for workstation-class builds. Each platform is presented Good/Better/Best so you can pick the right core count without wading through a hundred SKUs, and the price reflects the real cost of that platform – a Ryzen build, for instance, comes in lower than a dual-socket Xeon 6.
CMR Drives Only – No SMR Surprises
ZFS and SMR (shingled) drives are a bad combination: SMR’s read-modify-write behavior turns a routine resilver into a multi-day ordeal. Our NAS line is CMR-only. The new default is the 30TB Seagate IronWolf Pro – the current dollars-per-terabyte sweet spot in NAS-class CMR – with conventional-recording options from a few TB up to the 32TB ceiling. No shingled drives ever sneak into a config.
Built Right for ZFS
Hardware RAID controllers and ZFS fight each other – ZFS wants direct, unmediated access to every disk. So every NAS offers an IT-mode HBA (no hardware RAID in the way), DDR5 ECC memory for a healthy ARC, and a RAID/pool selector that now includes ZFS directly alongside the traditional levels. Spin one up pre-provisioned with TrueNAS SCALE, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu, or Ceph – your choice, burned-in and tested before it ships.
Which ZFS Layout?
For most deployments we recommend RAIDZ2 (double parity – survives two simultaneous drive failures) as the default. Need maximum IOPS for VMs or databases? Striped mirrors. Very wide vdevs or archival data on large drives? RAIDZ3. We’ll help you match the layout – and the optional NVMe special vdev, SLOG, and L2ARC – to your workload.
One Line, Twelve Sizes
From the compact 1U NAS12 up through the petabyte-class NAS100, every model is built to order, burned-in, tested, and shipped ready to run. Pick your bays, pick your drives, pick your OS.
Questions about a build, or which ZFS layout fits your workload? Just reply – a real engineer answers.
joe June 14th, 2026
Posted In: NAS Storage, News
Tags: 26TB CMR, AMD EPYC, DDR5 ECC, Granite Rapids, Intel Xeon 6, IT-mode HBA, NAS servers, open source storage, rackmount NAS, RAIDZ2, Sierra Forest, TrueNAS SCALE, WD Red Pro, ZFS