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Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

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Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#111

Post by vanishingzero »

alias_neo wrote: post #27
justinclift wrote: post #6

> This variant of the board costs 200 USD ... Doesn't sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay. Things like these: ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/175917817224 ⇦ 2x NVMe slots ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/204477355543 ⇦ 4x 3.5" drives, ECC memory capable Note - I don't know those sellers.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

[dead]

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#112

Post by msk-lywenn »

pmontra wrote: post #91
jefurii wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the specs on the HC4 but that form factor just invites passersby to yank out the drives.

A home server should not be concerned with passersbys.

A home server should really be concerned by cats

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#113

Post by thekombustor »

mike_d wrote: post #106
thekombustor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Zima Blade isn't actually USB-C powered - it's just a USB-C port carrying a raw 12V. No PD negotiation supported. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1bbD1kw334 Honestly, for me, total dealbreaker for a product like this. Not only will it never work with anything other than the original PSU, that PSU will likely fry anything else you plug it into.

Which is perfectly in spec. Feel free to email the USB Implementers Forum and let them know they are clowns and USB-C was a mistake. USB-C simply describes a connector. USB-PD is one of many optional power over USB-C specifications you can use, or choose not to use. Heck, USB-PD v1 supports power delivery over USB-A connectors.

My understanding is that an in-spec USB-C power supply will supply 5V by default - then, upon negotiation with the client, can go up to a higher voltage.

In the case of the Zimaboard, this is basically a 12V barrel jack with a different shape. It just dumps 12V out on the pins with no negotiation or considerations of the client device.

I suspect if the downstream device was already 12V compliant, it might survive, but I wouldn't count on that nor would I be willing to test it.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#114

Post by belthesar »

_cenw wrote: post #39
alias_neo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

More reason to buy the kind of passively cooled mini PC people get as pfSense routers from AliExpress & co. You get Jasper Lake (2021) or even Alder Lake (2023) instead of the much older Apollo Lake from 2016. The only thing you really miss out on is the form factor and the PCIe slot.

These machines are super attractive spec-wise for their cost! However, and maybe it's FUD, I don't really trust the power supplies or the firmwares on these units. I'd much rather pay for a system with a power supply that is UL certified and a system that, at least on the surface, has a much better chain-of-custody for processor firmware. I know I could replace the power supply with something UL certified, but that now means I'm contributing to e-waste needlessly. My eyes are currently peeled for a 12th-13th gen i5/i7 1L system in my price bracket, as between the heterogeneous cores to get solid power efficiency, the ability to drop 2x NVMe SSDs and a lot of RAM, and on some of them, even the ability to get 10 Gbit, I can hit my ideal performance per watt budget and take advantage of my NAS for high performance decentralized storage.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#115

Post by teleforce »

hddherman wrote: post #104
faefox wrote: post #85

> "I suspect that a similarily configured Raspberry Pi 4/5 with all the accessories added on top would result in a price that’s quite similar to the cost of a top-of-the-line Zimaboard." With respect to the author, why would you not take 10 seconds to verify this claim? A cursory Google search shows that an 8 GB Pi 4 with passive case and PSU is ~$100 all-in. If you can wait a couple of weeks the Pi 5 offers a nice p…

Hi, author here. I went ahead and did the math based on offerings in raspberrypi.dk since that's the reseller that the official Raspberry Pi website directs me to as someone living in Estonia. Raspberry Pi 4 8GB: 92.87 EUR "Armor Aluminium heatsink case for Raspberry Pi 4": 19.01 EUR Official Raspberry Pi power supply: 10.80 EUR 32GB microSD card: 12.17 EUR (and on sale) At this point the subtotal is 134.85 EUR (~142…

Thanks OP for the breakdown of potential cost of similar Pi 4 set up.

Interestingly, based on the PiHut prices, the total cost of 8GB RPi 5, power supply, heat sink with fan (active cooler) and case will be around £90. A high quality 128GB microSD card is around £9 and that makes a basic server RPi 5 setup to be just within £100. Add to the fact it has a spare PCIe slot for potential Gen 3.0 of high speed SATA interface and now the RPi 5 is even less power hungry compared to the previous version, the mini home server with RPi is very tempting, indeed.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#116

Post by oneplane »

Zima is average-good at branding and maybe styling and that's about it. The hardware is pretty much random ODM low power designs, but based on ancient 2016 era releases.

Maybe it's just a company in Hong Kong trying to offload old inventory, maybe it's something else (i.e. Intel SIPP), but I wouldn't recommend it either way, unless power is free and you really want to minimally reduce e-waste (which is what this is).

You can get practically any later generation for the same (or lower) price with the same (or better) features but higher performance. Even a 5W design from Qotom from the same era would be a better choice.

An example: an ODM has a X30G-N5100 which is a 4-core 4-threads based Intel SoC from 2021 with (LP)DDR4 support burst to 2.8Ghz and a TDP of 6W. Normally you'd not have them burn full power all the time and you're more likely to use 3 to 4W. It has modern features, modern security and mainstream support for all of it. And if that's too new for you, you can get a J4xxx or N4xxx series box for half the price of that zima, but double the performance.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#117

Post by SantiagoElf »

alias_neo wrote: post #27
justinclift wrote: post #6

> This variant of the board costs 200 USD ... Doesn't sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay. Things like these: ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/175917817224 ⇦ 2x NVMe slots ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/204477355543 ⇦ 4x 3.5" drives, ECC memory capable Note - I don't know those sellers.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

EU/UK slowly going back to the Dark Ages. 'Eletricity is too expensive'.

What is next - I shower once per week to preserve energy :D

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#118

Post by stavros »

justinclift wrote: post #60
alias_neo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I included a 60W cost too. What's the point running hardware 24/7/365 is it's idle?

60W might be right for an ancient desktop, but it isn't correct for at least the above microserver (2nd item). From rough memory, mine were under 40W (38W?) when the drives were spun up and active. And likely isn't correct for the minipc (1st item) either, though I've not got one of those (yet) to measure it.

My Silver Lake NUC runs at around 8 W (IIRC) idle (running a few services, but not actively serving requests). It's 30 W or so at peak load.

Even my i3 NUC isn't that much heavier, consuming 15ish W (IIRC again) idle.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#119

Post by bdcravens »

> There is no native way to mount the two SATA drives to the Zimaboard. The creators of the board do sell a metal bracket, but it doesn’t seem to integrate that well to the board.

Funny enough, I just had the ad for the ZimaCube pop up on Facebook (holds 6 drives, up to 164TB)

https://zimacube.zimaboard.com/

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