The ZimaCube 6-bay NAS Revealed

Last updated on 17 Nov 2023 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 The Zimacube NAS, a Crowdfunded Beast of a NAS
2 The Zimacube NAS Chassis Design
3 The Zimacube Hardware Specifications
4 The Zimacube Casa OS Software

The Zimacube NAS, a Crowdfunded Beast of a NAS

The Zimacube NAS Kickstarter Project is now LIVE and you can find out about it HERE

UPDATE – We received a Zimacube NAS Prototype unit for evaluation in Nov 2023. You can read the FULL Zimacube NAS teardown and prototype review HERE, or you can watch it HERE on YouTube

With the ever-growing market between turnkey solutions and complete DIY home service growing even larger, the expanding number of pre-built server solutions arriving in the market has become noticeably vast in 2023/2024. For a significant period, expensive and comparatively underpowered solutions from brands like Synology have faced competition from new players entering the private server scene. These newcomers are offering pre-built, server-grade solutions to consumers and small businesses, complete with software flexibility. We’ve discussed many of these in the past 12 months here on NAS compares. Today, however, I want to discuss possibly the most intriguing of all: the ZimaCube from IceWhale. Slated for launch on Kickstarter later this year, the ZimaCube follows the successful campaigns of the Zimaboard and Zimablade hackable solutions, both of which received considerable praise across various platforms. The ZimaCube dramatically enhances architecture, hardware, scalability, and power, promising potentially one of the most fully equipped pre-built solutions on the market. IceWhale mentions that this system will debut in two versions: the ZimaCube and the ZimaCube Pro (Formally referred to in early online resources as the Zimacube Quad and Zimacube Pro), targeting different users, budgets, and deployments. This approach ensures varied targeting but means that the campaign is managing two distinct products—something that has occasionally been challenging for other campaigns. We are discussing a crowdfunded NAS server, so expectations should remain grounded. However, this turnkey NAS solution (with its proprietary OS and support for open-source third-party systems) makes some incredibly ambitious claims. Let’s delve into the hardware and capabilities of the ZimaCube and assess whether this future Kickstarter NAS is worth your data.

The Zimacube NAS Chassis Design

The first thing to note about this crowdfunded device is that the ZimaCube bears a striking resemblance in its hardware design to the popular Jonsbo N2 and N3 enclosures. This isn’t necessarily negative, as compact server cases have been a topic of interest over the past five years. Many would concur that Jonsbo has earned a formidable reputation in the NAS market for its enclosures. From the placement of individual SATA storage bays to the modular design of the ITX motherboard and port placement, there’s a clear similarity between the ZimaCube and Jonsbo N2 and N3 enclosures.

Psst.. Watch my Jonsbo N2 NAS Build Video HERE and my Jonsbo N3 Hardware Review HERE.

However, we should give IceWhale and the ZimaCube their due credit. Notable layout changes are evident. For instance, this system features six SATA storage bays, each accessible via a click-and-load tray, contrasting with Jonsbo’s slightly quirky and sometimes annoying rubber handles and plugs. Along with the six storage bays, there’s an added m.2 NVMe module that seemingly occupies what might have been a standard storage slot. Current designs don’t clarify whether these m.2 NVMe slots are accessible via the front panel or only through a removable side panel, linked to the motherboard’s underside via a subsidiary board. (UPDATE – IceWhale have confirmed that the M.2s are injected via a 2x/4x PCB that is loaded into a U.2/U.3 slot on the backplane, which can be removed to add/remove M.2 SSDs as needed). Still, in essence, you’re observing 10 mixed media storage bays. Depending on the device’s configuration, the architecture of those m.2 NVMe modules will likely differ based on the CPU and lanes allotted to the standard and Pro versions. Both systems also seem to feature two additional m.2 NVMe bays on the main controller board, though their exact usage—whether occupied by SATA adapters or an OS drive for Casa OS—remains unconfirmed. With the extra PCI lanes the ZimaCube Pro offers, there’s a good chance this model will support gen 4 compatibility, providing increased bandwidth for those m.2 NVMe modules.

Like the Jonsbo case, the ZimaCube boasts extensive ventilation—and it certainly requires it. The system showcases a double ventilated front panel, ventilation on both sides, and 80% ventilation on the case’s rear. Information on active cooling with fans and their sizes isn’t confirmed yet, but there will undoubtedly be at least two fans on the case’s back. However, space seems limited for extra fans at the top rear panel. Considering the high-end CPU and hardware in this device, the choice of CPU fan will be debated. There’s ample hardware packed into this device. Given its relatively compact size, the heat it will generate is a concern. For instance, it wouldn’t be shocking if the four m.2 NVMe modules in such a tight space were limited to x1 or x2 speed, given the potential heat generation. We should reserve final judgment until we have a physical unit, but the substantial hardware within a limited space means that efficient cooling, both active and passive, will be crucial. It’s challenging to find flaws in the ZimaCube promotional materials. Although we don’t have the physical device, the case appears exceptionally well-designed. However, there’s a lot of hardware packed inside. Let’s dive deeper into the known hardware with which the ZimaCube will be equipped

The Zimacube Hardware Specifications

Right off the bat, credit must be given to IceWhale for how they’ve presented the two available options proposed for the ZimaCube NAS. They offer a home and very small business option powered by the Alder Lake Intel N100 processor. Alongside this, they’re presenting a powerhouse option with a comparable 12th generation i5 version of the hardware. Dubbed the ZimaCube and ZimaCube Pro, these systems will likely come with different price tags to reflect their distinct hardware architectures. While we’re discussing a crowdfunded NAS project still in development, it’s commendable that IceWhale recognizes the appeal of a powerhouse system for some users, while others may prioritize power efficiency and a more modest setup. However, this means we’re looking at a campaign promoting a single product in two different versions, and it’s crucial not to confuse the hardware capabilities of one with the other. It is still very early to make any kind of judgement on this system’s 24×7 operation, but (especially in the case of the Zimacube Pro) there is ALOT of hardware getting crammed into this comparatively small case and how this si going to be managing ventilation and cooling on the 4 (technically 6) M.2 NVMe SSD slots is going to be CRUCIAL! Here’s a brief overview of the specifications known so far:

Model ZimaCube

Zimacube Pro

CPU Intel N100 Intel i5-1235U
Cores 4 Core 10 Core (2P + 8E)
Threads 4 Threads 12 Threads
Clock Speed 1.0-3.4Ghz 0.9-4.4Ghz
Integrated Gfx Intel UHD Graphics, 750Mhx Max Intel Iris Xe Graphics eligible, 1.2Ghz Max
 
Memory 8/16GB* 64GB
Memory Type DDR4 DDR5
SATA slots 6x 3.5”/2.5” 6x 3.5”/2.5”
M.2 NVMe Slots 4+2 4+2
PCIe Slots 1x Gen3x4 1x Gen4x16
Network Ports 2x 2.5GbE 4x 2.5GbE
Thunderbolt No Yes, 2x Type-C
USB Type A 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 6x USB 3.2 Gen 1
USB Type C 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 2x (TB4)
USB 2.0 2X 0
Visual Output HDMI 2.0 and Display 1.4 HDMI 2.0 and Display 1.4
Chassis Size 240 x 221 x 220mm 240 x 221 x 220mm
Power External 220W 19V PSU* External 220W 19V PSU*

The specifications are genuinely impressive, with some aspects unique in the current NAS market. Comparisons will likely be drawn to the ongoing StoreAccess Kickstarter NAS project that has been active throughout 2023. This project also promoted a unique mixed storage media build, with capabilities extending beyond a traditional NAS, encompassing a prosumer server, video editing station, and network management solution. Let’s delve into the highlights of these specifications. First and foremost, the network connectivity has both strong points and areas for improvement. The ZimaCube Pro, being the more potent system with a more capable CPU, provides more internal lanes and bandwidths and comes with more network interface ports. The ZimaCube standard boasts two 2.5G network ports, and the Pro has four 2.5G ports. As promising as this sounds, some users eyeing the advanced specs of the Pro might feel the lack of 10GbE. However, this system allows for a 10GbE upgrade via a PCIe card, which isn’t unusual. There are also potential 10GbE to USB-C adapters to consider. Still, given the Pro’s robust hardware, it’s somewhat surprising that it didn’t include 10 gigabit ethernet out of the box.

What genuinely stands out in these specs is the inclusion of Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. Given that the ZimaCube NAS is built on a more standard PC builder architecture, it’s unlikely to offer Thunderbolt NAS technology comparable to the QNAP Thunderbolt NAS series. QNAP has dominated this niche, allowing users to connect via ethernet and directly interface with the system over Thunderbolt. It’s doubtful the ZimaCube will provide this type of connectivity; more likely, these Thunderbolt ports are designed with the ZimaCube as the host, making them as usable as Thunderbolt ports on a typical PC or Mac system. If accurate, this means you could potentially connect expanded storage to this system at 40 gigabits per second bandwidth when needed. Additionally, external GPU cards via Thunderbolt expansion chassis and even Thunderbolt to 10GbE adapters might be supported, provided the necessary drivers can be integrated into the OS or the open-source operating system of choice. A Thunderbolt 4 NAS is rare outside of QNAP and their IP over Thunderbolt architecture, so this feature could make the ZimaCube NAS particularly appealing for some editors.

In terms of long-term expandability, the ZimaCube Pro sets its sights higher. Though both systems have a PCIe upgrade slot, they differ significantly in bandwidth and speed. Largely due to the CPU distinctions, the ZimaCube standard comes with a Gen 3 x4 speed slot. This will permit moderate PCIe card upgrades for network performance and lighter storage cards, but the x4 speed could be limiting for more robust cards. On the other hand, the ZimaCube Pro features a Gen 4 x16 slot, offering a significant performance potential. Such a PCIe slot could be utilized for extensive M.2 NVMe storage upgrade cards, combination cards with vast gigabit network interfaces, or even high-end graphics cards. The height and length of supported cards within this chassis remain to be confirmed, but both systems offer substantial upgrade potential.

Given the system’s modular PC builder architecture, it’s unsurprising that it includes visual output. Both systems come with a 4K 60 frames per second HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 interface, facilitating local direct output for tasks like surveillance, multimedia, or even a local PC. Whether you’re configuring VMs or using tools like Proxmox to run multiple VMs, this system not only provides direct interfacing for daily tasks but also has the potential to run these operations alongside 24/7 storage when necessary. However, the output capabilities will largely depend on the chosen operating system. Still, having these options is always a boon. One aspect not yet confirmed is the power supply. All images of the ZimaCube NAS indicate the need for an external PSU. It’s possible that the system uses a front-loaded internal PSU, but the external power jack suggests the system might either use an internal extension or rely on a sizable external power brick. The ZimaCube won’t be unique in requiring an external PSU—many similar-sized NAS devices from established brands have external PSUs. Given the ZimaCube’s hardware architecture, an external PSU would need to be substantial. Instead of a small power brick, a heftier external power block, usually seen with high-end gaming laptops and Thunderbolt docking stations, would be required to maintain the high power input. Until full details emerge, the method and location of delivering the 220-watt power supply remain somewhat mysterious, potentially still in development by IceWhale during this Kickstarter NAS campaign’s early stages. All of these features result in a remarkably powerful NAS system that could challenge current expectations of NAS value. 2023 has seen numerous NAS devices bridge the gap between turnkey solutions and full DIY server building, ensuring users can utilize open-source software without the hands-on hassle. Given the global economic recession, the appeal of these hardware-optimized and budget-friendly solutions is likely to grow, with or without crowdfunding platforms facilitating their creation.

The Zimacube Casa OS Software

The landscape of personal cloud solutions is rife with options, each offering unique selling points. The Zimablade, entering this highly competitive space, packages its offering with CasaOS – a solution poised to redefine the relationship between hardware and software in the NAS ecosystem. But how does CasaOS fare, especially when set against stalwarts like Synology DSM, TrueNAS, and UnRAID? It’s tough to say at this stage. Objectively, it is always going to be a plus that a pre-build NAS solution arrives with it’s own first-party software (therefore making it truly Turnkey, as this device should work straight out the box), plus IceWhale state that the Zimacube will arrive with an improved version of CasaOS to better harness the hardware in this newer and more powerful system (as opposed to the comparatively light version of CasaOS included with the more modest Zimablade and Zimaboard). This updated firmware revision, is scheduled to roll out on ZimaOS-ready devices from late October/Nov 2023 and will have many of the same features as CasaOS, but it will also have remote backups, Thunderbolt optimization, RAID support and GPT AI-powered chat functions.

