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An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

sour.coffee

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Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#71

Post by adrian_b »

inventor7777 wrote: post #32
esseph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get an ARM one though, only X86, which is mostly the point.

True. However, I've always noticed that ARM has less Linux support than x86, and the main benefits ARM is known for are typically performance/watt, running cooler, and less legacy support. Since this server seems to have pretty average performance/watt and cooling, I can't really see much advantage to ARM here, at least for typical server use cases. Unless you're doing ARM development, but I feel like a Pi 4/5 is bet…

The performance is not average when compared with other ARM-based cheap computers, because it is high in comparison with them. It is also not average when compared to cheap Intel/AMD computers, because compared to such computers it is low. It could be called average only when averaging cheap ARM-based computers with cheap x86-64 based computers.

This computer uses 8 Cortex-A720 cores (and 4 little cores with negligible performance), which have a performance similar to the older Intel E-cores, i.e. Gracemont or Crestmont from Alder Lake, Raptor Lake or Meteor Lake. They are much slower than the recent Intel E-cores, i.e. Skymont or Darkmont, from Arrow Lake or Panther Lake.

So the performance of the whole CPU is similar to the 8-core Intel N300 (Alder Lake N) or Intel N350 (Twin Lake), which are found in various mini-PCs that are cheaper than this ARM computer.

Even so, the performance of this ARM CPU is many times greater than that of a Raspberry Pi and greater than of any cheaper ARM CPU. For greater performance, you must buy a more expensive smartphone, or a Qualcomm or Apple laptop or mini-PC, or a very expensive development computer from NVIDIA.

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#72

Post by dd_xplore »

azov wrote: post #22
tiew9Vii wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not great as a headless server. With full disk encryption enabled you need a keyboard and display attached at boot to unlock it. You then need to sign in to your account to start services. You can use an IP based KVM but that’s another thing to manage. If you use Docker, it runs in a vm instead of native. With a Linux based ARM box you can use full disk encryption, use drop bear to ssh in on boot to unlock disks…

They fixed unlock in the last release: "On a Mac with Apple silicon with macOS 26 or later, FileVault can be unlocked over SSH after a restart if Remote Login is turned on and a network connection is available." https://support.apple.com/guide/security/managing-filevault-...

That's a bad implementation and seems like a bad afterthought

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#73

Post by adrian_b »

ninth_ant wrote: post #28
orion7 wrote: post #27

For those who don't need quite that much power I recently added an Orange Pi 5 to my own homelab, the RK3588 SoC packs an impressive punch for what it is

And despite their broadly similar performance, the RK3588s have significantly better power draw. However I’m not sure of any of the rk3588 vendors that support both UEFI and have a full-size PCIe slot like the MS-R1 has.

RK3588 has many times better power consumption, but their performance is not at all similar.

8 Cortex-A720 vs. 4 Cortex-A76 means at least 3 times better performance for optimized programs.

Also for I/O throughput, this computer has far more fast PCIe lanes than RK3588, allowing many fast peripherals.

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#74

Post by sgt »

taskforcegemini wrote: post #64
trvz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ironically, a special part failing and there being no replacement parts is more likely to happen on one of these NUCloids than a Mac mini. So over the span of 20 years they’ll pay a multitude on these crappy computers than what the Mac mini costs once. May as well get a specced out Mac.

Isn't Apple also famous for not offering replacement parts other than replacing the whole thing and charging you accordingly?

In some cases yes, but having used Macs for decades and also working in companies with Macs for all the developers one thing is clear; these things don't easily break. Built extremely well.

(One exception being the GPU issues a few years back though on Intel MBP's)

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#75

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

jeroenhd wrote: post #58
sgt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

559 vs 720? That's literally like a few coffees. I went to Amsterdam (assuming you're dutch) and I paid 5 euro for a coffee. Go for the Mac Mini, the hardware incl thermal is also built exceptionally well. That's why you still have 20 year old Mac Minis still running as home servers etc.

If you're spending 170 euros on coffee then you're either abnormally rich or abnormally bad with money for a Dutchman. Without the ability to upgrade either storage or RAM, a 256GB SSD with 16GB RAM is quite useless for a home server. Minisforum doesn't offer any options with that little RAM and storage it seems (you can pick between barebones and 1TB models). The bare minimum spec for the Mac Mini sits at an interes…

my i5 7500t, 8gb ram 24/7 1l 'server' disagrees.

my atom, 4gb,1tb hdd bare metal ovh server also disagrees.

