Minisforum quietly launches cheaper N5 Air NAS variant with Zen 4 CPU and OCuLink

Minisforum has quietly introduced a new version of its N5 Air NAS. Dubbed the N5 Air-7640, the new model swaps the Ryzen 7 255 in the existing configuration for an older Ryzen 5 7640HS, while retaining most of the original machine's storage and connectivity features. The enclosure itself is largely unchanged, measuring 199 x 202 x 252 mm and weighing 4 kg. Minisforum also carries over its slide-out internal design, allowing easy access to the memory and SSD slots.

Beyond the processor downgrade, the N5 Air-7640 remains broadly the same as its earlier counterpart. Five SATA bays can accommodate 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives up to 30 TB each. Three M.2 slots add support for another 24 TB of NVMe storage, bringing Minisforum's advertised maximum capacity to 174 TB. For extra performance/redundancy, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 6 are supported. It also has two SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96 GB of DDR5-5600 memory.

Networking consists of separate 10 Gbps and 5 Gbps ports, while expansion options include OCuLink and an internal PCIe x16 physical slot wired for PCIe Gen4 connectivity.  Other I/O includes two USB4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and a USB 2.0 port. Minisforum lists support for its own MinisCloud OS alongside Windows 11 Pro and Linux.

Minisforum currently lists the N5 Air-7640 at $495 with 64 GB of OS storage and no system memory. A version with 16 GB of DDR5 costs $495. Adding 16 GB of RAM will set you back by $679. Both configurations are expected to ship in late October. For comparison, the Ryzen 7 255-powered N5 Air presently costs $535 barebones and $719 with the same amount of memory.