We were able to test a great deal of the features of CASA Os in our Zimablade review, as well as covering them more ‘bullet-point’ style in our before you buy video HERE, but some highlights came from the simplicity of container deployment and ease/speed of accessing the GUI, as well as switching to command level SSH when needed. (the following comes from our Zimablade review)

  • Digital Privacy at the Forefront: CasaOS, developed by the visionary team at IceWhale Technology, centers its design philosophy around safeguarding family data. Offering tools for encrypted communications, centralized multimedia storage, and smart home device management, CasaOS prioritizes digital safety in an age where data breaches are commonplace.
  • Expansive Application Universe: With over 20 pre-installed docker-based apps and 50+ community-verified ones, CasaOS provides users with a veritable buffet of digital tools. Whether you’re into home entertainment, require VPN solutions, or are seeking quality streaming apps, CasaOS has you covered.
  • Holistic Data Management: CasaOS consolidates data storage, eliminating the need to juggle between platforms like Dropbox or Google Drive. With a promise of rapid 10x syncing speed and no associated data traffic or subscription fees, CasaOS champions efficient data management.
  • Comparative Lightness: While CasaOS supports a plethora of container applications, when benchmarked against established players like Synology DSM, TrueNAS, and UnRAID, it does come across as lite. Features such as ZFS support and 1st party mobile applications are conspicuous by their absence, leading to a heavier reliance on 3rd party container/docker apps.
  • Gradual Transition to More Established Platforms: CasaOS, while robust in its offering, might be seen by many as a nascent stage in their NAS journey. As users grow accustomed to the intricacies of NAS operations, there’s a likelihood they may transition to a more comprehensive NAS OS. Platforms like UnRAID, with similar ease in container deployment but richer in 1st party features, often appear more attractive in the long run.

  • Value Proposition: The inclusion of CasaOS with the Zimablade, zimaboard and now Zimacube, especially at its introductory price range during its crowdfunding launch, is commendable. The synergy of hardware and software at this price point offers exceptional value for beginners. However, seasoned NAS enthusiasts might crave the depth found in mature OS offerings in the market. That said, it does allow for both local easy GUI access in a web browser AND terminal level  access easily:

The Zimablade, paired with CasaOS, makes a compelling entry into the personal cloud solution domain. CasaOS, with its focus on user-centric design, data privacy, and a wide array of applications, sets a solid foundation. However, as with many products in their infancy, there’s potential room for evolution and growth. Users looking for a lite, budget-friendly introduction to the world of NAS will find Zimablade and CasaOS an excellent starting point. Yet, as their needs expand and mature, migration to more established platforms might be on the horizon. Still, better to have a great ‘out-the-box’ OS included for day 1, than not!

Also, the Casa OS will immediately boot on day 1, so no need to muck around with Bios with a visual output+Keyboard+mouse on day 1, as it will immediately appear on the network on your first boot in a few mins and be accessible via your web browser. All in all, especially at this price point, incredibly impressive, if a little lite. If you want to test out the CasaOS software before you purchase a system to run it on (Zimablade or otherwise), you can use the link below to test the software out in your web browser:

Click Below to access Casa OS Software Demo in your web browser

When Is the Zimacube NAS Being Released?

As of now, the ZimaCube Kickstarter campaign hasn’t started, but you can register your interest via the email box on the product’s official page. Pricing remains unconfirmed, but if the Zimaboard and Zimablade crowdfunding campaigns run by the company in the past 18 months are any indication, we can expect competitive pricing for both systems. While IceWhale doesn’t employ a loss leader strategy, they’ve successfully offered early access to their last two releases at incredibly affordable rates (recall the Zimablade priced at just $64?). Thus, it’s anticipated that these systems will be priced just slightly above the cost of individually sourced components, at least during the crowdfunding phase. The timeline for product delivery, inherent to many crowdfunded NAS systems, can be somewhat ambiguous, often adopting a “done when it’s done” approach. However, given IceWhale’s past success in crowdfunding, it’s reasonable to anticipate an early to mid-2024 launch for the ZimaCube. Be sure to register your interest on the official page to stay informed about the Kickstarter’s launch. We’re eager to review the ZimaCube on NAS Compares when it becomes available!

(The Kickstarter link below will open in a new Tab and direct you to the ZimaCube Official Page)

 



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687 thoughts on “The ZimaCube 6-bay NAS Revealed”

  7. 6:20 You have seen nothing. I once received a server power cable packed in a box which was larger then the case box on your desk. Bit shorter but much wider. It was also packed in all kinds of bubble wrap. A fricking standard power cable! ????
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  17. So you get the unraid license for free? So your nas cost hundred bucks more. And it is an Motherboard and a io shield.

    And proxmox is a hypervisor and has absolutely nothing to do with network attached storage.
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  27. Hi there I am trying to set up a system for streaming media, home assistant, some containers and light virtualization. I am thinking about running TrueNAS Scale on Zima Board or Blade with Jellyfin container. I am a bit worried about transcoding 4K tho. Is it possible to run this system I described and still being able to access and display 4K content from other devices? What about Dolby Atmos? Thank you very much 🙂
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  28. Hi there I am trying to set up a system for streaming media, home assistant, some containers and light virtualization. I am thinking about running TrueNAS Scale on Zima Board or Blade with Jellyfin container. I am a bit worried about transcoding 4K tho. Is it possible to run this system I described and still being able to access and display 4K content from other devices? What about Dolby Atmos? Thank you very much 🙂
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  34. Thank you. I’d love to see the next steps: actually connecting the box to the internet and your in-house network and configuring the system to function as intended. Good job!
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  36. Anyone who’s building PC’s should already have a toolkit with allen key bits, surely. Getting hung up on one of those seems a little over the top. Either way, nice case, seems like an iron plated pain in the posterior to get one after a quick look around. A Supermicro Mini-ITX mobo with an Atom processor on would be a great combo with this, some come with 12 SATA ports. My main concern about this case are all those small and thus noisy fans. I’d have liked to see a big-ass 20 cm fan on the rear or something to suck air through the whole thing.
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  39. Helpful hints:
    1) first boot the motherboard outside of the case. If it is dead you don’t want to be wasting time installing it and routing cables
    2) never use a cheap USB drive. Use a Samsung Fit or Bar USB Drive. You can do a search for the guy who tested them out and they beat out the rest. I am not sure but I think you can clone the USB. If so get two so when the first one dies you are not scambling looking for configurations.
    3) update the BIOS. If the board dies it can be RMA’ed.
    4) Use the Preclear tool in Unraid on the hard drives before using them. Side note, if you want a really nice NAS case SuperMirco offers a 4 bay one. It is not cheap but it will last and also keep your drives cool. best of luck.
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  40. back when i build my nas , i buy a full atx lga 1150 with 2pcie 16x 2pci 6 drives 4dim , for 70eu , and got a celeron for 40 that i later upgrade with i5 , got a 10gb nic , and still got a free pcie for gpu or extra storage , and house everthing in old style case that had 8 drive slot , and 4dvd slots , yes is bit bigger and you may need more time to swap a drive , but is much more powerful and upgradable ,
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  41. The fan runs at full speed, sound like a helicopter up side is hd is very chilled even if they are stacked next to each other. The 4 alan key screws can be replaced with the 4 Countersunk computer screws. This case is really big even for a mini itx.
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  43. I got the information from the truenas scale community to avoid these sata extender however they gonna look like (pcie, m2, etc) because the chips on them aren’t that stable overall. Also the chip which comes with the motherboard. Therefore there recommendation is to buy a isa 9300 hba card and use the pcie slot for it.
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  44. It’s really crazy how budget you can go! ATM I’m looking at a total budget of 200usd for a NAS with 16TBs of storage in a raid 6 config no idea how I did it but it’s an amazing thing crazy utility.
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  46. you deserve a like and sub
    give this man a like
    ????????????????????????????????????????????
    it’s rare to find legend people nowadays
    Thanks man that was super helpful
    ❤
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  49. Wow. another great video. Thanks so much for all the excellent content. I’ve been gearing up to replace my old Dell PowerEdge r510 12-HDD server. It’s such a noise generator and power hog. I wonder if you could maybe do a video that focuses on daisy-chaining servers for more space. I don’t want to manage multiple Unraid instances. What I’d like to do is set up one server and then attach multiple SANs as my library grows.
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  50. Thaks a lot for this! It made building my N2 NAS a breeze. Different motherboard, different power supply, but this video is an excellent resource in any case.
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  54. Great experiments! May I ask What’s the power consumption of this DIY NAS? Also if we don’t mind put the power block into the case, can I use my old pc regular power block to power up this DIY NAS? Many thanks!
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  56. In the days of lore, way back, when Drobo first appeared and later all the little NAS boxen were born; I decided that they were too expensive and way under-powered. Then I found a way to build my own home lab NAS, one where I could host containers as well as serve shares, etc. This predates Unraid and TrueNAS. Many pros were building rackmount 4U servers but then came along some very well suited m-ITX server boards. Supermicro, Asrock, Gigabyte, etc. The first build utilized Joyent’s fork of OpenSolaris and their base image called SmartOS, providing ZFS, Zones, networking, etc. in a private cloud. Then Linux became capable of the same (Joyent was bought by Samsung and development slowed). I switched to Ubuntu Server with LXD to manage native containers and VM’s and Microk8s for Kubernetes. I was even able to import my zpool. But now I am thinking I may switch to TrueNAS Scale and build a 3rd generation NAS with a Jonsbo NAS case. Newer m-ITX boards have come a long way. The advent of those M.2 PCIe SATA adapters, will free up the 16x PCIe slot allowing for dual 10GbE network card. Ultimately, home builds can be built for less but if you put a bit more power into the build, you get a lot more out of it. However, you will end up being more expensive but your NAS will be more of a home lab server.
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  60. Little late to the party, but they give you more than enought rubber grommets for the drives that you can use four on each drive plus the pull on the front of them.
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  61. I have the same NAS case, and I’m curious about your hard drives’ behavior. Mine are always active and noisy, even when not in use. Do you experience the same issue with your setup?
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  66. Great, informative video as allways, thanks a lot. Would you deploy Plex on a Diskstation (mine is a 918+ and a 1621+) or rather on a zima blade/ board? I recently got my ZimaBoard and I am quite happy with it. Only thing is, that I like the look of the Blade more than the board 😉
    And I agree: I’d prefer the blade over the Raspi.
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  67. Would you make an episode about what’s better? UnRAID or TrueNAS? What gives more possibilities? What is updated more often? And what, in general, will be a better solution?
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  71. I have been using this case for a couple months for my Unraid server which hosts PLEX. It’s an amazing case. I use an Intel 12500t which is pretty powerful for my needs and low power usage but I also have an RTX 3060 in the case because I got a really good deal on it and use it to auto convert media to be more compatible with families playback devices. It’s overkill but it’s awesome and this case handles it all fine. The GPU gets fresh air from the side vent and I added two 80mm Noctua fans to the top back for exhaust so they pull in air from the front and sides which gives fresh air to the CPU cooler and gets rid of all of the hot air in the top section. This little case for me holds 164 TB. 160 in HDD(8x20TB) and a 4TB Sata SSD for a cache drive and for Unraid/PLEX meta data. I could use an M.2 for cache but it’s not needed.

    I have my PSU so it pulls in fresh air from the front of the case and exhausts it out of the side and for the extra data ports I used an M.2 to SATA adapter. it has 6 additional SATA ports so with all of what I have I still have an available data slot.

    If you want a great case for a NAS or home server and want to keep it pretty small, this is the way to go. There are smaller options but this one has the benefit of amazing cooling performance…at least for a NAS case.
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  72. Thanks for the great info. 
    I have just built my home made NAS based on this tutorial with Unraid and it is spinning away happily on my table.
    I deviated slightly by going with the Node 304 case which I purchased locally from eBuyer for £74 delivered and the same board with 4 GB memory and the 128 GB NVME from Amazon for £151. With the saving I also added a 10 Gbe PCI card from Ali Express for £71 and a Hisource 4 port 2.5 Gbe + 2 10 Gbe uplink ports for for £29 from Ali Express
    I have to admit that getting the 10 Gbe link working with Unraid (!***!) was a bit stressful, but everything now works as it should.
    Onwards and upwards and thanks again.
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  75. I have two Lacie. One in my office and one at home. Can you do a video on how to link these two so that they act as backups of each other? If you already have done something like that, please send me that way.
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  78. Thank you so much for this detailed video. I used it for my own Jonsbo N2 build and it was so helpful with the step-by-step instructions and guidance on the gotchas. It saved me so much time to pre-plan. Excellent video!
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  84. Hey, as this vid is 4 months old, I just wanted to ask if the mobo is holding out good? I’ve been considering it myself, just wondering if theres anything you found out later that someone looking to buy one may want to know before making a decision. Cheers for the good vid ????
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  88. While I get the confusion about several different screws types used, I do generally appreciate hex screws.
    Phillips is a nightmare waiting to strip. For me it could all be torx haha
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  91. HI, Great vid! I must have watched this a few times now, and am currently building my own. Currently unable to track down the pdf for the header pin layout. Did you ever add the link in for that?
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  92. Does anyone know anything about the SATA Power Connector on the back plane? I can see the 2 molex connectors powering the drives, but is the SATA necessary or just in case a power supply only has on molex. I’m confused. Jonsbo has answered all of my questions, except that one and of course the instructions are……well you know.
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  98. Am not sure whether to lean towards the N2 or N3 ???? probably go with a ROG mini-ITX board and smash in a decent Ryzen processor and bags of memory as-well. Wish to have something that can leave on 24/7 that will run Proxmox to cover all my needs ie. PfSense/OPNSense, Storage and probably a mail server. Would welcome your thoughts please and keep up the great work ????
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  101. OMG! You gotta stick some GPUs on that bad boy for some benchmarks. This is the ONLY n100 board that comes with a PCIe x16 slot. I honestly would just by the board from them and call it a day.
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  104. This video is really well done. I have been trying to give an answer to this question for four years now. The problem is summarized at the end of the video. My time costs much more than what I save by building it myself “from scratch”. But on the other hand I am too stingy , and I like to build things myself. Frustration.
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  105. Have we figured out the power plug weirdness? I am also doubtful that three plugs are required, what makes the most sense to me is one dedicated cable plug for molex, and one dedicated cable plug for sata since most modern psu will only have one cable for molex, i have this on order and want to try it but it seems everyone just plugs in all three
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  108. Even though i cannot afford such things, always nice to see new ways of doing things, and giving the public more options on what they want to buy or need.

