ServeTheHome did a full review of this for those who are interested in a more in depth look. Nice little machine but some issues for server use imo. The PCIe slot bracket area wont work with a lot of cards, management is not a BMC sadly. Also some weird compatibility issues with cards not working. Still a super cool little box though.
That was a really good video. I have an old low pro 1030 that I wanted to put in something and I’m wondering if it would work here. I don’t know if it would work or be worth it to use because I’m sure the new iris graphics are on par or better than it lol. I was going to see if it was a good card to put in a media box, but I don’t know if it’ll ever get used now that igpus are “good enough” and don’t know when I would need more outputs on a sff build either
I was going to say the same thing. If people are interested in this product, I highly recommend the STH coverage. It goes over this product in great and thorough detail.
Now if only there was a video over ethernet standard,(let me know if there is) then it could be a really clean install. I'm tired of scrounging up a monitor mouse and keyboard everytime remote desktop decides to stop working etc.
@@danielrouw2593 That's why Anydesk/Teamviewer/Take-control exists, but if you use them in an enterprise enviroment you need to be willing to pay to play.
@@danielrouw2593There is one, but it's not particularly useful. Basically it just occupies ethernet as wires for a standard HDMI protocol. LTT even has a video on it. So you'd still need to have two jacks on each side and a separate cable for that to work. I guess theoretically VideoOverNetwork should be possible, but it would require all the equipment to understand it, and it would essentially be a typical streaming operation done at BIOS level, so it wiuld use up quite a bit of compute resources. Sending uncompressed video over ethernet would simply be a nightmare.
The M1 chip can run on a phone with 1tb and 12 GB ram with a screen and antenna and a camera but 1 GPU that drops frames over heats still and can burn connectors is 7 times the size ... 😅
I see absolutely no reason why you couldn't just leave the lid off and fit an RTX4060 half height dual slot. Just need to figure out how to feed it the extra 8 pin power it needs.
I'm going to have to mention that Supermini to my boss. We use Intel nuc-sticks to run our data collection stations and they're really starting to get long in the tooth. Not enough RAM and certainly no longer enough storage for Windows to even keep itself updated.
It just occurred to me that as much as the tech content, I also enjoy watching the LMG family grow up over time. Jake used to be an annoying twerp and maybe still is sometimes. But here, his great enthusiasm and knowledge are transparent, and he very effectively shares that with us viewers through the screen. Kinda like watching grandpa Linus slowly go insane, or watching new hire kiddies discover their on-camera personalities, or how uncle Luke seems to be able to smoothly handle every growing challenge that’s thrown at him. Keep up the good work, fam.
Unraid that thing. 3D print your own disk shelf with an external power supply. Use the expansion slot for an LSI HBA for spinning Iron, 3 SSD slots for a Cache pool. 10G Ethernet. What's not to love.
@@bubbledoubletrouble For a business critical application that needs high availability... that's an issue. For cheap mass storage for a home or even non-critical business use? Not an issue.
Minisforum should get a coolest pc company of 2023. The stuff they put together is just the coolest and it keeps getting cooler. Shout out to ETA Prime
Totally overwhelmed by the sheer functionality and specs packed into the minis forum ms01 mini PC! The fine details like SFP ports and a PCIe slot have been well thought out.
@@pickledparsleyparty many SBCs are way more efficient than a pi while being more powerful. The pi 5's soc is a 16nm chip after all and the pi 4 is on 28nm.
I use a Minisforum mini gaming PC as my daily driver. Ryzen 7, 3tb of storage, 32gb RAM and an RX6600M GPU. Absolutely perfect for what I do and takes up very little space. I'm sold on their products!
I love miniforum boxes. I recently converted a N40 to POE and use it as a DHCPserver, Licenses server for my different pro audio and video devices and I monitor an NDI video signal during live shows. For EUR 150,00 that is a bargain and so far it has been rock solid during the events I used it. A lot of the licenses servers I use only run on Intel/AMD platforms, so raspberry doesn't work. If the small S100 is below EUR100,00 it would make it the cheapest NDI to HDMI converter on the market. That's important since those little devices are typically deployed in large numbers.
I would think it would make more sense to throw a half-height quad port NIC into that expansion slot. That thing would make an excellent AIO Proxmux host, firewall, mini-managed switch, and even a low capacity NVME-based NAS. I love what Minisforum is doing in the small form factor space.
It's actually UFS 2.1, which isn't exactly NVMe fast, but considerably better than emmc. As a $100 computer stick, I find the specs to be quite reasonable.
@@kitame6991 For GPIO you should by a ESP RP2040 or arduino. You dont loose 80 bucks if you touch the wrong wire while running and consumes a lot less power
Seems like a cool homelab/NAS, the only thing I wish it has is ECC RAM, then you can put a HBA card in and attach a disk shelf for your storage needs. But for true NAS experience you really do want ECC RAM.
