Minisforum MS-01 hard-drive compatibility
Minisforum publishes official product specs — bay count, SATA/NVMe interface, maximum capacity — rather than a per-drive compatibility list. This page mirrors the official specs for the MS-01 (3-bay, Intel Core i9-13900H / i9-12900H / i5-12600H) and cross-references the drives that five major vendors officially list.
Official specs
| Item | Official spec (MS-01) |
|---|---|
| Storage bays / slots | 3× M.2 2280 NVMe slots (RAID 0/1 supported); U.2 NVMe expansion up to 24TB — a storage-dense compact server rather than a 3.5" NAS |
| CPU | Intel Core i9-13900H / i9-12900H / i5-12600H |
| Memory | 2× DDR5 SO-DIMM, up to 96GB |
| SSD / system slots | 3× M.2 2280/22110 NVMe (1× PCIe 4.0 x4 + 1× 3.0 x4 + 1× 3.0 x2), U.2 adapter included, up to 24TB total NVMe |
| Networking | 2× 2.5GbE RJ45 + 2× 10GbE SFP+ (the killer feature for a compact server) |
| I/O | USB4/Thunderbolt 3, USB-A, low-profile PCIe 4.0 x4 slot |
| Video | HDMI 2.1 + DP (USB4) |
| Maximum capacity | 24 TB NVMe (3× 8TB class, per official spec) |
Drive rules for this model
- Not a 3.5" NAS — a compact NVMe server that the NAS community runs TrueNAS/fnOS/Proxmox on; capacity comes from NVMe/U.2, not platters.
- RAID is at the OS level (the 3 NVMe slots do RAID 0/1 natively); for a 4+ drive RAID you add an HBA via the low-profile x4 slot.
- OS install tip from community guides: use the leftmost (PCIe 4.0) slot for the system volume — the other slots are PCIe 3.0.
- For RAID / backup arrays, prefer CMR, NAS-class drives — check any drive's CMR/SMR status in our SMR/CMR checker, and size the pool with the RAID capacity calculator.
Source: Minisforum MS-01 official page ↗MS-01 NAS/server compatibility guide ↗
fnOS / FygoOS on this machine
x86-64 Intel platform, dual 10GbE — the homelab favorite for virtualized NAS; runs fnOS/FygoOS, TrueNAS or Proxmox. Put the OS on the PCIe 4.0 slot (fastest), bulk data on the 3.0 slots.
Licensing for the international edition (free 3-user/4-drive tier, $49 Plus, $199 Lifetime) is covered in the FygoOS pricing guide; drive selection under ZFS/RAIDZ is covered in the FygoOS hard-drive guide.
Drives the other vendors officially list
Minisforum's official specs name no drive brands; the standard answer for any drive in the box is major-brand NAS-class (CMR) drives. These are the exact part numbers five vendors officially list, ranked by how many machines across Synology, QNAP, Asustor, TerraMaster and UGREEN certify them.
| Drive | Class | Officially listed by |
|---|---|---|
| Western Digital WD4003FFBX | Enterprise NAS | 390 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Seagate ST4000NE0015 | Enterprise NAS | 379 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Seagate ST2000NE0015 | Enterprise NAS | 372 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Western Digital WD141KFGX | Enterprise NAS | 355 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Toshiba MN06ACA800 | NAS | 347 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Seagate ST4000NE0025 | NAS | 344 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Seagate ST6000NE0023 | NAS | 344 machines/series across 5 vendors |
| Toshiba MN06ACA10T | NAS | 343 machines/series across 5 vendors |