    Very nice

    Hopefully more companies will get into this market as you can be sure many people would love a nas that independent from fixed software.

    Good to see it made it to production, and will be interesting to hear what people say about it in the wild.
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  109. I am kind of sad that I got this case now. Looks like I am stuck with max 4 drives if I want to do 10gb fiber NIC. I tried to find a way to do bifurcation that would allow 10gb nic + the 8 drives sata. I did buy an NVME to SATA but only support is 3.0 and its rather slow when booting. Not sure I really trust it either for the long hall that would allow 8 drives to be used. But then you loose ability to do mirrored cache pool. Just every little road block that makes this thing not ideal and as stated having it in a bigger form factor would be way better. It would be nice if you could do the ultimate Jonsbo N3 build and show us how to overcome what I perceive are limitations. Support all 8 drives, 10gb network and dual mirrored NVME cache pool.
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  110. I’m coming from a Drobo environment. Been in it for decade. My Drobo 5n is no longer functioning. This seems to be a product that operates simularly, or am I incorrect? I’m looking for a replacement for my 5n.
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  115. How does it handle full blu ray rips and you didn’t put though handbrake like you put a blu ray disc in make mkv and once it’s done put it on Plex how does it handle that cuz that’s what I do with my gaming pc an I’ve been thinking of putting my Plex server somewhere els so it’ll use less electricity
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  116. The price of the shipping from Aliexpress not only varies, but can make or break your budget so it should definitely not be left out. For example here are the prices as of Nov 2023:
    Jonsbo N2 (Aliexpress): $93 + $97 shipping to the US = $190
    Jonsbo N2 (Amazon): $150
    Jonsbo N2 (Newegg): $140

    Jonsbo N3 (Aliexpress): $117 + $99 shipping = $216
    Jonsbo N3 (Amazon): $170
    Jonsbo N3 (Newegg): $162

    As you can see, if you are in the US it’s a no-brainer to buy the case from Amazon/Newegg as Aliexpress offers an inferior shipping experience.
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  118. https://www.google.com/search?q=pcie+m.2+plus+sata+sata&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=583637472&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju7qDF-M2CAxVJNzQIHYRaC7oQ_AUIBigB&biw=707&bih=280#imgrc=pS5kKsh3FjAeQM

    Fill with 2tb ssd/SATA – viola 4tb software solid state raid 5
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  121. Looks like a great system, and it is nice to see other manufacturers entering the market. My main concern and one I was hoping woul[d be addressed is the lack if memory over 32GB. I run TrueNAS Scale, and memory is key to performance in that configuration.

    I was hoping this system would support at keast 64GB of Memory(Maybe it can??) so I could literally purchase and migrate my system, by slotting in my existing drives.

    Overall though looks like a good rig.
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  123. I bought a zimablade and now i regret not buying this. Would have to put it in my bedroom though (i still live with my parents) so noise would probably be an issue anyway

    Someone covince me not to
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  124. Imagine they would’ve gone for mATX – its entirely possible in that size and they come with up to 3x PCIe Ports and sometimes 6 SATA ports too …

    I also really don’t like how they’ve not even tought about the possibility of someone using these slots for 2.5 inch e.g. for SATA-SSDS.

    A backplane like this makes it really hard to use without any kind of attempt in proper design by the manufacturer (port multipliers, adapters, what gives, what takes … in the end you can only remove the backplane). For me these two points make these sadly a hard pass 🙁 – as I would gain nothing from those extra 3 slots.

    Who in the world uses just 8 mechanical drives. SSDs are so much better for many things (power consumption too), and are nothing special but more or less a given use-case for many of us looking into slowly adopting many parts towards flash storage as they become cheaper and cheaper …
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  129. My main issue I am finding for NAS units like this is basically you can’t really upgrade them later down the road via new motherboard, for example. Not to mention the absurd price premium that tends to be charged for the CPU and ram.

    I would absolutely love something like Qnap’s TVS-h1688X-W1250-32G but 3 grand for basically a small server grade motherboard, a low end Xeon that isn’t all that expensive at all even at launch is absurd.

    The price premium for the hardware that I cannot upgrade later without buying an entirely new device annoys me to no end.
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  131. 0:33: ???? The video discusses the Zimac Cube, a device from the company IW that is currently in its early stages of crowdfunding and has received significant investment.
    3:22: ???? The video discusses the features of an external power supply unit (PSU) and the difficulty in opening the front panel.
    6:39: ???? The video provides a guided tour of the internal components of a computer module.
    10:22: ???? The video discusses the increasing legitimacy of crowdfunding products and the lack of updates in the STXA program’s kickstarting campaign.
    13:38: ???? The video showcases the different connectors and slots available in a mobile computer.
    17:58: ???? The front panel of the device was difficult to remove, but the individual fans inside are standard and can be easily swapped out.
    20:36: ???? The video discusses the USB and Thunderbolt connectors on the N100 and I5 versions of a device, along with the port and connections on the rear.
    24:04: ???? The video is a review of an impressive and well-put-together case with high bandwidth connections.
    27:59: ???? The speaker discusses a six Bay device with six SATA Bays for storage, PCI expandability, and a combined hardware-software solution.
    Recapped using Tammi AI
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  134. If this is the ZimaCube, the fact it comes with the 4xNVME board is strange as KS specs for this unit does not include this. Have they changed spec or did they send a hybrid unit. Its important as teh price point vs what was shown could be different.
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  135. Is the aluminum finish closer to a raw aluminum or does it have an anodization? The KS campaign makes it look darker gray, kind of like Apple’s Space Gray. On this video it looks more silver. I would also like to know more about the TB4 capabilities when you find out more. That is the big pull for me but still not sure what it can/can’t do yet. Thanks for these videos!
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  138. Or buy a dell r630 with 2 Zeons, 256GB of Ram, more pcie lanes you can throw a stick at, 10 drive slots. SAS and SATA, an idrac….. The list goes on.
    I think an N100 only has 9 pcie lanes? More on the i5 but still
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  140. Thank you for the very review.
    Probably going to back the I5 version. Casa OS might also be interesting as it is more consumer friendly. Good for the rest of the family.

    Nice Casio watch! had the same in 1987 in highschool.
    Looks new??? would love to get one again.

    Better fans and dust filters would be welcome.
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  144. I can see one improvement already. All the main covers should really be a single cover like a computer. That’s just too many darn screws and panels to remove. Here’s the Nas I built myself a while back and still use it today. https://jaimenow.blogspot.com/p/norco-itx.html?m=1
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  145. It would be nice to test out 32GB RAM with this. I know N100s only officially support 16GB but most boards have no problem with more. It would be interesting to see if Casa OS would play okay with that.
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  147. It would be nice if you explore the HW a little more. Is main M.2 full x4 PCIe? Is second M.2 on the board fully x4 PCIe? Is the exposed sata port on the board functional? How many lines effective has the x16 PCIe slot? Is the x16 PCIe slot support of bifurcation? If yes, in which configurations? What is the number of PCIe lines dedicated for M.2 expansion?
    All of this can tell much about the expandibility of the system.
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  149. Wow! This is to me a prime example how crowdfunding should be done and result to.
    Other crowdfunding should take note!
    I really like this one a lot: I love the fact they use an (external) “standard” power-brick and connector(!), btw, it is often called “DC in”, not “DC out” on a chassis 😉
    Those power-bricks, with our QNAP’s at least, are notoriously failing but are very easy to replace.
    I also love the fact, well, fingers crossed the final version will have it too, still plenty other connectors (and thus capabilities) to expand this into a more DIY project. (unless they disable it via the bios, that would be a bummer).
    I personally would always go for the i5/higher-powered version as history shows that once you really starting to use a platform, you often will also “expand” your desires & wants.
    Indeed, cooling would need attention.
    And I also wonder about any LED indicators, it looks a bit omitted?
    I’m not a crowdfunding-fan as I see it as gambling, and I really do not gamble at all, but if I was to be in the market for such, this would definitely be the first and the one I would seriously consider, it really, really looks very good and promising.
    Winner-winner, chicken-dinner!
    No seagulls were heard in producing this video, thank you Robbie!
    PS: In the review of your website, perhaps, when the final version is released you can also review all the remaining connectors on the MB.
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  150. Would like to know what those drive cooling fans are as they look non-standard (i.e., hard to source if they fail) to me. I’ve been bitten by that problem before (looking at you, Drobo). Would have been nice to have an internal USB socket (like LincStation) for us UnRAID fans too!

    PS – Congrats on the play button. Hadn’t noticed that before.
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  151. Very impressive. I like the way the drives are connected to a printed circuit backplane then the backplane is connected to the motherboard with one ED1 cable and one power cable, this is much better than a knot of SATA cables. From the video it appears that the motherboard and the drive bays are in their own metal boxes which are bolted together rather than a shelf in a unitary box. In other words the drive bays are like an expansion box. One advantage of this design is Icewhale could bolt another drive bay box to the bottom (assuming the CPU had enough lanes) have a 12 bay NAS. From the videos I have seen it looks like CasaOS does a decent job of running docker containers but is fairly limited in basic NAS stuff like sharing and backup. I hope Icewhale takes a good look at Open Media Vault that seems to have a pretty good disk sharing interface (but has angered some users with the change in the OMV interface to Docker). Unfortunately, OMV seems to have performance issues and one YouTuber used that as an excuse to switch to Proxmox. With ZimaBoard I only need Docker with ZimaCube I need a full scale NAS comparable to Asustor or Synology 4 bays. At the price point I am on the edge, and the next few versions of CasaOS will be the tipping point. I would consider UnRAID OS, but would only consider TrueNAS Scale if my needs shifted and I needed Kubernetes (or there was a radical simplification in the Kubernetes interface).
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  154. The hardware is really intriguing, but CasaOS really offers next to nothing out of the box in terms of storage and network management. Certainly, it can be extended by using the underlying OS and/or suitable Docker containers, but it’s not at all comperable to a tyical NAS solution as shipped.

    I think if i got one, it would take me about 10 minute before i started installing TrueNAS or unRAID.
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  156. Thanks as ever Robbie / NASCompares for the brilliant videos (great choice to get this out ASAP as an almost 1-take ????).
    I’m already looking forward to the further power/noise/performance tests when you are able to get hold of ZimaOS ????

    I’m watching with interest, as I still can’t decide whether to back the ZC std or the LincStation N1
    (as relatively cheap as the N1 is, I can’t really justify both that and the ZC ????I’m up for an all-SSD NAS and my gut says back the smaller/cheaper N1, but the more expensive ZC would give more flexibility for different drives in the future ????I think I’m going to wait to the end of the campaign, as much info still seems to be ‘changeable’ ????)

    (1) Worth noting that your review unit seems to be an earlier (prototype?) motherboard revision!
    ZC Update2 on the KS page, shows a photo of “N100 Model Phase Two prototype” motherboard, with several differences, inc:
    – The Large pin header above SODIMM connector is now discrete connectors (inc 2x SATA ??)
    – MB USB socket to right of SODIMM (Good for UnRAID ✅????)
    – 2x PCIe connectors (1 x8, 1 x16 – Surely the N100 won’t have both??)

    (2) The ZC N100 pledges have the text “Note: This reward does not include disks or the quad M.2 SSD adapter”… which I’m reading as them wanting to show it’s different from the ZC Pro (but that the ‘Dual’ M.2 via U.2 slot is included ????)

    (3) I’m hoping the N100 includes a stretch goal of 16GB of memory for a small up-charge (32GB would be better, but I know that is officially not supported, despite working fine by all accounts). I’m factoring in +£70 for a 32GB DDR SODIMM + £50 for an UnRAID licence, for my own preferences (I’d hate to have that 8GB memory go to waste!)

    (4) The “Your questions answered” email from Allen Shen of IceWhale (on 09 Nov 2023) actually stated that the Early Bird Backers would also get “$100 Cashback to your PayPal account” (or a $100 voucher for use against add-ons)… This seems surprising, but changes the overall price to even more good-value!

    Cheers again, D ????
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  158. The design does baffle me,:

    The front panel is totally useless and hard to remove, it could be a dust filter mesh board.

    They could fit a 1U PSU or a DC-ATX power board there but choose to go with an external PSU.
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  160. Nice one, I have few comments:
    1- how are the case fans controlled? on/off or PWM?
    2- the PSU is 220W (around) – I was thinking twice putting 450W in my N3 but here is 220W only – that should be plenty but still
    3- it is super nice to have 5x M2 – super nice comparing to my Topton (here only 2 and both went as OS disks in mirror) – one can have extra 2+1 pool
    4- how about HDD and LAN LEDs in front?

    Overall super nice basis for something excellent – of course I would not stick to their OS but the hardware seems OK. All depends on final price.