That tiny PC is super exciting for performing/installation art. If all I need is something to play a video when it gets an OSC signal, $99 is a damn bargain.
Raspberry Pi pre-2020 were a decent deal. Since then the prices have gone up so much. I’m a big fan of the Minisforum and Beelink PCs that have been coming out. Super capable little machines at a decent price and easy to get up and going depending on your use. I tend to do a decent amount of digital signage, interactive installations, emulation PCs, and other non triple A gaming applications.
Get them unscalped (which is mostly possible now) and a Pi isn't a bad price, I'd even go so far as to say impressively good for the form factor, support, power draw etc that comes with being a Pi, and while price to performance isn't superb on the older models of Pi those are available and cheap, while importantly for jobs like digital signage very low idle power consumption. Not that I disagree with the others being good options too - more options are always good, and there is a niche for them all - the Pi and its SBC breathren are much better for embedded projects most of the time, while the higher peak performance, ability to run Windoze etc can be good reasons to go the other way.
Both of those mini PCs have peaked my interest. I have a Pi I'd like to replace with more power that runs Octoprint for my 3D printer but I'd like to have a full windows setup that I can remote into to do all slicing and downloading so I don't have to fuss with always needing to be at my PC. I can use a tablet to connect to it.
One good reason for wanting a GPU would be for running (preferably open source) LLMs locally, though the CPU in this is pretty capable of running them at a decent pace anyways.
do it with a ryzen, give it native four monitor outputs so you do not have to sacrifice usb4/tb4 ports and make the U.2 a native slot, heavy duty industry u.2 in 15TB capacity can be had for 1400 eur, and I take two
2:34 well you can use it as a mobile 1080p gaming set up. I saw a video where it's used as a mobile gaming setup and it does fairly well as one. People can already get a 10~14 inch micro hdmi or USB-C portable monitor and all you would need is a Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, and speakers and you would have a decent setup that could run games at 80~100 fps. If you're having issues with heat, just point a fan at it and you can get portable usb fans for like $10.
For that n100, throw your choice of linux with hyprland that autostarts a jellyfin client and it will be awesome. I'm doing that right now with the slightly more expensive versions of the n100 mini computers you can get. works awesome with the firestick remote.
That small mini's forum with all the networking and PCIe to me screams add a SAS card and tape driver or JBOD - all your backup and/or NAS and Home server/router needs in one little box.
I want standardization of fans. My main worry about all these mini PC's is the fan failing down the road. Put a standard 80/92/120mm in it and stop custom designing these cooling fans. Make the unit 5-10mm thicker to fit it. As for the MS-01, I love it but the dual custom fans is what is keeping me from buying it. Even if I could just pre-buy a replacement for say 5-10$ then that might make me consider it.
I have an old laptop with a USB-C 2.5Gb adapter connected to a bunch of hard drives doing my backblaze backup. That S100 would be perfect for that role
that tiny white PC reminded me of the Brightsign media players we use at work. Just looked them up and holy sht these are expensive. depending on the usecase that 100$ mini PC might be so much better. I think the fact that it just runs windows makes it much more flexible.
Stick a half-height external SAS/SATA card in that slot (some sort of 16e solution) and you've got a killer file server using a SAS/SATA JBOD enclosure. You can do a 2x8 or 1x16 enclosure without even using any port expanders, or several times that amount using port expanders. Usually, mini PCs are useless for this purpose because you have just one slot and have to pick between 10 gig and HBA, can't have both. Well, this thing already has the 10 gig networking, so you can use the slot for the storage!
Agreed. It's perfect for a Ceph cluster, which puts the MS-01 at the top of the list of hardware candidates for my 2024 shopping list. All the TinyMiniMicro options force you to choose between high-speed networking or storage controllers unless they happen to have Thunderbolt for 10g networking.
I would be impressed at these small form PC if I have never seen a laptop at least once in my life. They come with a screen, mouse and keyboard for less volume of space and 5-10x the power
I would totally put a GPU in that thing for transcoding and use it as a Plex or Jellyfin server... although if the iGPU can handle that, maybe an M.2 storage expansion card.
I would buy like a dozen of these if they either made a tallboy with 2 hot-swap 3.5" bays, or added 4th m.2 slot so I could do mirrored boot + mirrored storage for a small office server.
9 місяців тому+2
I am new to the home server community but this looks really promising for a diy home server / nas.
The only thing that keeps me interested in that box is the small form factor, because at that price point (depending where in the world you are) you're hitting territory that makes you rethink maybe you should just build tower instead (be it a micro atx or mini itx if you still want to still save some space)
The Mini-PC ideally fills a gap for people trying to have a homemade NAS system who don't need a lot of storage. I would like to see how it performs with a lightweight linux distro running plex and maybe a pi-hole, configured with VPN so it can also download things directly to the storage attached to it externally.