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#77

Post by TacticalCoder »

merpkz wrote: post #60
inventor7777 wrote: post #21

$599 seems like a lot to me. You can get numerous older, much more powerful Mini PCs (e.g older ThinkCentre Tiny series) or even a base brand new M4 Mac Mini for that kind of money. Admittedly, the 10G interfaces and fast RAM make up for some of it, but at least for a normal homelab setup, I can't think of an application needing RAM faster than even DDR3, especially at this power level.

Not sure about the CPU performance being much more powerful for some shit-stained NUCs found on ebay, but one selling point for these minisforum machines are hassle-free dual 10G interfaces which are required for decent cluster performance - see ceph or proxmox ( with ceph ) or even kubernetes with, you guessed it - rook-ceph. Getting 10Gbit interface to work on ThinkCentre is possible, but not guaranteed to be relia…

> Not sure about the CPU performance being much more powerful for some shit-stained NUCs found on ebay

The 10 GBit/s NUCs you find on eBay are enterprise-grade stuff: 10 Gbit/s hasn't really been a consumer thing. A used Fujitsu, Intel or Mellanox dual 10 Gbit/s bought on eBay isn't a "stained shit" that's "not guaranteed to be reliable". It's enterprise grade hardware.

(that said the machine in TFA looks nice)

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#78

Post by protimewaster »

sgt wrote: post #52
jeroenhd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even a base brand new M4 Mac Mini A base Mac Mini (256GB/16GB) would cost me €720 while a Minisforum MS-R1 (1TB/32GB) would cost me €559 (minus a 25 euro discount for signing up to their newsletter if you accept that practice). Price to performance the Apple solution may be better, but the prices aren't similar at all. Upgrading the Mac to also feature 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM, the price rises by a whopping €…

559 vs 720? That's literally like a few coffees. I went to Amsterdam (assuming you're dutch) and I paid 5 euro for a coffee. Go for the Mac Mini, the hardware incl thermal is also built exceptionally well. That's why you still have 20 year old Mac Minis still running as home servers etc.

> That's why you still have 20 year old Mac Minis still running as home servers etc.

I often see statements like this made as if it's an exceptional characteristic of Macs. I've found that almost all computer hardware I buy has made it 20 years, though. Sure, a hard drive or something dies every once in a while, but most stuff gets retired because I just don't care to use it anymore, not because it doesn't work.

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#79

Post by protimewaster »

Mashimo wrote: post #57
sgt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

559 vs 720? That's literally like a few coffees. I went to Amsterdam (assuming you're dutch) and I paid 5 euro for a coffee. Go for the Mac Mini, the hardware incl thermal is also built exceptionally well. That's why you still have 20 year old Mac Minis still running as home servers etc.

> 559 vs 720? That's literally like a few coffees. I went to Amsterdam (assuming you're dutch) and I paid 5 euro for a coffee. When someone says he drank a few coffees, I would never have guessed it was 32.

I feel like the "that's just a few coffees" metric is getting out of hand. By this metric, my current work laptop, purchased used from a local used reseller, was "a few coffees".

Also, I'm surprised how often on here I see people argue about price differences that are literally as I spend on entire computers.

Re: An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

#80

Post by inventor7777 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #47
inventor7777 wrote: post #21

$599 seems like a lot to me. You can get numerous older, much more powerful Mini PCs (e.g older ThinkCentre Tiny series) or even a base brand new M4 Mac Mini for that kind of money. Admittedly, the 10G interfaces and fast RAM make up for some of it, but at least for a normal homelab setup, I can't think of an application needing RAM faster than even DDR3, especially at this power level.

> even a base brand new M4 Mac Mini A base Mac Mini (256GB/16GB) would cost me €720 while a Minisforum MS-R1 (1TB/32GB) would cost me €559 (minus a 25 euro discount for signing up to their newsletter if you accept that practice). Price to performance the Apple solution may be better, but the prices aren't similar at all. Upgrading the Mac to also feature 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM, the price rises by a whopping €…

Yes, I was basing my estimate more on the US price of $600, which is basically the same, if you buy both at MSRP. (However, that means the Mac does not have 10G)

I did not realize the EU versions were that much more expensive.

I do agree about the RAM/storage prices though. It's only worth it if you want the raw power, where the Mac handily beats this.

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