    EDIT: I had to: @27:22 – “celeron PSU” – nice one 😉
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  161. Eh. The price for the Pro version is too high even with the early bird discount, I think I’m about to get financially kicked in the ass and likely can’t afford it next month anyway, and I think I want more than 6 bays anyway, so that kind of rules this one out for me.
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  163. *UPDATE* – As mentioned in the video, Power consumption, noise tests, temperature tests and performance tests are all on the “to-do list”. I am just waiting for IceWhale to drop the specific/featured release of Casa OS for this device first, as that will play an enormous part in getting realistic operational data. Any test I perform on this now, whilst it is running the general version of CasaOS, will be immediately invalid when the version that is intended for this device if/when it starts fulfilment is released. Hoep that makes sense and I will be factoring this into a few other direct comparison videos soon too! Have a fantastic weekend!
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  164. would like to see icewhale create a separate option for customer on a budget. maybe implement a system like the brand Framework. Some NAS diyer would like to make a custom NAS where the motherboard has the required ports to connect to 6HDD and not buy a seperate adapter that will take alot of space. Like your Jonsbo video. maybe icewhale can create a barebone Zima Cube.
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  165. i would be interested in seeing power consumption comparisons with this model. it would be cool to have that compared with the zima edge to see how they are different and also in comparison to your jonsbo budget diy nas to get things into perspective.
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  167. Which diy NAS would you recommend to someone who is going to use it as a Jellyfin server for movies and transcoding movies to phones. Also might use it to hold basic documents/photos.
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  171. 0:00: ???? The Zimmer blade is a cheap DIY home media server with pros and cons.
    3:37: ???? The video discusses the features and customization options of a small and customizable PC system.
    7:14: ???? The Zimmer system is impressive and comes with an OS that can be deployed immediately.
    10:05: ???? The majority of suppliers do not provide a means to upgrade the memory in Raspberry Pi, which lacks direct out-of-the-box PCIe connectivity and relies on bridging hardware.
    13:45: ???? The older CPUs used in Synology and QNAP NAS devices are outdated and less efficient compared to more modern CPUs.
    17:32: ???? The reviewer criticizes the cable provided with the device for only allowing one hard drive to be connected at a time.
    20:35: ???? The video discusses the throttling issues, limited bandwidth, and heat dissipation problems with the Gen 2 Intel Celeron NUC.
    Recap by Tammy AI
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  173. Now that the KS campaign is live, the ZCube Pro is priced at $900+$40 for shipping (approx) to USA. No option for RAM. There’s an add-on option for a single port 10GbE (UTP) at $80 (?) and a few more items. Based on that pricing (-$300 for Early Birds) then the total price to add 2x32GB of RAM, and a 3rd party NIC 2x10GbE (UTP of SFP+) would take the price to (again, approx) close to $940+180+180 = $1300. A system I would compare this one could be Terramaster T9-450. It’s about $1200 on Amazon with 8Gb of RAM and inferior CPU capacity. T9 has 9 slots vs 6 but the ZCubePro provides 4 NVMe +2 onboard for extra storage AND 2 Thunderbolt4 ports.. hm… I think I will pledge for ZCubePro. I would like a rack mount option but hey, I have an old QNAP that’s desktop form factor and sits on a rack shelf. I’ll make space for the new box. After 6 years with QNAP, I’m stuck with the old OS, not easy ways to install another OS, and I don’t appreciate that… boxes like TerraMaster and ZimaCube or a DIY is the way forward for my rack. Oh, one more thing: yes, they should have 2×2.5G AND 2x10G (SFP+ or UTP), PLUS a way for the power plug to be secured… a metal clip or something/…
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  174. Couple of things the video conversions are actually referred to as transcodes and Noone absolutely Noone is interested in 8k video. It’s not a relevant use case for much of everything since you would have to sit so close to the screen to see the detail it would hurt your eyes
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  180. It’s got that 1970s retro look and that killed it for me, not sexy enough. I’ll stick with the Asustore Pro 12x, the large CUBE shape is no longer needed. I do admire the specs but naw, no cubes..
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  184. Just a couple notes on this as I have the same case. First if you did NOT use the angled sata cables on the backplane they won’t warranty the case. Second I found a flat dual molex adapter that saved me even more room. Between the angled sata cables (same slim blue your using with 90 degree one end), and the molex adapter I was able to replace that loud inefficient 15mm fan with the standard 25mm one. Also replaced those grates on both side with basic wire grills. Both those things got me better air flow as well as less noise.
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  186. *UPDATE 2* Since this video was first published, I was able to send over most of the questions below in the comments directly to the creators, IceWhale, about the Zimacube (covering PCIe, 10GbE, ECC Memory, Price and more). You can watch the Q&A video here – https://youtu.be/jhA6jb1sUcc or read them in full here – https://nascompares.com/2023/10/25/the-zimacube-nas-kickstarter-the-10-most-common-questions-answered/ )
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  191. i’m a bit disappointed, your title said you were gonna build a NAS, but you just assembled a NAS :/ (i was expecting electronic component tinkering, not computer parts tinkering…)
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  192. I have just built a TopTon board (Same version) with a Jonsbo case. One note is you can actually fit that board out with 64Gb Mem so Truenas has plenty of spare capacity. I also spec’d out a lot better power supply just for the peace of mind. Wish you had done this review earlier as I would have gone with the case you had.
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  193. I have just built a TopTon board (Same version) with a Jonsbo case. One note is you can actually fit that board out with 64Gb Mem so Truenas has plenty of spare capacity. I also spec’d out a lot better power supply just for the peace of mind. Wish you had done this review earlier as I would have gone with the case you had.
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  202. The limitations and drawbacks of this N3 case as you outlined really shoots some major holes in the feasibility of this DIY NAS. Looks like I’ll be sticking to my Synology 8-bay or Asustor (for cheaper 2-6 bay setups) units for awhile longer it seems.

    If Jonsbo ever does a N4 with the fixes/limitations worked out…maybe then I’ll start weighing a “might-try” then. Probably a year or two more wait, I guess…with also more stability with pricing and availability to come as well. Cheers.
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  203. I’m a little confused… Did you show the correct extra parts (Re: video ~35:00)? Of the four parts shown, it seems that I would need (1) of the parts shown (top & bottom right side parts), but nothing from the left top/bottom parts. Additionally, if I select either top or bottom right side parts then I now have (2) 20-pin connectors (one from the front panel USB and one from the adapter (top/bottom right side parts)) which now need to go to a 20-pin + 20-pin splitter (not shown on your display of parts). Unfortunately, my Topton MoBo has not arrived yet so I can’t reference what is there in order to understand what’s what with all the parts you showed. Can you provide any more clarity to this? Thank you so much and thanks, again, for making this very informative video!!!!
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  205. Investing that much time and effort probably isn’t worth it unless you have time to waste or very specific possibly high-end applications.
    Also, you may want to got get a more current ITX board + CPU for more performance and RAM in this case.
    Honestly for a simple setup like that it probably is better connecting something like a TerraMaster D5-300C or ORICO-NS500RC3 to a Raspberry Pi.
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  206. I dont think you save so much time going turn key as you have to learn the software. Easiest is take an old machine, install Nas software learn how it fits in your life. Then upgrade hardware later. As a person whos built many computers, the hardware part wasnt the issue. Learning the Truenas/Proxmox/Unraid interface probably didnt take longer than the Synology interface. Now I have a machine which can grow cheaply if needed.
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  208. Those front USB connectors are standard, USB3 and USB3.1 for the Type A and Type C connector respectively, and are found on most modern motherboards. That Topton board is made as cheaply as possible, so it only has basic USB2 connectors, which is why they wouldn’t fit.
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  211. Totally a great replacement for another orange channel. You explain everything that you had to go through and other options to tackle those issues. Great vid! It s subscribe for me bud!
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  215. In my limited experience with CasaOS, there aren’t any tools for managing a RAID, or for general system management like putting the device on a schedule.

    All that can be done with the underlying OS (since CasaOS isn’t an OS at all, but just a web GUI frontend for Docker management and a few helpful additions), but it certainly is a bit DIY to do. Not quite like having Synology’s or QNAP’s default apps available. There are backup solutions in their app store, but just a few and not necessarily very tailored in the default config to work with the rest of the system.

    Of course, you could also just install unraid or TrueNas or anything else on one of these.
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  218. This looks awesome so long as the community is there for software this will take a chunk outa Synology/Turnkey solutions. I built a AMD Linux Rig with TB3 to test how well that actually works.
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  219. Is this finally what will make it worth to upgrade my DS716+? Looks like it if pricing remains reasonable. It will hopefully push Synology and others to finally properly upgrade their systems instead of recycling older hardware.
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  220. I worry about any company that spells Ethernet as Ethemet (see video time 15:06). If you visit the webpage it is still spelled this way. Time will tell if this product ever gets past crowd funding…
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  222. Interesting. I’d slap 64GB of RAM into it and install Proxmox or XCP-NG on it and turn it into a combo NAS/firewall/video/docker server.
    Plex for serving video, pfsense for firewall duties, and then a separate VM/CT for running small docker applications.
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  225. As of power delivery. It is not going to have internal PSU. As you can see in pictures and specificatons, it will use DC power of 19V. That means it will use a external “Laptop Brick” power supply. The reason for it is that motherboard will not have ATX connector. The CPU is Alder Lake-1235U which is laptop CPU that is very power efficient. It also uses SO-DIMM memory which is found in laptops and Mini-PCs. So definitely no internal power supply, which they can utilize for more space like extra drives. The case will roughly be of the size of Jansbo N2. Technicaly if you had Mini-PC like HP Pro Mini 400 G9, you can remove motherboard from it becasue it is the size of ITX and put in Jonsbo N2, and you will not need SFX power supply anymore becasue it will be powered by extrenal DC laptop Brick. You can use space of power supply for 4 x SSDs. Print custom bracket using 3d Printer or just use double sided tape or Velcros to join those 4 SSDs together.
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  228. That is not monstrous but pretty poor instead. Only 6 storage bays. 2.5GbE instead of 10GbE is also not really up-to-date any more. And most importantly – no ECC memory.
    But they certainly know their marketing BS – “ChatGPT For All Your Files”. Muahhahaha
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  229. And again another zima advertising.
    Do you get paid by them or are getting free products?
    You are even using the usual advertise-scam “features up to 9000.. costs starting from 1..”
    The basic cheap zima cube is lowend! And all the “good stuff” you are advertising is in the pro version which will cost multiple times of the cheap stuff.
    Sorry but you are behaving like the iPhone fanboys since you’ve started with zima.
    All other videos were enjoyable and neutral, but now..
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  232. Can’t figure out the use case of 4 x 2.5 GbE ports. Wouldn’t you just plug this thing into a switch rather than all of your devices into this thing? At least if you want to do things the right way.
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  234. The host is so much smarter than me and knows so much… but for him to feel this doubtful about very clearly obvious DC brick psu being used is so weird… It will be like HP does their microserver and its great news for people who want to save some watts.
    If this one shipped with N100 be around 400€ it be good. As jonsbo n3 cost south of 200€ and n100 mobos cost around 100€ but then its SFX psus are bit pricey or going pico psu with brick is not cheap…
    but one thing is… those 8 positions with N3 feel like a lot. Like you know you will be sorted out for years to come… that you can use hdds that you would maybe skip.. and you will have space left to put in some new hdds in future years when you but 2x 30TB.
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  235. Hope there will be a way to cool the M2s as they seem very close to the frame in that one picture. Will be interesting to see the price but it makes the decision wether or not to buy a Zimablade harder.
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  237. Thunderbolt to PCIE expansion will also be beneficial. This might be my next NAS. I was considering pulling the trigger on a Synology 1821+, but I may hold off till I see the price of this. If this had 8 bays and 64GB or more ram expansion, it would be the dream NAS.
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  238. Thank you so much for the content! Have you come across a product like the Minisforum AD650I? It looks like a quite powerful solution, especially considering the increasing popularity of M.2 SSDs and the ability to build, for example, a RAID 6 (4+2) setup on the 2-4GB ssd. I would love to see a review from you and hear your thoughts on this product.
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  239. if they sell mobo itself for i5, i might buy it. you know most of lga 1700 came with 4 ports.
    hba card power consumtion is too big and at same time pcie sata card have chance to break earlier
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  240. Just got the survey through from Icewhale and they’re talking about choices between the “Quad” and “Octa” models. Have they changed the specs and naming scheme already? The Mainpage still shows Zimacube and Zimacube Pro; and the i5 is a ten core CPU, whereas Octa suggests eight core.
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  241. I’m definitely a fan as I’ve given Icewhale a lot of money over the last year. I have 3 (432) zimaboards, 3 (832) zimaboards and just ordered 2 (zimablades (16gb memory)). I’m going to order one more Zimablade to bring it to 3 total. So, I already know I’m going to jump on the zimacube as well.
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  243. improvements but serious consumers will look into building in something like a fractal7 xl where you can cram even more drives, people will want to get 2 – everything breaks
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  249. 06:00 The NAS will definitely be able to do TB to TB Networking as it’s a supported Linux kernel feature. But you’ll need to modprobe the thunderbolt-net driver for it to work.
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  250. 06:00 The NAS will definitely be able to do TB to TB Networking as it’s a supported Linux kernel feature. But you’ll need to modprobe the thunderbolt-net driver for it to work.
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  255. TB 10G Ethernet is not great. The drivers are often weak and the devices run quite hot. A card would be much better. TBH the i5 should have 10Gb. Speaking of NAS have you seen the video for the AD650i motherboard by ETA Prime? 6 NVME drives & 2 SSD all on miniITX. i7-12650H Under $400.
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  256. I think if you’re going tyhe ‘DIY’ route, the Jonsbo is the better option. I recently bought 2x BKHD N5105 mobos on AliExpress (Better than the Topton boards as it has a PCIe port which they lack).