Minisforum has never once responded to emails I sent about about potential shipping concerns to Canada and how much UEFI control there was for the AR900i as it's a mobile chip.
Something isn't right about the S100. It's showing 800Mhz, but two I have bounce around to 3.4Ghz with turbo. None the less, they're great, and a POE powered minipc for a low price is incredible for certain light browsing, media PC and even homelab uses.
There are plenty of mini-PCs now that have an external or accessible PCI port - meaning you can either slap a GPU directly in, or plug it in with a ribbon cable. Either way, you can, you know, run a 4090 as long as you have a power supply for it. eGPU is pretty good, but bandwidth constrained because even Oculink isn't impressive (which is why ROG use it + a USB connector in their design). Still, I'm catching glimpses of a future where eGPU is relatively commonplace, and your cooling solution is a lot smarter (if dual chamber is good, dual box is better).
Minisforum need to make a disruptive wifi 7, 4x 10GbE Router box. The prices Asus and the few other companies who make such routers can charge are outrageous.
It is nice to see more affordable stuff on here but would like to see more on tech tips i do love the wacky ultra expensive products but it is nice to see more affordable things too
That mini pc would be awesome for a thin client I think, just stick it behind a display, poe ethernet so no cable clutter, run a really basic linux distro with RDP capabilities, seems like a really good option to me
I bought a Minisforum HX80 for gaming on my TV. It's so much better than any console, just because you have access to all your Steam games. Be careful though, to get one with dedicated GPU. I like that you can swap it in the MS-01.
Don't be talking down on the N100. I work off an N100 that I have mounted to the underside of my desk. Can do anything my gaming computer can do minus playing games lol. I'm definitely considering buying the n100 unit for my tv.
Ordered mine and paid late Dec, still waiting on an update on when I should expect it. They need to work on their support and if they're going to bill on order it better ship sooner rather than later. Generally they shouldn't bill until it ships... YMMV
Pretty good spec but a bit disappointed with the m.2 nvme slot speeds. I get they had to use the i/o for the pcie slot but wish they had an option maybe to disable it and leave the 3 slots running at pcie4x4 x 3
Failing to mention the complete absence of ECC support on that server is a huge omission. And no, DDR5's on-die ECC doesn't count, as it doesn't protect data in flight (where bit flips are the most likely to happen). Still really cool, but also not really anything that Lenovo and HP don't already mostly do.
From what I have seen, Lenovo and HP do not offer similar specs for the current price. I agree on the ECC omission, especially considering the target audience for the MS-01.
@@abb0tt Specs for price? No, I wouldn't expect so, given that they are established global vendors with service centers around the globe and actual support for their products if you need it. Good luck getting a next business day visit from a Minisforum-approved technician. No shade to Minisforum, they make a lot of cool stuff - and this is also pretty cool, to be clear - but this isn't as new as this video makes it out to be. These USFF workstation/mini servers have been a thing for a few years now, even if none that I know of have the networking chops of this.
Already saw someone tear this thing down. I already commented elsewhere that it is either underpowered for any use case or vastly overpowered for any use case. There's not a single use case where this works.
What I'd prefer: Axing the dual 10gig and letting the user decide on a network solution is fine. Outside of very niche usecases nobody's going to put a 75W GPU in there, since they all lack VRAM, anyway. What I'd much more prefer is getting an actually useful SoC that doesn't waste half the energy you give it on Skylake-like eCores that can't do shit except for padding Cinebench scores. Imagine that thing with an R9-7945HX Dragon Range SoC... 16 cores, 32 threads, AVX512 on all cores, and if it really can cool 115W (doubtful), that config would rip the 13900H a new one...
That tiny N100 PC looks amazeballz. Prolly get one to toss in the travel bag and connect a HDMI to USB-C capture dongle to use my iPad as a screen. Its low power would run fine off a 10k travel battery bank. Have that neat Anker one with the integrated USB-C cable. Why would I do this? Best of both worlds really, as you have all your iOS apps and then any Windows only productivity ones you need when on the go. Shouldn't add much weight to any travel bag seeing as its not much larger than a USB hub really. I want more of these kinds of PC's, but even smaller form factors over time.
That X710 chipset alone probably costs about $100-150 lol. There's more cost in network computing in the MS-01 than actual general purpose compute lol.
I'll definitely be picking up one of their products in the future. Need a small PC to run my Plex server off of, and this is a hell of a deal to able to do that from in such a small package. It's so compact, I wouldn't even need the Plex server honestly lol Just unhook it and take it with me lmao
I don't understand the raspi scalping, there are so many pi clones that just sit at their retail, there's a libre computer in my living room running pihole. The machine with the dual 10g and dual 2.5g though is like the perfect setup for a sick router.
