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Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

ounapuu.ee

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

#21

Post by justinclift »

hddherman wrote: post #16
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.

Author here. Yes, you can get a better deal if you don't care about the noise, but I value silence higher than having the best performance per dollar.

Yeah, that's fair. The first option there (HP ProDesk 600 G4 Mini) do seem to have a reputation for being noisy, though replacing the fan with something quieter (eg Noctua) seems to be what people do:

https://www.reddit.com/r/minilab/comments/zlowh2/hp_prodesk_...

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

#22

Post by justinclift »

linsomniac wrote: post #19
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.

I have a couple of Dell versions similar to your first link, the Micro form factor. They are nice and compact, but they have heat issues. I have one running BlueIris security camera software and have to run it with the case off and an extra fan to keep it from going into thermal overload. The next step larger systems are probably a better bet.

Thanks, didn't know that. Will need to keep an eye out for problems. :)

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

#23

Post by pmontra »

explorigin wrote: post #9

Nothing against Zimaboard but the best part of the article (for me) is his cable organization shown in his conclusion. So pretty.

We had this other post from the same author on HN time ago https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2023/09/07/ikea-powered-homelab/

It's about the setup of the wall.

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

#24

Post by tarruda »

pmontra wrote: post #20

If you care about Sata3 interfaces, the Odroid HC4 has two of them with vertical disk holders. https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-hc4/odroid-hc4 The one I'm using as home server is consuming 3.48 W now with a Samsung 850 SSD (1 TB.)

Very cool, but I really like wall-mounting these ARM SBC near my router. This one seems unfit for that purpose.

The argon one raspberry pi 4 case is very good for wall mounting, though it connects with the m.2 drive via USB 3, which kinda sucks.

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

#25

Post by methou »

For those who are interested in faster network, can look at R86s variants: https://www.servethehome.com/the-gowin-r86s-revolution-low-p...

The 10Gb NIC is actually an mellanox cx3 series with OCP connector, theretically you can replace it with some more interesting cards like cx5/6, or solarflare's

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

#26

Post by ferbass »

I've been running Zimaboard for the past one year and I have no regrets. I replaced 2 Pi 3 that I was using before go run Pi-Hole, Home Assistant and some other services. Power consumption is quite good as well, no regrets, indeed a good alternative to Pi and any other MiniPC.

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

#27

Post by alias_neo »

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.

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

#28

Post by bluGill »

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.

This is passively cooled. Fans are likely to be the first thing to fail on a setup like this. Plus it is likely you are running 24x7, and so fans means dust gets inside and eventually will kill things.

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

#29

Post by bluGill »

paldepind2 wrote: post #7

One thing I don't really understand about the Zimaboard is why it comes in such a good looking enclosure? If you want to use it with stuff connected to the PCIe/SATA ports you'll always need some extra enclosure/case anyway to keep things clean. At that point why not just ship a board like a Raspberry PI, etc? > btrfs has had some issues in the past, especially with the RAID5/6 setup I'm pretty sure that btrfs still…

Because the enclosure is the heat sink. It has to look more or less like that for functional reasons, and so making it pretty as well is no real extra cost.

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

#30

Post by Semaphor »

bluGill wrote: post #28
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.

This is passively cooled. Fans are likely to be the first thing to fail on a setup like this. Plus it is likely you are running 24x7, and so fans means dust gets inside and eventually will kill things.

I got a refurbished J4105 8GB RAM thin client for 40€, 2 m.2 SSD slots (though one required an adapter, and only that one is NVMe, so lets add another $15 for the adapter), passively cooled.

The case doesn’t look as nice, but still over 100€ difference for a slightly faster, slightly newer CPU. And while not officially, it does support 16 GB RAM if I ever decide to upgrade. It does not have GBe ports, so that is probably the biggest reason to go with this board instead, besides wanting the sleek case.

edit: It’s the Futro S740

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