    With this ZimaCube setup, you just know your going to be railroaded into 2 specific configurations, and given that it’s a kickstarter you’ll pay over the odds for something that you could build cheaper with already available parts. Don’t be sucked in by the nice looks of this case. OK, It has drive trays, woohoo, calm down. How often, seriously, are you oing to need to be ejecting drives for replacement? Once every 3-4 years, tops?

    It’s re-inventing the wheel, and then charging you, the ‘consumer’ a premium for it. It would suit people who want to move away from turnkey solutions, who maybe don’t have the nowse, or time to go down the full DIY route, but again, this is not DIY. It’s a pre-specced solution… on Kickstarter. So chances are, by the time you actually get your hands on the hardware (assuming it doesn’t bomb due to lack of support in the first place), it will likely already be halfway to being obsolete anyhow.

    Oh and Robbie, had you taken more than two seconds to look at the ‘specifications’ pictures, and the key printed below, you would of seen that it uses an external PSU, just saying.
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  259. Someone should sell a SOHO 10GbE or 25GbE switch with a couple 40Gb USB4 ports. If you’re close to the switch you can then connect via USB without having to install an Ethernet card. It would be clean way to add faster ports to a NAS like this.

    Six NVMe drives at just x2 each is 12 lanes PCIe. There’s also an x16, x4 and an x1, so 33 lanes plus whatever is needed for the 2x 2.5 GbE, 6x SATA, and eMMC. How are they going to plug all that into an N100 PCH that only has 9 PCIe lanes and 40Gb/s to the CPU?
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  261. Cool review and really cool case. The lack of ECC is a bummer and I am not sure DDR5 is enough to comfort me. Of course I say that as I have multiple external USB3 drives on their third year without ECC making me nervous. I can get Intel procs through employee discount which saves a few hundred $$$ on a higher end. If I can find a decent mini-ITX W680 board I could add ECC and use the Jonsbo N3 which is the case I like best. I might have to get micro-ATX though which would be a bummer. I’d like at least 2×2.5Gb, option to add a GPU for video analytics so there goes that PCIe slot, and hopefully leave a upgrade path to 10Gb through a future m.2 slot should I want it. I am still researching. I can’t find a micro-ATX or ATX case that I like that isn’t monsterous.
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  263. Would be good if you could arrange an interview with them, perhaps right after they launch their campaign and unveil their pricing.
    What would worry me, more than the external PSU, is the potentially proprietary format of the mobo.
    Hence : would it be possible to install a standard mini-ITX mobo inside this case, in the event that the factory-issued one died ?
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  266. That ChatGPT part is a real turn off for me. I hope that would be a feature you can turn off. The last thing I want is Microsoft (or any other company/business) keeping stats on my content to be able answer questions–and in the years I’ve used my NAS for multi-media server, I’ve never had the need. Maybe I’m a niche. Also, does this infer the unit has to be online to internet to function?
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  270. I recently bought Terramaster F4-423 and I am satisfied. But if I knew about ZimaCube, I would wait for price information on Kikstarter 🙂
    By the way, thanks for all the information about NAS on this channel, it was very helpful in choosing mine.
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  274. How in the world can Chinese & AliExpress companies get current Intel & AMD CPUs but US NAS companies will only offer products with CPUs already 2-4 generations old? Is it just a case of US company greed?
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  276. Yes! Zima Cube overcomes the limitations of the Intel Celeron architecture!
    Celeron limits RAM to 16 GB and there are not enough lanes to fully utilize M.2 NVME and PCIe expansion slots.
    The 10 gbs network issue primarily impacts Apple Mac video editors who want to use NAS NVMEs as if they were internal to their Mac; for that use case the Asustor 12 NVME model with built in 10 gbs network port makes sense In general at this point spinning hard drives are primarily for backup and archival storage — not working storage. SSDs are now cheap enough for working storage. The long term danger is SSD bit rot.
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  277. I wish they could have stretched to at least an i5-1240P CPU, can’t imagine running all my apps on just the 1235u. Also, no ECC so I’m holding out for storaxa – hope they sort their issues out
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  279. those nas companies need to get into their heads that 4 x 2.5G =!= 10G … why you need 4 on a nas box ? to poor to buy a switch but still can afford a NAS ? really think that those 4 ports will give you brilliant pfsense solution rather than a proper 4 port passthrough pcie ? preferring to have exotic multi port solution rather than a one large pipe ?
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  280. *UPDATE* – A few things have been confirmed in the time since this video was recorded. Regarding the injection/delivery of those M.2 NVMes, IceWhale have confirmed that the M.2s are injected via a 2x/4x PCB that is loaded into a U.2/U.3 slot on the backplane, which can be removed to add/remove M.2 SSDs as needed. Regarding the PSU, it is 100% confirmed to be an external 220W PSU brick (how/if this differs on the N100 vs i5 version is still TBC). Finally, the case is a completely new case that utilizes modular panels on all sides (not just a removable panel on the top as found on the Jonsbo N2). If you have further Questions, I see if I can get them answered and add them to the Zimablade article here (https://nascompares.com/2023/10/13/the-zimacube-6-bay-nas-new-exciting-nas-in-coming/) and/or make a follow-up video with the most common Q’s being answered. Have a great weekend!
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  283. Great overview. Octa seems comparable to the QNAP TVS-H674-i5-32GB-US, which is $1,979 on Amazon (as of Oct 2023), with one notable exception – inclusion of 2 TB4 ports. If it comes in substantially lower in price than the QNAP, might be compelling. However, TB4 is a red herring for some of us, namely those who have built PC’s using AMD. My two kits (Threadripper 3970X on MSI TRX40 Creator and Ryzen 5900X on Gigabyte Aorus Master) have zero support for TB; and that includes PCIe expansion cards, which shocked me in a recent search. These MB’s don’t have the seemingly required JTBT header, nor can I find any other mention of TB support for these systems. Really disappointing. My two Lenovo T14S Gen2 laptops have TB4 support, but they’re also already rigged with external TB-10GbE adapters so I don’t see much benefit connecting those to the NAS over TB. If I succumb to a Mac PC some day, I suppose TB4’s will be useful again – maybe.
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  284. Ice whale ???? really needs to be careful. They almost cannibalized this project. I was seriously (not that i still can’t) considering building a NAS just like this using the Zima blade. Of course it would be a step down from ZimaCube, but still functional for a small home.

    I really like Zima cube build a lot. I can’t wait to see the pricing. Given their track record so far. Id put my money ???? on it.
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  286. 11:05
    There’s no 10gbe coz they are using CWWK motherboards and just rebranding them with kickstarter.
    Essentially, we are just paying them extra for the case+power supply only. They didn’t do any motherboard design whatsoever, just off the shelf motherboard.
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  287. Ooooh I’m genuinely very intrigued by the ZimaCube, 6 bays for hard drives, and 4 SSDs “integrated”, perfect, I really like the blend of fast and mass storage on my QNAP TS-464, I just wish it had more SSD slots and the PCIe slot wasn’t limited on my QNAP.

    My guess would be with the SSD tray is it will just be PCIe hot swappable, either actually hot swappable like the server U.2 connector into a backplane (connected over PCIe (either underneath the motherboard or routed to the top/front), or it’s just a cable the connects to a M.2 slot. Now, the real biggest question related to the the 4x SSDs will be how many lanes, will say Gen3 or even Gen4 be able to run all drives at full tilt or will they be sharing lanes and suffer the same issue as the QNAP TS-464 (and similar models) face with the PCIe lanes being limited, with both the M.2 slots and the PCIe slot.

    100% the power will be an external brick given it’s DC 19V, both the turn key NAS’s and the AliExpress Alder Lake boards have a DC power jack port and external brick.

    If this is priced well it would be serious contender for those who want a compact form factor, mostly ready to go, but with all the extra storage and networking options you struggle to get from the turn key NAS manufacturers without paying through the nose for it. I really want to go more than 4 hard drive bays, but couldn’t justify the increase in price, and I’m not quite ready to mess about with a full DIY NAS, even if I’ve built computers in the past.
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  300. Great review. I bought this case, it took a very long time to arrive, but when it did the things you pointed out on video is what I felt too. I think the bit of this case that annoys me the most is they use 100mm fans at the back (bottom) and 80mm at the top. 100mm is a odd size, to the point you cannot really buy fans. As in noctua dont make a 100mm. Moreover, I agree with no caddies, dont like the rubber bits. Also the hdds do rattle a lot, so dont feel its that well dampered. I would say its a good case for the money, 8 drives. But I wish the cooling was on the drives, not at the back, which means drives dont get great cooling. Overall, 6/10 for me
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  301. Those CPUs aren’t just old, the N3450 is discontinued and the N3350 is just as old and not far behind. It’s just a cash grab to dispose of junk parts that are unsuitable for new designs and I’m surprised that this video isn’t just a straightforward “no”
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  302. according to Topton, the pin headers on their motherboards (N5xxx and N6xxx) is only USB 2.0, were you able to confirm/deny it? The blue ports on the mobo however are indeed 3.x
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  306. I recently bought a cooler master cosmos II. Plan on putting a decent primary build in there with a nas, and then use proxmox to add these as a HA cluster all in one chassis.
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  307. For the most part, I like the Zimablade. But it uses noncompliant USB-C power and that’s a deal killer for me. It has a 12V only power supply.
    I refuse to keep such a power supply in my house. If you get your chargers mixed up and plug a 12V only into your phone/tablet/laptop, you could fry your device.
    And, on the flip side, you can’t use any USB-C power supply laying around to power the Zimablade because the board doesn’t have the power delivery circuitry to negotiate a proper USB-C power supply up to 12V (another reviewer tried and it just wouldn’t work with normal USB-C supplies).
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  308. This is a good device for prototyping a device based on an X86 Docker container that is a minimal viable product (MVP). The Zima Board and the Zima Blade are small enough to be packed with a laptop and taken to a prospective customer (try doing that with a prosumer 4 bay). If your prospective customer says, “I like what it does, but its too darn slow” then when you ask them how much more they would be willing to pay for more speed you have a paying customer and a budget to find a more suitable NAS/Docker server in the prosumer or rackmount tier. With the coming of the Zima Cube one might even be able to stick with CasaOS and the Zima brand. But there are price sensitive customers and at the opposite extreme there are regulated electric utility monopolies and the military that will pay top dollar premiums for reliability. Beyond that there are the spy and nuke agencies that will pay top dollar for maximum performance super computers. The consumer equivalent of that would be hard core computer gamers.
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  310. It is an interesting product.

    PCI Express 2.0 (×4 link) theoretically has 2 GB/s bandwidth. That’s plenty for spinning rust array. Attach older PCIe RAID card flashed to IT mode or budget HBA network? Network in going to be a bottleneck even if CPU isn’t.

    The eMMC storage is a problem. Especially for some OSes.

    I’d suggest that boot/OS HDD or SLC SSD drive via USB might be a better option.
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  312. It feels to me like a product that will be an immediate regret purchase.
    Under powered CPU, lots of cables, USB blobs, a PCIE card hanging off it like a ZX81 RAM pack and power supplies sitting round it for storage: and a pain to store or carry around.
    The custom build will be interesting though. Especially OS choice as high quality Linux drivers for WiFi 6E are thin on the ground and you need a USB dongle that uses a decent chipset (Mediatek) and they cost about the same as the Zimablade alone (they are cheaper on AliExpress though).
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  313. I purchased the Zima Board instead of the blade this week. Same gen 2 pcie and the temperature complaints kept me away from this one. Although that usb 3.2 gen 1 looks nice
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  315. i tried casaos and… everything runs as root? the files are all owned by root? no authentication on samba by default? and that’s when i terminated the VM and forgot about it.
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  328. On a b550-i strix you can easily use a 5sata port m.2 adapter, use it on the front m.2 4.0 slot and use a nvme boot drive on the back m.2 3.0 port and you have the 2slot pcie slot free for a GPU or whatever. And you were complaining about having 4 pegs on the drive to go into the rail….. In your video you are missing the pegs that screw into the middle of the drive to guide it on the rails.
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  329. Looking at this the N3 for just a bunch of drives, I initially thought about using 2.5″ SSD’s with adapters in place of the 3.5″ drives. But with the price of NVMe drives nearing the price of 2.5″ SSD’s I am mulling over stripping out the SATA board in the bottom of this case and installing a powered USB hub getting power from the molex on the PSU and installing a bank of individual USB enclosures populated with whatever NVMe drives I choose – connected to the USB 3 motherboard connector. Any thoughts or suggestions or limitations on my idea?
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  330. Thinking of a small Postgres database server. Could one duct tape a Samsung 2.5″ SATA drive to the bottom of the device and u-turn the SATA cable? I saw a video of adding Portainer to CasaOS. Can one directly connect a notebook with an Ethernet cable without a router?
    “How to update Portainer on Casa OS”

    https://youtu.be/136nD6ooFBM?si=RJGvgO1cv7VP-KeQ
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  332. You can use an M.2 breakout card for more SATA connections, for example if you have two M.2 slots or a free WiFi slot the “ChenYang M.2 M-Key PCI adapter” for full length or “MZHOU M.2 SATA Adapter” for WiFi slot length.
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  335. a.) Yes, the PSU should slide-in from the back. IDK why they mount it inside the case.
    b.) You can get PCIM-Key M.2 to 6X SATA 3 adapter and put it the mobo’d 2nd M.2 slot, if you’re willing to give up mirrored boot drives.
    c.) If rubber drive mounting washers really bug you, print some rails to replace them. Still have to deal with the rubber handle, though.