Rpi4/5 with heatsink, POE hat, case would cost a little more than that S100. I can already see people convulsing and foaming at the mouth thinking about buying 10 pieces or more to replace their Rpi kubernetes clusters.
The little guy will definitely be my mini ubuntu server running pihole. 100 bucks for all the bells and whistles I would need to spend that much on my raspberry pi to get the poe situation and all setup.
You might laugh about it, but I honestly do see very real usecases for that S100, especially if it really comes in at the 100$ pricepoint, I would consider this a very decent entry PC for kids, or a great Computer for my parents, that can just connect to either a display, or to the TV... I think a lot of people are overestimating how much power you actually need to run most "modern" tasks which are most commonly used... Write e-mails, browse the web, that thing should be fine for that for a few years to come.
You could use the n100 to turn one of these external 4x hdd cases into a complete nas, or maybe resurrect an old enclosure that runs on 2000s hardware.
So what is the chance of them putting those 10G SPF ports on one of their Oculink ready builds? Wont be the UM890Pro, of course, but they are dropping new models fast!
Yeah I want to see you can use different brand memory and m.2. besides Crucial on the MS-01. No that I have anything against Crucial I just want to if can use memory like G.Skill and Corsair
I wonder is that Ms 01 would be enough to run a active directory instance and DNS well enough to replace my 10 year old servers at work lol they should make a rack mount of them
Minisforum is on a roll. I wouldn't mind that S100 for a traveling compute stick.
ServeTheHome did a full review of this for those who are interested in a more in depth look.
Nice little machine but some issues for server use imo. The PCIe slot bracket area wont work with a lot of cards, management is not a BMC sadly. Also some weird compatibility issues with cards not working.
Still a super cool little box though.
That was a really good video. I have an old low pro 1030 that I wanted to put in something and I’m wondering if it would work here. I don’t know if it would work or be worth it to use because I’m sure the new iris graphics are on par or better than it lol. I was going to see if it was a good card to put in a media box, but I don’t know if it’ll ever get used now that igpus are “good enough” and don’t know when I would need more outputs on a sff build either
I was going to say the same thing.
If people are interested in this product, I highly recommend the STH coverage. It goes over this product in great and thorough detail.
@@coreyhipps7483 yeah this is more of an advertisement/unboxing whereas STH was very informational. I love their content and Patrick is super nice.
the S100 POE mini pc, I can see being excellent as a thinclient. Single cable in, monitor and peripherals
I'd ask for a 16 gig version but clearly that CPU would bottleneck before you had to max out RAM
Now if only there was a video over ethernet standard,(let me know if there is) then it could be a really clean install. I'm tired of scrounging up a monitor mouse and keyboard everytime remote desktop decides to stop working etc.
@@danielrouw2593 That's why Anydesk/Teamviewer/Take-control exists, but if you use them in an enterprise enviroment you need to be willing to pay to play.
@@danielrouw2593There is one, but it's not particularly useful. Basically it just occupies ethernet as wires for a standard HDMI protocol. LTT even has a video on it.
So you'd still need to have two jacks on each side and a separate cable for that to work.
I guess theoretically VideoOverNetwork should be possible, but it would require all the equipment to understand it, and it would essentially be a typical streaming operation done at BIOS level, so it wiuld use up quite a bit of compute resources. Sending uncompressed video over ethernet would simply be a nightmare.
Schools and educational institution gonna buy a lot of this
That gpu looks half height standard length. In gaming we are so far removed from standard sized ATX cards at this point.
HHHL, Half-height, Half-length
Depending on what you're playing and if you're recording gameplay 🤔
No, that's a HHHL card, as someone said above. Standard length is in the ~30cm range, like a (pre-RTX 3000) full size GPU.
The M1 chip can run on a phone with 1tb and 12 GB ram with a screen and antenna and a camera but 1 GPU that drops frames over heats still and can burn connectors is 7 times the size ... 😅
I see absolutely no reason why you couldn't just leave the lid off and fit an RTX4060 half height dual slot. Just need to figure out how to feed it the extra 8 pin power it needs.
Honestly, the s100 would make a super cool Linux box for basic stuff like a home network controller. Id totally mess with one just for fun.
imagine that thing with an arm SOC? i love the potential on this form factor
I'm going to have to mention that Supermini to my boss. We use Intel nuc-sticks to run our data collection stations and they're really starting to get long in the tooth. Not enough RAM and certainly no longer enough storage for Windows to even keep itself updated.
It just occurred to me that as much as the tech content, I also enjoy watching the LMG family grow up over time.
Jake used to be an annoying twerp and maybe still is sometimes. But here, his great enthusiasm and knowledge are transparent, and he very effectively shares that with us viewers through the screen.