    Would be nice to know about the SATA power connector on the drive backplane. Also, the maximum size CPU cooler that will fit.
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  338. Maybe it’s just me, but I would never buy this to do anything other than handle data and I don’t need an ATX motherboard to do that. I use a board similar to the one you used in your N2 build, but it was designed for openwrt and has a N6005 on it. I have the N2 and I’d never want it or the other anywhere near me due to fan noise (it lives in the garage with the car). While I see your point about the GPU vs using a 10gbe card, I’d rather just go with 2.5gbe as I really don’t think my zfs setups would benefit very much and most modern itx boards will have 2.5gbe. I also love the way they do drive mounting as it cuts down on a ton of vibration. Unless you are taking the drives out all the time, not sure why you need a tray. Yes, if I have a drive failure, it will take me more time to change the drive as I will likely have to take the back off to help push the drive out. . but I still really like the rubber mounting system. My only complaint on the N2 would probably be the same for the N3 – fan noise. I guess I’ll have to wait an see how the PSU goes into that unit, but the N3 is a few years away for me.
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  339. A few critiques of the review:

    1. It is common for ITX boards to have a front and back m.2 slot. Running a 5 or 6 port m.2 to sata adapter is inexpensive and doesn’t interfere with expandability

    2. I’m not sure (and you didn’t really say) why you are hesitant about PSU extension cables, but as long as it is a sufficient gauge (which it is), it’s fine

    3. You can use any two power connectors to power all 8 drives
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  340. I don’t understand the obsession with the ITX NAS cases. Any economy of savings you might enjoy by the DIY nature are absolutely murdered by the limited selection and significantly higher costs ITX mobos present. Give me a full ATX or even mATX any day of the week…

    Personally, my NAS is currently living in a Rosewill Blackhawk ATX case repurposed from an ancient PC build.
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  343. In Australia I had to order my unit through Ali Express. Their store is atrocious! The title of the page CLEARLY stated: “JONSBO N3 N2 N1 Mini NAS Case ITX …” but then the ‘colorway’ defaults to “N2 white’. You had to make sure you pick the right unit (N1, N2 and N3) through the COLORWAY! I didn’t check and purchase the N2 instead of the N3 and they refused to allow for return because it’s CLEARLY stated. I would dispute that. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with the product itself. I agree with your assessment that the fan size is effing crazy! Who makes 100mm and 80mm fans! Other than all that, I like the case. It feels high quality built, it’s the smallest form I can find on the market to fit 8 HDDs!
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  345. Jonsbo seems to make some great cases but the N3 is in a bit of a weird spot for me.
    Though the N3 has some marked improvements over N2, personally I think it is best to either stick with the N2 for a compact NAS, or if you are after more expandability, might as well choose a mATX case for almost the same footprint as the N3 and gain not only more drive slots but also more PCIe slots and usually cheaper motherboards as well.
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  347. Well, I think this wasn’t a very good/informative review. More like 25 min of rambling, why this is a very bad case. Is it a bad case though? The conclusion and the vibe I good during the video are very different.
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  349. 5:50 The N2 does have drive LEDs, but they’re not visible if you use 3.5″ drives. The backplane has 2 surface mount LEDs for each drive, green for power and blue for activity. If you use 2.5″ drives with a backplane-compatible 2.5″-to-3.5″ adapter, you’ll see diffuse blue flashing through the case’s front as each drive does its thing (the green LED is blocked by the adapter/drive).
    Jonsbo seems to be listening to feedback and improving their designs with each iteration, and I think that’s why the N3 moved the LEDs to the case panel instead.
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  352. What about small mATX boards like the ASRock H610M-HVS or H610M-HDV? Both of them are around 2cm larger than a mITX board and they usually fit in mITX cases that are a bit more roomy
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  357. On nas compares web page you indicate the middle/top builds in the cons section higher power consumption, how much more we talking compared to a synology/Qnap 8 bay? considering the price of energy now a days and with these on 24/7.
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  361. Can’t wait for the build video. Watched your N2 build video and looked at your guides and saw the N3. I knew I wanted the N3 for my dream NAS.
    As for the issue with the drive pull, perhaps for those with access to a 3d printer, there may be some solutions on Thingiverse or similar sites. I know it’s not something we should be forced to resort to, but it’s an option.
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  364. @NASCompares – There are M.2 to Multi Sata connector cards as well, and you could get an ITX board with Multiple M.2 or use the internal Sata Drive for OS or a CACHE drive.
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  365. The case is good. Its the mobo offering that sucks. All we need is an itx mobo with 10gbit, ecc ram, 8xsata, 2x m.2 and something like N100 for that 6W TDP passively cooled cpu. For… hmm… 250€
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  366. I think you miss something about the rubber disk mounts. Certain types of rubber under prolonged exposure to heat can disintegrate. In a NAS case a few years from now, it will go sticky and rot away. What then?
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  370. This case is probably one of the best options, but it still has so many problems. That one from Silverstone supports ATX, but supposedly the backplane is shit and the HDD cooling is not good.

    It would just be nice if there was a NAS case with a good backplane, good ventilation for drives, good cooler support, ATX support, good HDD trays, etc.
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  373. This may be a language difference, but on this side of the ocean, we call them either motherboard or mainboards. The term card is generally reserved for ‘add in cards’. Additionally, PSUs in weird places is somewhat normal for small form factor cases.
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  374. Been waiting for this video after informing you there was this new case incoming.

    Could you not use a nvme sata adapter that has the data ports on them, yh I know it will use the slot up but some itx mb have more than 1
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  377. your antiquated selection is crap in 2023.
    Fractal Design Node 804 – Black
    MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi ProSeries Motherboard
    Ryzen 7 5700G 8-core, 16-Thread Processor
    Thermalright AXP120-X67 WHITE ARGB Low Profile CPU Air Cooler
    Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz
    WD_BLUE SN570 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3
    IBM M5015 Array Card, Megaraid 9260-8i SATA/SAS Controller RAID 6G PCI-E x8
    INTEL Original X540-T2 Ethernet Converged Network Adaptor X540T2BLK
    8×3.5 drives, + 8x 2.5 drives & small cage
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  378. Congratulations on the 100K it is quite an accomplishment. Brilliant video. Fantastic presentation. I have a big unraid system featuring a Xeon E3 with 16 bays. but I do EVERTHIING on this. I have never regretted building my own NAS.
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  387. Beautiful build, nicely done, and I love the “on the cheap” side of things (so much, must be the Scottish in me ????) Makes me want to do this rather than get another Synology. I have the skills, but Synology just made things so “easy” that I got lazy. Thanks for the video and congrats on 100K! Here’s to the next 900K ????
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  391. Browsing around Aliexpress I find you can get a M-ATX motherboard with 9 SATA ports (6 SATA3, 3 SATA2), 2 M.2 PCIe 3, 4 USB 3.0, 4 USB 2, 1 PCIe x16 slot and 1 PCIe x1 slots. This plus 32GB of ECC DDR4 and a Xeon E5 2680 V4 (14 cores, turbo of 3.3GHz) for about $120.
    Which would make a better Plex/NAS server?
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  400. This is super cool for the price but it’s certainly not replacing my AMD Epyc Plex server anytime soon.

    Sure mine was 2.5x the price ($250) from a China eBay seller for the 1st gen 16c/32t Epyc and Motherboard. But it’s missing critical things like the 128 lanes of PCIe for my HBA, 10g network card, x4 Nvme card, etc. These kinda single board computers are so cool until you want to get into big boy things like ZFS pools and setting up metadata cache so your 16 hard drives have a nice Nvme pool to speed things up, or chucking in some second hand ram and doing things like ZFS cache or transcoding cache. These days a used Nvidia Tesla is $95 and will do something like 28 simultaneous hd transcodes. (And Intel quick sync is amazing if you’re team blue)

    Any i3 or higher 8th gen or newer Intel chip is probably fine for most people and with a moderate motherboard will have plenty of PCIe expansion for tons of hard drives and a couple of Nvme’s
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  402. Im disappointed that you keep mentioning that this is a $64 server yet you are testing the quad core version which is not the same server its the more expensive version, Its still good value but its not $64. either test the dual core or tell the correct value please.
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  404. Erm, HEVC (High Efficiency Video Codec) is h265, not h264. H264 is also known as AVC (Advanced Video Codec) and needs about double the bit rate as h265 for the same apparent quality.
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  409. I have a laptop and would love to run PC cards!

    Is there something like the Zimablade SBC that allows you to plug in any type of PC card standard (ISA, PCI, PCIe/PCIex16)?

    I’ve heard that because of DMA, a USB3 to PCI is not possible, so most people use a Thunderbolt3 PCIe Expansion Chassis.. but I’m looking for a PC solution!
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  414. I built one from used parts on eBay, for the magic price of about £187, 10 SAS 2tb drives i picked up for 80 quid, Dell H200 perc 24 quid( needed firmware changing to LSI SAS 9210-8i ), the motherboard (FM2 with 8gb of DDR 3 and 500w PSU) came to together from what someone was tipping, 64gb SSD OS disk i picked up for around 7 quid, eBay again, the only build that was new was the Mini SAS 36Pin SFF-8088 to 4 x 29Pin SFF-8482 SATA Power Cable 0.5m 20 quid, 2 x Molex to 4 SATA power cable 10 quid and a new ATX case from Amazon for around 30 quid, i manage to pick up 6 BEQUIET 120mm fans for 16 quid, i used TrueNas 12 at the time, now been updated to version13, it runs as my SMB and plex server, its on a 1Gb Lan of which i can use nearly all of the bandwidth maintaining 110MB all the time download(single user at a time), at the end of the day, i really enjoyed building it, it was fun, Im planning on building more, good stuff
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  417. Hmm, given that an N5105 fan less PC with 4 2.5GB ethernet ports, an M.2 slot, a mini PCIe slot, 2 SODIM slots and a SATA port can be had for circa $120 (in a case), this doesn’t seem like that good a deal.
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  418. I can afford to buy a branded NAS, but I prefer to go through similar to what you see in this video, not because I want to appear tech savvy, but because of the drinking involved during and after the build. I especially relish the heavy drinking involved when it fails and I have no one to blame but myself. Cheers!
    ????????
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  419. This is such a breath of fresh air. I’ve been trying to get into NASes for years now. My father got a Synology and I’ve been practicing with it and maintaining it for him but it’s been cost prohibiting to get one for me so far. This could be it, it’s so damn affordable and I just need a place to keep my Plex library for now
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  420. I am super interested in purchasing one!!
    Please can you do an indepth video on how One might use this for a multimedia “NAS Like” server.
    If I can grasp the concept of how this works, I’ll buy a few.
    Maybe you can help me out with a better understanding of what the boards are capable of.
    I’m trying to run a radio station and be able to have my own local cloud storage to be able to access the entire library of music from one central location using a URL link to access the files over an internet connection.
    The way I was going to do it was buy a synology Nas (5 Bay, 20 tb HD) ((& then back up with another Nas. However, as you see, that’ll add up quickly.)) I was going to be running DSM & then accessing all the music files through the login portal which will them be played throughout the studio system etc.
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  422. The processors in the zimaboard/zimablade products are pretty old – Apollo Lake cpu’s from 2015 and 2016. That’s why they’re limited to PCIe gen 2 with only 6 lanes. If they’d use a newer Jasper Lake N5105, they’d get PCIe gen 3 with 8 lanes. The newest Alder Lake-N cpu’s like the N100 (essentially E-cores from Alder Lake 12th gen) are even faster and have 9 lanes for the PCIe.