Kinda like watching grandpa Linus slowly go insane, or watching new hire kiddies discover their on-camera personalities, or how uncle Luke seems to be able to smoothly handle every growing challenge that’s thrown at him.
Keep up the good work, fam.
Unraid that thing. 3D print your own disk shelf with an external power supply. Use the expansion slot for an LSI HBA for spinning Iron, 3 SSD slots for a Cache pool. 10G Ethernet. What's not to love.
This! Thinking exactly this as a backup Unraid server.
Lack of redundant power supply?
@@bubbledoubletrouble For a business critical application that needs high availability... that's an issue. For cheap mass storage for a home or even non-critical business use? Not an issue.
Have to figure out how to keep an hba from overheating. Afaik there’s no dedicated airflow to that slot.
This, but TrueNas Scale for me
Minisforum should get a coolest pc company of 2023. The stuff they put together is just the coolest and it keeps getting cooler. Shout out to ETA Prime
Totally overwhelmed by the sheer functionality and specs packed into the minis forum ms01 mini PC! The fine details like SFP ports and a PCIe slot have been well thought out.
That s100 could be a pretty good low power, low entry server
Actually, no. At idle, it still chugs watts from the wall. There are better options for low power backoffice servers that sip wall power.
@@privacyvalued4134Oh no, 1 or 2 watts of idle cpu power consumption!
I'm ignorant, for sure. But if low-power entry level is the goal how is anything better than a regular old Pi?
@@pickledparsleyparty many SBCs are way more efficient than a pi while being more powerful. The pi 5's soc is a 16nm chip after all and the pi 4 is on 28nm.
@@pickledparsleyparty Pi is still an ARM cpu, maybe you prefer/want/need a x86 one
Serve the Home has a thorough review which hits a lot of things, like the power draw (CPU is underrun when a pcie card is installed) and more.
I use a Minisforum mini gaming PC as my daily driver. Ryzen 7, 3tb of storage, 32gb RAM and an RX6600M GPU. Absolutely perfect for what I do and takes up very little space. I'm sold on their products!
I just recently bought a little N100 unit as a media PC. A few small issues to troubleshoot but it deals with 4K video & Steam game streaming fine.
I love miniforum boxes. I recently converted a N40 to POE and use it as a DHCPserver, Licenses server for my different pro audio and video devices and I monitor an NDI video signal during live shows. For EUR 150,00 that is a bargain and so far it has been rock solid during the events I used it. A lot of the licenses servers I use only run on Intel/AMD platforms, so raspberry doesn't work.
If the small S100 is below EUR100,00 it would make it the cheapest NDI to HDMI converter on the market. That's important since those little devices are typically deployed in large numbers.
I would think it would make more sense to throw a half-height quad port NIC into that expansion slot.
That thing would make an excellent AIO Proxmux host, firewall, mini-managed switch, and even a low capacity NVME-based NAS.
I love what Minisforum is doing in the small form factor space.
A RPi5 8Gb costs 80 without 2.5gbe or POE or storage. 100 is a steal for double the performance +256gb emmc and x86 compatibility with everything
Dont forget the case.
It's actually UFS 2.1, which isn't exactly NVMe fast, but considerably better than emmc. As a $100 computer stick, I find the specs to be quite reasonable.
just take note S100 doesn't have GPIO from what was shown, so it wont be replacing RPi for that purpose in mind.
@@kitame6991 For GPIO you should by a ESP RP2040 or arduino. You dont loose 80 bucks if you touch the wrong wire while running and consumes a lot less power
Seems like a cool homelab/NAS, the only thing I wish it has is ECC RAM, then you can put a HBA card in and attach a disk shelf for your storage needs. But for true NAS experience you really do want ECC RAM.
That tiny PC is super exciting for performing/installation art. If all I need is something to play a video when it gets an OSC signal, $99 is a damn bargain.
That M.2-U.2 board looks sweet.
Just want to say Jake, that I really like how you covered this segment... Well done. "Let's tear some hardware open"... 👍😎
ServeTheHome also has a review of that MS-01 as well with some thermals and noise
Raspberry Pi pre-2020 were a decent deal. Since then the prices have gone up so much. I’m a big fan of the Minisforum and Beelink PCs that have been coming out. Super capable little machines at a decent price and easy to get up and going depending on your use. I tend to do a decent amount of digital signage, interactive installations, emulation PCs, and other non triple A gaming applications.
Get them unscalped (which is mostly possible now) and a Pi isn't a bad price, I'd even go so far as to say impressively good for the form factor, support, power draw etc that comes with being a Pi, and while price to performance isn't superb on the older models of Pi those are available and cheap, while importantly for jobs like digital signage very low idle power consumption.
Not that I disagree with the others being good options too - more options are always good, and there is a niche for them all - the Pi and its SBC breathren are much better for embedded projects most of the time, while the higher peak performance, ability to run Windoze etc can be good reasons to go the other way.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 The SBC is about the same price as a pi after you're bought everything else required to get it to work.
Both of those mini PCs have peaked my interest. I have a Pi I'd like to replace with more power that runs Octoprint for my 3D printer but I'd like to have a full windows setup that I can remote into to do all slicing and downloading so I don't have to fuss with always needing to be at my PC. I can use a tablet to connect to it.
One good reason for wanting a GPU would be for running (preferably open source) LLMs locally, though the CPU in this is pretty capable of running them at a decent pace anyways.
I wish you also reviewed the minisforum bd770i and minisforum ar900i motherboards
Minisforum even launched a new motherboard and its ryzen 9 7945hx cpu thats lot of power on small machine
Yes now i regret buying bd770i(7745hx) i should have waited for 7945hx
I own 4 different Minisforum for my home lab and kubernetes cluster. Also use them for simple gaming when friends come over.
Highly recommend them.
Many people is waiting for an AMD version of this. There's many discussions on STH forum
Neat, for transcode and stuff I tend to always go intel for home boxes like this. But can understand the AMD wants.
why??
do it with a ryzen, give it native four monitor outputs so you do not have to sacrifice usb4/tb4 ports and make the U.2 a native slot, heavy duty industry u.2 in 15TB capacity can be had for 1400 eur, and I take two
2:34 well you can use it as a mobile 1080p gaming set up. I saw a video where it's used as a mobile gaming setup and it does fairly well as one. People can already get a 10~14 inch micro hdmi or USB-C portable monitor and all you would need is a Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, and speakers and you would have a decent setup that could run games at 80~100 fps. If you're having issues with heat, just point a fan at it and you can get portable usb fans for like $10.
For that n100, throw your choice of linux with hyprland that autostarts a jellyfin client and it will be awesome. I'm doing that right now with the slightly more expensive versions of the n100 mini computers you can get. works awesome with the firestick remote.
If you use the s100-n100 with windows make sure to use tiny windows. Uses less ram and lower cpu usage.
when he says i want one, expecting him to shout Linuuusssss lol
I think STH took a look at the MS-01 and found that the PCIe compatibility was a bit sketch. Buyer beware. But still cool though.
That small mini's forum with all the networking and PCIe to me screams add a SAS card and tape driver or JBOD - all your backup and/or NAS and Home server/router needs in one little box.
Thankyou for covering their booth!
Looks neat, throw a m.2 expansion card in and you can probably get enough storage for a small home server
It already has 3 M.2 slots with one of them easily adaptable for a 2.5'' Drive.
For a Home Server, that should be more than enough.
I want standardization of fans. My main worry about all these mini PC's is the fan failing down the road. Put a standard 80/92/120mm in it and stop custom designing these cooling fans. Make the unit 5-10mm thicker to fit it.
As for the MS-01, I love it but the dual custom fans is what is keeping me from buying it. Even if I could just pre-buy a replacement for say 5-10$ then that might make me consider it.
I have an old laptop with a USB-C 2.5Gb adapter connected to a bunch of hard drives doing my backblaze backup. That S100 would be perfect for that role
that tiny white PC reminded me of the Brightsign media players we use at work. Just looked them up and holy sht these are expensive. depending on the usecase that 100$ mini PC might be so much better. I think the fact that it just runs windows makes it much more flexible.
Stick a half-height external SAS/SATA card in that slot (some sort of 16e solution) and you've got a killer file server using a SAS/SATA JBOD enclosure. You can do a 2x8 or 1x16 enclosure without even using any port expanders, or several times that amount using port expanders. Usually, mini PCs are useless for this purpose because you have just one slot and have to pick between 10 gig and HBA, can't have both. Well, this thing already has the 10 gig networking, so you can use the slot for the storage!
Agreed. It's perfect for a Ceph cluster, which puts the MS-01 at the top of the list of hardware candidates for my 2024 shopping list. All the TinyMiniMicro options force you to choose between high-speed networking or storage controllers unless they happen to have Thunderbolt for 10g networking.
I would be impressed at these small form PC if I have never seen a laptop at least once in my life. They come with a screen, mouse and keyboard for less volume of space and 5-10x the power
What is that RTX2000 Half Height card, where do I find it ?
I would totally put a GPU in that thing for transcoding and use it as a Plex or Jellyfin server... although if the iGPU can handle that, maybe an M.2 storage expansion card.
I would buy like a dozen of these if they either made a tallboy with 2 hot-swap 3.5" bays, or added 4th m.2 slot so I could do mirrored boot + mirrored storage for a small office server.
I am new to the home server community but this looks really promising for a diy home server / nas.