    Edit: Huh, I see someone already made a similar comment. I think the Jasper Lake N5105 would make a good compromise in performance vs cost in this product. Very plentiful on Aliexpress and Amazon.
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  428. The J3455 is the same processor that was in the Synology 918+. I used to run multiple transcoded 2K & 4K h.264/h.265 streams via Plex off that box. This is a great deal for the price.
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  429. The price is nothing special as almost all stuff that has Apollo lake on it (7 years old new stock) is about that price. It’s only the consumer plug and play nas market that uses stupid prices for really old 3th world hardware. If you build your own with Aliexpress build systems or motherboards you get about the same price. I would not buy this at all as i would like a box that does it all and not just be a nas. And that old hardware cannot deliver that. A new n100 or n200 is borderline for me, if i want something low power and powerfull that can run everything at once then maybe a n305 or a AMD 5825. As you can get those with multple 2.5gb nics muliple m2 sata and the 5825 can run with 64gb memory so you can spin up a whole battlefield of vm’s. I know some people will complain that everything from Aliexpress is bad quality and should not be compared, i do not agree. But for those people i can also buy a new sealed Asrock board with a J3355 for €65,- from multiple shops in my country. So nothing special just the price this older stuff is worth. If you pay 2 to 3 to 4 times more for this like said in the video you have been ripped off.
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  430. For me this platform is a no-go. It has J3455, so it is likely to “feature” the LPC issue, same as J1900, N3350, J3355, J3455 and N4200. And that issue is why I don’t use my qnap T-251 anymore, it just stopped working and fix is temporary.
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  441. It would be interesting, if it wasn’t running a 2016 era cpu that Intel has already put into end-of-life status (or in case of J3455, will officially be end-of-life in a few days, on the 30th).
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  442. Seems with the size that it would be good with a couple 2.5 sata ssds instead of hhd, since a new generation nvme’s might be wasted with an adapter. Then you can have something that is small and quiet. Just a thought though.
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  443. Very cool design I like ZimaBoard and ZimaBlade designs, but not CPU choice. I have AMD 415GA thin client and it’s a bit slower then N3350 from Zima (but remember used thin client compete price with cup of good coffee). Open PCIe expansion is game-changer, yes, but it’s only one slot, what’s really missed – no m.2 slot. All cheap SSD are nvme now, and cheapest good sata is MX500 – cost more then good nvmes. For me this thing were interesting even with this CPUs if add m.2 and 2.5G NIC with free PCIe – then I’ll love this thing, but for now – CWWK cost more and gives more with N100 and quad 2,5G.
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  444. We all know that Apollo Lake N3350 and N3450 processors died for no reason. The same was true for Synology with these processors. If it’s not an N3350E or N3450E, I wouldn’t go with this motherboard 24/7
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  445. Could you please do a PURE usb only nas solution using this or something similar. Kinda scarce on the internet.
    I have a bunch of wd elements 16tb, 5 of them, and would like to just plug all to a server using a usb hub. I’ve seen many people do it for chia but not for nas though. Would be great if you could do it.
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  446. This is the first I’ve heard of this board, and it might be just what I’m looking for for a project I have in mind. See, I want to build a music PLAYER- something that sits in with my stereo system. No streaming services, no cellphone control, just basically an overgrown version of my Sandisk player. The Raspberry Pi has a great solution for playing the music, with it’s available touchscreen running one of the many programs for playing, but it lacks in storing a huge collection ripped to lossless. So, what I’m thinking is one chassis with the Pi’s display on the front and the Pi dedicated to playing the files- but also inside the chassis something like the Zimablade running headless acting as the server storing all the music. Connect them with a short network cable, and BOOM- the product that I want without all the bells and whistles that I won’t use (that companies are charging over a grand for right now).
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  448. Intel arc say that both Celeron CPUs support 8GB DDR3 L NON ECC RAM and have 6 PCIe -2.0 Ver LANES. That means that any card which need 4PCIe Lanes Ver.3.0 will not work efficiently on these boards.
    So forget 10Gbps net cards and external NVMe as they will underperform because of lanes population and version 2.0 .
    Transfer speed is limited in best case at 1Gbps or 100~130 MB/sec max. for hi quality Ethernets.
    I do not find worth to spend money on eight years old stuff , as it is outdate and INTEL has stopped support these CPUs since 2022. (No drivers in th future for these platforms)
    I think that somone can built times better and future retundant file server with 200~250 US$ with DDR-5 platform and 20 PCIe 4.0 / 5.0 lanes which can support almost everything on addon cards ,like hardware RAIDs,GPU, 40Gbps USBs (hi speed DAS) 2x 10Gbps QSFP+ ,etc.
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  449. Thank you for this! Didn’t even know such a product existed. Hope to see a follow-up video on how to use this to assemble and configure a 2-bay personal cloud server compared to existing solutions from QNAP/Synology/etc. Also curious about what you mentioned about using this with DAS’s.
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  453. I got a Zima Board recently and it’s great. Would love if you could do a video on how to access the storage outside the network via something like Nextcloud. So far I have it as a NAS for the home network but would like to expand the access
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  455. Ok I don’t mind appearing dumb, a lot of jargon but would love to see what it actually does. Say I have an m.2 card loaded up with flac music files, can this stream to my dac ? If so I connect a screen, but what software do I use ?
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  458. 1st time here on you channel good video but your set made me very jelly all those nas’s just sat around doing nothin lol ” glances over at my curcial x6 plugged in to my nano pi neo 3 ”
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  460. I got the same mobo (justo with the intel N6005)… there’s an internal USB port… just sayin its safer tu put the usb in ther so no one “accidentally ” pulls it out… huge mistake I made with going with a pico PSU… changed it to a 400w… no working fine… thank you for your videos! ther really helped deciding what to get!… went also with unraid
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  464. Impressive design and power efficient and silent with it. I am looking forward to what this company brings out in the near future. In my opinion, the relatively older Celerons may put some potential customers off?
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  470. Those Apollo Lake processors are pretty old (2016) and slow in 2023. I think the gemini lake ones like J4125 is much quicker. Even better would be a N100. But that’s probably too new. Although there are plenty of those mini PCs on AliExpress already.
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  472. It’s rubbish if you don’t have a processor with ECC memory. Unless for a creepy DIY project.
    With such success, you can get Synology/QNAP/Asus NIMBUSTOR 2 new or used for ~200-300 Euros with case, software and similar hardware.
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  473. Only thing which stopped me from ordering either of the zimba’s was the parent company being located in Hong Kong, China.
    Maybe it’s just me having the jeebee with clients data within my local closed networks but I’d probably hook this up within it’s own dmz or closed separate network ????
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  474. “Best Jonsbo N2 Build for Under/Around £250”
    You need a maths lesson, parts included in this comes to around £300 not £250 (based on your pricing shown)
    Also pricing is a lot higher than you stated form the sources you stated, and you use both £ and $ which is confusing /constructive criticism use one or the other
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  475. 49:16 Well I personally usually chek that 127 other things in the BIOS to make sure I don’t have to reinstall the whole system just because I changed something like SecureBoot only after I installed the OS. 🙂
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  477. Hey – nice job here. There is also the value of the learning that is in depth – you can also upgrade individual components to go with as you need. The cost of upgrading a turn key is quite a bit larger – you have about the same 2x factor I think. Interesting – worth the hour invested to watch here!
    And congratulations!
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  479. I just built one for my friend, N6005 + 16 RAM + H6 case + 1 TB NVME SSD + 250W PSU + Unraid Plus, and spent nearly £330.

    Of course, I was building this while in China, so the shipping cost is way lower, but spent another £25 mailing it to UK.
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  480. Hey, I’ve been looking for an alternative to my NAS as mine is currently my old gamingpc, which is complete overkill and higher than ideal power consumption.

    Can I as, why this wouldn’t be good to use with TrueNAS at it seemingly fits their hardware requirements.

    I’m a bit new to all this, so please excuse me if this is a dumb question.
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  483. I *loved* this build video. So much detail, great explanation, and it is clearly a done with love for this topic. I’d be interested in a similar build video if you can find a low-cost build with drive trays rather than those off rubber-pull attachments.
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  486. It’s not just about the time spent. It’s about how much your data is worth. If you’re not thinking about things like patrol reads and notifications on disk failures. Rebuild processes for the array. Those types of things… you can end up with bit rot or data loss when not noticing hardware failures.
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  487. It’s so weird to me that JONSBO is a brand of NAS now, when fifteen years ago JONSBO was a line of table lamps at IKEA. (Rather nice ones, too!)

    (Unlike a lot of other IKEA product names, JONSBO does not appear to be a Swedish placename, but there was a 20th Century Norwegian artist named Kåre Mikkelsen Jonsborg so maybe that’s the etymology idk)
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  491. Pretty Nice Video of this build! But the most important question i have is how high is the power consumption ? Is it the same like the Qnap / Synology or is the power consumption much higher because Qnap / Synology did some optimization of their used components ?
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  493. “Sorry Captain Planet” you had a few clever comments. I have a Synology DS213 that I now realize is 10 years old but it’s all I need with 2 1TB WD Red drives in hybrid. If I had the need I’d be into building my own.
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  494. New to your channel. NASCompares and you’ve never built a NAS from scratch before?! You can build one better than any QNAP, Synology, etc. for less. As for the USB connectors from the case. They match EXACTLY what they are since one is USB 3.0 and the other is USB-C 3.2. There is nothing non-standard about them. The issue is your motherboard only has USB 2.0.
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  498. Brilliant video! This is the best tutorial and guide I’ve seen for building a fully-functional, do-it-yourself NAS. I especially appreciated the step-by-step details, and your objective, brand and device-specific recommendations, evaluations, and critiques of each of the components. The Unraid solution allowing the use of such an enormous variety and size of SATA disk drives is likewise amazing. You have motivated me to take this on myself. Thank you! Now subscribed.
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  504. Been down both paths for 20+ years. If I want to impress my peers I build my own servers. If I want to impress my family get a Synology. Played with Unraid to make hardware pass through setups with Windows XP/98 systems and 3DFX and Creative EAX cards and its an ongoing project, fraught with many many issues. They are fun projects, but you will get to the stage that other hobbies call you and a Synology is the way to go. After all, we don’t live forever and the kids will inherit them, so they need something less IT knowledge base intensive.
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  505. I’ve been looking to upgrade my Synology to a DS423+ or similar, that’s what brought me here.
    But, from what I could see, this build is just not worth the cost or hassle when I can get a pre-built unit with Synology’s DSM that is basically plug and play. Great if you want to build your own system for the hell of it, but personally I just can’t justify the time.
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  506. One recomendation I would make is using a way better power supply like an FSP or Sparkle to enhance the reliability and stability of the build (start with a good foundation) and to turn the power supply around so the vents allow the power supply to suck in cool air and the rear to exit the heat. Most newer motherboard do use the USB3 connectors provided by Jonsbo. The rest of the video is great. Congratulations to your subscriptions! Dr. Dave
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  509. Hmm way less money then i thought. Built my own stuff sense my early teens but never looked in to NAS. Now days whit all the data we have on our hands this might be a good time to start my first NAS project. Grats on 100k and thanks for the info.
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  510. What a fantastic guide! I THANK YOU!
    I’ve assembled PC last time probably 35 years ago – not many things have changed since then I can see.
    Btw why did you go with 5105 rather than 6005? No big price difference there…

    You have kept the t-shirt but you have changed the watch between the recordings – even 2 times !!! 😉
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  515. No, thank you for the fantastic video. Hope you hit 200k soon you guys deserve it. Really appreciate the thorough details My one tip would be to invest in a build mat for that poor old scratched table, helps dampen noise, stops things rolling, can be anti static or have a brand logo.
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  517. Congrats on 100k! This was an interesting video… I look forward to seeing you put it through it’s paces. It’s a shame that the Jonesbo case only holds five 3.5″ drives, though… if it at least held the full 6 that motherboard and cable supported, it might be more of a contender for my next upgrade dollars, once my 4-bay Synology is no longer adequate. (Doesn’t seem worth the money to upgrade and add only a single drive)
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  524. I watched this vid and got the Tipton, I can’t work out how to turn down the fan header which seems to run at full whack all the time which is annoying, I don’t see it in the bios only the cpu. Is there another way to control the fan header?
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  525. For a future video, I would be interested to know how that Jonsbo N2 case handles the heat of a 13th gen i3 or i5 or i7. Does it throttle badly? Does it cook the drive underneath?
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  530. I’ve built many computers over the years. For me, assembling the hardware is fairly easy, configuring the software/OS is what will be a challenge for me. I have two old synology NASes and they’re ok. I’m looking to upgrade, so having the option to build a new NAS is a good thing to have. Knowing me, I probably won’t build because the software seems like something I would have to invest time into learning (and I don’t have the time unfortunately). The detailed guide on the website is really good and I will be bookmarking it in case I change my mind.
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  534. Congrats on 100k subs! I also built a NAS/HTPC (with TrueNAS) in this case recently. For the most part, I love it and would absolutely recommend it for DIY NAS/HTPC builds.

    Regarding the not-so-quiet case fan: if your motherboard has an extra fan header, connect the fan to that instead of the drive backplane. The backplane has no speed control and runs it at 100% speed 100% of the time. But hooked into the motherboard you can set the speed in the system’s BIOS. Mine now runs very quietly while still keeping the drives at 30-45°C (depending on load).

    My only gripes with the case are:
    1/ I wish the shank (the unthreaded part) of the bolts for the drive track grommets were longer so that they could be screwed in tightly.
    2/ Why is the dust-catching mesh only on the side grills of the motherboard section but not on the top grill? It should be the opposite since the top is where most air intake will be happening and the sides would be exhaust (or they could have put mesh on all the grills). I removed the mesh from the sides of the motherboard area and hot-glued a mesh to the top.
    3/ Too many different bolt types for the exterior. One part has Phillips thumbscrews, another has small hex flat head bolts, another has Phillips truss head bolts, and still another uses the standard Phillips hex head case bolts. If those hex flat head bolts were Phillips instead, the whole case could be managed with a single Phillips screwdriver. And the truss head bolts could have just been standard case bolts.
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  537. Just to point out the metal thing you call “backplane” is actually called “i/o shield”. There’s a backplane on this case though and that’s the green board on the drive bay where you connect your drivers.

    TrueNAS would’ve worked, although it’d have complained about not enough memory. it would’ve probably been fine though.