I kind of want to see if an A4000 SFF fits on that (basically this generation's A2000, only with 3070 performance with 70w peak power)
All I can think about is a OPNSense or PFSense box for someone whos in a situation where they cant run a rakcmounted 1ru server.
I like it.
The only thing that keeps me interested in that box is the small form factor, because at that price point (depending where in the world you are) you're hitting territory that makes you rethink maybe you should just build tower instead (be it a micro atx or mini itx if you still want to still save some space)
Agreed. If it was just tall enough for dual-slot cards like that LP 4060 it's be a serious consideration though.
The pci slot looks perfect for an hba. With external scsi ports and scsi hard drive enclosure this would be a really capable nas/home server
The Mini-PC ideally fills a gap for people trying to have a homemade NAS system who don't need a lot of storage. I would like to see how it performs with a lightweight linux distro running plex and maybe a pi-hole, configured with VPN so it can also download things directly to the storage attached to it externally.
Minisforum has never once responded to emails I sent about about potential shipping concerns to Canada and how much UEFI control there was for the AR900i as it's a mobile chip.
Something isn't right about the S100. It's showing 800Mhz, but two I have bounce around to 3.4Ghz with turbo.
None the less, they're great, and a POE powered minipc for a low price is incredible for certain light browsing, media PC and even homelab uses.
Wendel is also a big fan of minisforum - and that says something
There are plenty of mini-PCs now that have an external or accessible PCI port - meaning you can either slap a GPU directly in, or plug it in with a ribbon cable. Either way, you can, you know, run a 4090 as long as you have a power supply for it. eGPU is pretty good, but bandwidth constrained because even Oculink isn't impressive (which is why ROG use it + a USB connector in their design). Still, I'm catching glimpses of a future where eGPU is relatively commonplace, and your cooling solution is a lot smarter (if dual chamber is good, dual box is better).
Could you guys also make a video about the new MS-A1?
I want that little 13900H for running my surveillance cameras in my house very cool.
Minisforum need to make a disruptive wifi 7, 4x 10GbE Router box. The prices Asus and the few other companies who make such routers can charge are outrageous.
Damn, that MS-01 scores about the same as my 5800X machine on Cinebench. That's insane for a laptop CPU.
That tiny white one looked perfectly good for running 3 web pages on an MEX client
It is nice to see more affordable stuff on here but would like to see more on tech tips i do love the wacky ultra expensive products but it is nice to see more affordable things too
S100-N100 could be a great thin client. Would be cool to connect it to a USB-C dock so only one cable for power display and peripherals.
That mini pc would be awesome for a thin client I think, just stick it behind a display, poe ethernet so no cable clutter, run a really basic linux distro with RDP capabilities, seems like a really good option to me
Also works with Intel NUCs. We use them as thin and fat clients at work.
I bought a Minisforum HX80 for gaming on my TV. It's so much better than any console, just because you have access to all your Steam games. Be careful though, to get one with dedicated GPU. I like that you can swap it in the MS-01.
Don't be talking down on the N100. I work off an N100 that I have mounted to the underside of my desk. Can do anything my gaming computer can do minus playing games lol.
I'm definitely considering buying the n100 unit for my tv.
Ordered mine and paid late Dec, still waiting on an update on when I should expect it. They need to work on their support and if they're going to bill on order it better ship sooner rather than later. Generally they shouldn't bill until it ships... YMMV
That little PC would be great for streaming video to a TV from UA-cam , Netflix, or even a local server. So, that's a use case
I went to like it but with no support for ECC RAM it feels like it is trying to be a server but didn't quite check all of the boxes...
with a pcie extender and a 4090 this would make a kickass mullet pc
I wonder if thunderbolt external GPU enclosures work with USB4
Pretty good spec but a bit disappointed with the m.2 nvme slot speeds. I get they had to use the i/o for the pcie slot but wish they had an option maybe to disable it and leave the 3 slots running at pcie4x4 x 3
Failing to mention the complete absence of ECC support on that server is a huge omission. And no, DDR5's on-die ECC doesn't count, as it doesn't protect data in flight (where bit flips are the most likely to happen). Still really cool, but also not really anything that Lenovo and HP don't already mostly do.
From what I have seen, Lenovo and HP do not offer similar specs for the current price. I agree on the ECC omission, especially considering the target audience for the MS-01.
@@abb0tt Specs for price? No, I wouldn't expect so, given that they are established global vendors with service centers around the globe and actual support for their products if you need it. Good luck getting a next business day visit from a Minisforum-approved technician. No shade to Minisforum, they make a lot of cool stuff - and this is also pretty cool, to be clear - but this isn't as new as this video makes it out to be. These USFF workstation/mini servers have been a thing for a few years now, even if none that I know of have the networking chops of this.
Will keep an eye on this. Maybe a sale will drop the price to ~$500-$550.