    And congrats on 100k subscribers mate.
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  539. Actually great to see this option being shown, between an off the shelf ready to go NAS and a rack mounted NAS (but not everyone has the space for 1U, 2U or even 4U racks). I might go down this route next time.
    If you can find one get the Intel N100 board instead, for a little more money (coz it’s newer) it’s way more powerful then the N5105, I’m running pfSense on the Intel N100 as my router, but I haven’t seen a board only version on Aliexpress yet although the search is terrible, it’s just what I’d do, especially if you wanna run lots of containers or CCTV recording, the N5105 can do that just fine, coz I’m doing it on my QNAP TS–464, just thinking more longer term.
    Robbie, one thing that might be worth testing is PSU orientation and temperatures, I see you put the fan facing inwards, would be interesting to see if temps on the motherboard and in fact drives were higher or lower if the PSU was facing out through the case vents, and thinking about after seeing Gamers Nexus test a Fractal Design mini ITX case, if there’s any sound difference the orientation.
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  540. Robbie, how about a video where you give us a glimpse of your upcoming videos and open the comments to request videos. I watch a lot of your older videos as I tackle new projects and find that many are out of date due to software updates, many need clarification ( I need the Step By Step Guide For Complete Idiots type instruction), and asking questions generally gets no replies from anyone.
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  541. Nice project but some improvements are possible. For example some cable management should be in order in the space behind your fan. As it is now the cables are obstructing the airflow to the Sata backplate. And the airflow is already disputable as it is with such constructions. And by the way: that “backplate” is also known as an i/o shield.
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  543. Great video, exactly what I was looking for.
    I would like to point out a detail that was left out about the total cost, standard low budget PSUs normally have abysmal power efficiency under light load which means that the PSU could even pull double the required wattage from the wall (so, half goes to waste because of inefficiency), over a span of 5y this could add up to a substantial difference in the final price.
    (this is based on the fact that normally a NAS comes with a 12V power supply which is designed for that type of load while a standard PSU for PCs has 3V, 5V and 12V rails and the unit normally has its peak efficiency around 50-65% load)
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  545. I’ve been thinking about building a NAS myself but conflicted with platform. I want storage but also the ability to run a plex server and a small vm or two for system monitoring and other random things.
    Would a topton N6005 board suffice for this or, do I need to go with a ryzen 5700G?
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  550. Great video, and congrats on the 100K although I’m only just finding the channel now. Currently running 3x Buffalo Linkstation units on RAID 1 each and looking for something to increase my capacity/drive use efficiency and this has been a huge help. Any recommended 6x 3.5″ bay cases out there?
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  552. Great Video. I got motivated to build my own NAS, but when I checked out current prices on the recommended parts, I ended up with a $500 shopping cart on Amazon. Bummer. I guess word got out. That’s generally what happens. Still looking to keep the cost to about $250 – $300 . . .
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  553. Does any air actually flow out between the drives? I mean, that’s the point of that case fan right?

    Why would you run the OS from the USB stick? Wouldn’t it be considered better practice to use the nvme or the last sata for a small ssd?
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  558. I may have missed it, but was there a power consumption figure mentioned for this? PSU efficiency is quite important when you’re leaving something running 24/7! I was tempted to build one with a pico itx psu but daisy chaining power connectors is very frowned upon to get the necessary molex/sata connections!
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  562. Nice video, thankyou congratulations to 100k subs. I am horrified by the psu. This thing looks like fire hazard, I would not connect anything to it. Was probably the cheapest shit money could buy.
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  563. Wouldn’t it be better to put the power supply the other way around, so the fan is drawing the air through it’s dedicated grill on the NAS side? Or there was a particular reason to not do that that I haven’t noticed?
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  569. Fun! Wish I had build it like this myself last year, but that motherboard didn’t exist back then. Man, what a beautiful case. Mine is huge.

    Just as you’ve described, both NAS solutions have their ups and downs. I like both. My Asustor has been nice to me. The ones I built are used to back it up.
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  578. Another great video, and congrats on the 100K subs.
    You’re gonna have to do A LOT more content with this new bad boy. Detailed setup, apps, containers etc. Can’t wait for more!!!
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  591. Thank you so mutch @Robbie and eddy for the great videos and geting to 100K you both deserve this and more @NASCompares ps how about a DIY nas with a APU 8 or more cores and 32 gig of ram or 16 gig 6 m.2 0r 6 sata ssd`s and a nic 2.5 or 5 or 10 gig so on you get what i mean then plex test it with a vm and prox mox thanks as ever Kenny
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  592. The sad thing is that buying a modular PSU and short cables, in order not to have to deal with cable management, would cost more than the entire build.

    I really would ike to see a standard to make PC builds as cable-less as possible. Think about HP and lenovo workstations, or the old Mac pro.

    Congrats on the 100K milestone.
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  593. Great video! I’d love you to do a higher spec version of this video and see what you can put together on a £1000 budget. Even if it’s just a demo of what components you’d put together on that budget without the actual build! Would be great!
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  594. It’s not the peace-of-mind that’s worth the difference in price between the home built unit and a, say, Synology unit. It’s the support you get on an off-the-shelf unit and, specifically with Synology, it’s the software suite; DSM and all the wonderful Synology packages.
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  597. So the total cost in cash terms (but not time clearly) would be in the same order as say a TERRAMASTER F4-423 at around £450. So on that basis what does your DIY approach offer over the prebuilt solution? ????????‍♂
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  600. Thanks for the video and congratulations on reaching 100k subs. Definitely a major landmark for any channel.

    I’d be very interested in how this compares to the Storaxa if that ever arrives.
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  601. Congrats!
    You’ve read my thoughts with this DIY NAS. But I had some doubts about noise level of each part (PSU fan, motherboard fan, etc.), then got tired of reading reviews for each potential part of this build… Finaly, I’ve bought terramaster and cleaned up my shopping cart at Ali. )))
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  604. Robbie, thanks a lot for doing this! I have a couple of questions: (#1) About 23:18 you stacked up all the PSU wires (of the DOA PSU) behind the fan intake guard. Are you concerned about the reduced airflow from the cabling obstruction, and if not, why not? (#2) The RMA PSU came without cables, how did you handle that? One last note, your closing comments on being time rich-money poor and the expertise needed to do all of this are GREAT! So many people just forget about all of that and it’s really important to remember. Thanks again for another very informative video.
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  606. Thanks! After being retired for 8 years from IT at a fortune 50 company, I have spent the last 6 weeks watching network and nas videos on YouTube because I got a knee replacement and have lots of time. @Nascompares is one of the better channels and to celebrate thier 100k here’s a tip. If you can afford it, you can too!
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  608. Yeah, Roll-your-own!… Here goes, DSM.7.2 with RedPill on Xeon E3-1226, 16GB Ram, 10 Sata ports (6 active now), two NVME drives) and a Four Port 2.5GB LAN. All for less than that NAS board plus its ram!. Oh, Container Manager in 7.2 is just brilliant!.
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  609. Greetings from Germany. I also discovered your channel a few months ago and subscribed. Congratulations on 100k subscribers. I like to watch your channel and it has also helped me in the decision which NAS I buy and then landed on the Synology DS 920+. Self-build is no longer an option for me. I used to assemble my PC myself, but that’s long gone. The professionals can still better assemble a system than me and it’s enough for me if I then only perform the one or other upgrade.
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  610. Congratulation for you 100k subscribers, well done.
    Just a stupid question. Why did you install the PSU with the fan pointing into the housing instead towards the housing? At least I would have installed it the other way around so that it could freely suck or blow air directly outside…
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  616. I subscribed when there were only a couple thousand subs. I thought to myself that this channel would never break 10K because NAS is such a small market. But here you are, 100K. Congrats!
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  619. Congratulations mate. I’m a recent subscriber, and I don’t watch every video (I mainly skip the ones on low-end NAS’s like the Synology 225X or whatever, as I know I’ll never get those), but you’ve provided great information and even when I feel I have a pretty different lean on a lot of things, I enjoy it nonetheless.

    And here I was expecting the 100K special would be Robbie embarking on The Great Seagull Massacre of 2023. Maybe an idea for 200K!
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  626. Congrats! Pretty soon you can slap a shiny plaque behind you, or maybe make a NAS case out of it!. A channel I run needs just 8k to hit 100k. Man is it slow going once you start watching the subscriber count 😀
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  627. This was fun…nice to see you build that in an hour ????

    Would have been nice to use a faster motherboard with more memory that can handle more complex VM duties… This seems like something you’d find in prebuilts
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  628. Congrats on 100K subscribers.
    Yeah, I can easily see 10+ hours of build time which at any reasonable hourly rate would easily add $200 to $400 dollars unless one was doing it as a learning experience and was extremely cash poor and time abundant (a student or someone laid off in a severe recession). Reminds me of the old Heath Kits for radios and other electronic devices. Even if one would do it once, would one do it twice, let alone half a dozen times? I am still puzzled by the price disparity between a laptop and a NAS. If I go to my local Target department store I can see laptops from an i7 all the way down to a Celeron. A NAS doesn’t have a large screen or a keyboard why does it cost more to manufacture than a laptop? Or the disparity between a NAS and an Apple Mac Mini. A NAS is brain dead, but has lots of storage, while an Apple Mac Mini has lots of processing power, but little storage and needs a “Time Machine” (which Apple no longer manufactures) for backup. Perhaps there is a synergistic setup between an Apple Mac Mini and a NAS. But, unless there is a new Apple product announcement Docker X86 is crippled on Apple Mac Mini with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, etc) and one is dependent on a limited and aging supply of Apple Mac Minis (which are soon going to lack security upgrades).
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  631. I get the budget objectives of this build but personally I’d want a more standardised components setup. Brand name PSU for sure (e.g. seasonic sgx-500 fully modular), a major brand ITX or matx mboard running a recent gen intel (for transcoding ability so no need for gpu) and a matching case to suit either a storage or performance server bias or both. Unraid has the flexibility for sure I have mine on a 12 year old system running backup for other devices as its main function. I was going to throw it out for ewaste otherwise but it got me thinking with the case it was in being about to hold 10 hdds. That’s often the first time you come across unraid when you wonder what do with old hardware after an upgrade.
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  635. congrats on the subs! great video. How high are the heatsinks on the mobo? I have an ye olde HP microserver with nice pro-level drive caddies that I’ve been wondering about updgrading for a while. In the microserver the proprietary size HP Mobo has 30mm high heatsinks, and is squeezed in under the drive bays at the bottom. Do any of the BKHD mobo heatsinks/connectors stick up higher than that? Might work if I can urge the microserver case to develop a new hole for the backplane.
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  656. where is the stackable expandable home lab cluster solution with high speed interconnect bus – oculink, u2 pci, like mixblade, as an alternative to turing pi but x86 based: router – nas/p2p – audio/video – retro/cloudgaming – homeautomation – with a kybernetes type system you could swap the images you currently want to use, and keep a base cluster at 2 units, expanding as needed. only the base (router) unit needs multiple 2.5gbit and various io ports, all the upgrade compute units can be bare bone and smaller.should be standard now, as well as usb-c 3.2 2×2 20gb/s. which brings us to the second unit needed: a 4-5 bay SAS/SATA storage subsystem, 20gb/s and some slots for m2 sds for caching, not as a separate nas, but as a storage focused usb hub – again, due to the overhead of usb-c, the alternative bus would be pciie based, similar to oculink.
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  658. Because I’m an idiot and like to waste my money I’ve been buying all kinds of devices to start building a DIY or even unraid as an alternative to my Synology Diskstations which I think I’ve out-grown and I have just stumbled across Zimaboard and……using a PCI nvme adapter like you have show in your video to create some kind of frankenstine NAS that will offer out better performance for plex, which I let my family access remotely! I’ve ordered the 832 to expirement with! Great video 🙂
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  664. Looks to me like you have a cyborg pc there that requires a very specific use case. I bought a NUC with an Intel N5095, 16GB RAM, 500GB M2 with Windows Pro 11 for under $200. It is an insane value.
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  676. Casaos is just the web interface for dock containers similar to portainer, running on Debian Linux (the real operating system). You can run casaos on top of any Debian or Ubuntu system.
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  678. Might be a nice way to update ye olde hp n36l microservers if used with a PCIe 2.0 raid/drive controller card that had the right miniSAS connector to plug into the HP SATA(SAS?) backplane, and use the nice HP drive caddies.
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  680. So I’ve been searching for something EXACTLY like that card you have at 17 minutes in that’s four lanes of PCIE to four M.2 slots, one lane per slot. Every time I’ve looked I’ve always come up empty, the closest I’d find are adapters that wire up four lanes per M.2 slot (either x4 to one M.2 or x16 to four M.2) or use a single lane to drive two or four SATA M.2 slots instead of NVME. If you’ve got a link to where someone could buy THAT EXACT card you have there it would be very much appreciated!
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  681. 11:10 “… longer than Gen 4 cards inside there.” Did you mean “x4 cards”?
    11:24 About the bracket of a PCI-e expansion card blocking the DP port. These brackets are usually secured by 2 screws to the board. The screws+bracket are connected to the ground foil on the expansion board and often some of the pins of the expansion card to provide a chassis ground. The expansion card may work without that. But to be sure, just remove the bracket from the expansion card by unscrewing the 2 screws. Then attach a wire (or ground strap) from one of the holes where the 2 screws were, to the chassis of the Zimaboard or its PSU. Although I wouldn’t know where to do this with the Zimaboard because I do not own one. The other option is to get a really short PCI-e extension cable from Amazon or Ali Express, or wherever.
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  684. Looks great but I would have preferred paying a bit more for Intel NICs. On the other hand, I’d have been happy going down to a 4-core Atom, just to gain QAT support. I guess I find myself looking at this as a router, probably pfSense where QAT makes a serious difference in performance.
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