I'm most interested in that single-slot A2000 cooler. I'd really like to make my A2000 half as thick.
Its apparently a chinese laptop gpu on a pcie card.
Serve the home pointed out that the M.2/U.2 Switch WILL KILL a M.2 drive if flipped incorrectly. Otherwise it is an awesome little server.
Already saw someone tear this thing down. I already commented elsewhere that it is either underpowered for any use case or vastly overpowered for any use case. There's not a single use case where this works.
I would buy about 300 of those mini white ones for my manufacturing auto plants, perfect use case for us!!!
What I'd prefer: Axing the dual 10gig and letting the user decide on a network solution is fine. Outside of very niche usecases nobody's going to put a 75W GPU in there, since they all lack VRAM, anyway.
What I'd much more prefer is getting an actually useful SoC that doesn't waste half the energy you give it on Skylake-like eCores that can't do shit except for padding Cinebench scores. Imagine that thing with an R9-7945HX Dragon Range SoC... 16 cores, 32 threads, AVX512 on all cores, and if it really can cool 115W (doubtful), that config would rip the 13900H a new one...
@9:32 it feels more like a good mini pc to run with Linux than windows. Maybe Fluxbox or XFCE
I've a few devices using the same CPU, they'll run Fedora, Ubuntu or Pop!_OS very well on their own, and do 4k UA-cam / Plex.
That tiny N100 PC looks amazeballz. Prolly get one to toss in the travel bag and connect a HDMI to USB-C capture dongle to use my iPad as a screen. Its low power would run fine off a 10k travel battery bank. Have that neat Anker one with the integrated USB-C cable.
Why would I do this? Best of both worlds really, as you have all your iOS apps and then any Windows only productivity ones you need when on the go. Shouldn't add much weight to any travel bag seeing as its not much larger than a USB hub really. I want more of these kinds of PC's, but even smaller form factors over time.
That X710 chipset alone probably costs about $100-150 lol. There's more cost in network computing in the MS-01 than actual general purpose compute lol.
I'll definitely be picking up one of their products in the future. Need a small PC to run my Plex server off of, and this is a hell of a deal to able to do that from in such a small package. It's so compact, I wouldn't even need the Plex server honestly lol Just unhook it and take it with me lmao
I don't understand the raspi scalping, there are so many pi clones that just sit at their retail, there's a libre computer in my living room running pihole. The machine with the dual 10g and dual 2.5g though is like the perfect setup for a sick router.
I would scale back the CPU to an 8 core and give it a bigger case for better compatibility for the PCI-E Slot . .
Rpi4/5 with heatsink, POE hat, case would cost a little more than that S100.
I can already see people convulsing and foaming at the mouth thinking about buying 10 pieces or more to replace their Rpi kubernetes clusters.
The little guy will definitely be my mini ubuntu server running pihole. 100 bucks for all the bells and whistles I would need to spend that much on my raspberry pi to get the poe situation and all setup.
Oh wait, that is what is cost me to get that set up and the storage/speed was unreliable.
You might laugh about it, but I honestly do see very real usecases for that S100, especially if it really comes in at the 100$ pricepoint, I would consider this a very decent entry PC for kids, or a great Computer for my parents, that can just connect to either a display, or to the TV... I think a lot of people are overestimating how much power you actually need to run most "modern" tasks which are most commonly used... Write e-mails, browse the web, that thing should be fine for that for a few years to come.
You could use the n100 to turn one of these external 4x hdd cases into a complete nas, or maybe resurrect an old enclosure that runs on 2000s hardware.
So what is the chance of them putting those 10G SPF ports on one of their Oculink ready builds? Wont be the UM890Pro, of course, but they are dropping new models fast!
What am I missing? This thing seems like a legit mac mini competitor and it's being treated like it's a router? The black box not the white stick.
That bequiet add showcasing white case. Woooooooooooow.
when windows finally leans into arm, that super mini pc may become a real game changer
There is an amazing mini pc right behind you but they aren't talking about it
U2 and M2 use different voltages so there must be a jumper or switch somewhere or else it works by magic.
Yeah I want to see you can use different brand memory and m.2. besides Crucial on the MS-01. No that I have anything against Crucial I just want to if can use memory like G.Skill and Corsair
I wonder is that Ms 01 would be enough to run a active directory instance and DNS well enough to replace my 10 year old servers at work lol they should make a rack mount of them
This S100 mini PC packs more power than my workstation back in 2006
That’s some great engineering! Perfect for a homelab server of your choosing…
The S100 needs a 2nd nic and then it would be marketable for a mini router/firewall - n100 is more then enough to do that job.
I wished they put the two type C in the front panel along with the normal usb ports.
Fit the GPU for decoding and with a few nvme’s that would make a very cool cctv server.