Some reviews & Idea using Zimaboard from my friends @TechnoTim 20 Home Server Projects You Can Start TODAY - CasaOS + ZimaBoard ua-cam.com/video/La3NJZtI5OE/v-deo.html @HardwareHaven Haven ZimaBoard: The Home Server Swiss Army Knife ua-cam.com/video/V_ZdvrIMKEQ/v-deo.html @CraftComputing Computing Move Over Raspberry Pi ua-cam.com/video/_m27qP_H0z0/v-deo.html @RaidOwl 10 Watt HA Proxmox Cluster ft. ZimaBoard ua-cam.com/video/JfZuZ6zE7AI/v-deo.html @2GuysTek Honey, I Shrunk the Firewall...AGAIN! - pfSense on a ZimaBoard! ua-cam.com/video/5Yjr7bM99Ko/v-deo.html
Power is expensive here. I've found a great use for the ZimaBoard as a hardened backup repository. The Zimaboard fits inside the chassis of the (desktop form factor) HomeLab server it's backing up. All drives are in the chassis’ internal cage, with some connected to the motherboard and some connected to the ZimaBoard. Keeps it nice, tidy, and low-power while providing full logical/administrative separation between live/backup. I'll get around to documenting it at some point!
I have the 832 and love it. Running TrueNAS with 2 HDDs (mirrored) and it barely pulls 15-20 watts. I chose to build a custom case out of leftover wood and standoffs. Came out great! There is even a “cpu fan” connection on the Zimaboard.
I’m buying this for something fun to play around with in my Home lab. But mainly using it as a teaching tool, I have some students who are just learning some fun stuff.
With the popularity of NUCs, the Zimaboard in my opinion will be just the entry point for those who wants to start a homelab. They are strong and reliable, but with NUCs from Intel or Beelink you get more powerful (and still not power hungry) processors which can do more things on virtualization as well as tasks like encoding videos for those who want to. Don't know if I am right, but that is my thought on this one... I love the Zimaboard still!
I really like the idea, but I think this is going to be a "wait and see for gen 2/competitors" for me. It's almost there, I love the idea of having a low profile, low power x86 SBC, but in it's current incarnation, for my uses it's not quite there as someone who's working on trying to trim down my used server hardware (but keeps finding really tempting deals....) having some very small form factor x86 solutions will be great. I could get an adapter but I think built in PoE is the one really missed opportunity that I think would have netted the sale for me. Depending on project needs, I'll probably lean more towards a NUC-like, but there's definitely a nice niche and projects that benefit from this, just take a bit of carving out, and hopefully don't run into the Pi issue, prices have seemed to go up some more since when I first saw the hype train coming so we'll see how that pans out.
I built a Truenas Scale on an Odroid H3, 16 GB ram, 500GB NVME (that's just what I had laying around), 2x 2TB SSD. The SSD's are attached to a plastic 2.5 -> 3.5" tray & I mounted the H3 board on top using long brass standoff's. On top of the whole thing I put a 120mm fan again mounted with long brass standoffs. This is a great learning platform for me (I'm struggling a bit with ZFS permissions), and it is currently serving as a third level backup of my Synology. I could have also used the EMMC as my boot drive and used the NVME slot to drive more SSD's ... although at that point just build yourself a big boy NAS .
CasaOS looks fantastic and easy to use. I am glad you talked about running alternative OS's on this board. Everyone does realize that CasaOS is a Chinese company, headquartered in Shanghai, PRC, right? Do not expect an ounce of privacy with your information and documents. If you read their FAQ about privacy on their website they say that it is open source and that they "try" to keep your information private. I would be really interested if someone could run a test with CasaOS to see if it is calling home to China and what information is being sent back. Thanks!
I have one and I like it. I use it for my RO DNS, NUT upsmon and uptime Kuma. Since it uses only 6W I can shutdown my main servers (where my ADs are) when power goes down.
I have a 216 with the SATA card deployed as a pure NAS and I like it it's pretty neat and also pretty much set it and forget it. Way better than what I was doing before.
I'm buying this for something fun to play around with in my home lab . But mainly using it as a teaching tool , i have some students who are just learning some fun stuff
I have some pis running some stuff on my network. I use some pis for OSMC video content also. They work fine. Pis have become harder to get and more expensive, so where I can I use esp32 for web-enabled sensors and to drive some led projects, as that is more cost effective and a pi would be overkill. I have also taken to a few fanless dual hdmi mini pcs (N5105) for lightweight basic computing. I'm less inclined to build a new desktop due cost, space and power consumption.
Seems like after buying various options and the fact that everything is exposed, you can can get better deals on off lease micro pcs that have much more power albeit use more watts but everything is contained within a nice case. 😊
1:04 I've never actually owned a Dell. I don't see myself ever owning one, either. But I do have a couple of 6th gen PCs lying about and I've been thinking of slapping TrueNAS on the i3 - one.
I have a 16 bay JBOD Supermicro chassis that has a backplane in it. It's connected to my truenas scale server but it might be nice if one could add something like a LSI 9211-8i to the Zima board and secure it in the Jbod chassis and make a 16 bay stand alone pure NAS storage server out of it.
Thank you, Tom. Nice video 👍 You're healing up nicely. Zima bd. is nice. Odroid's H3Plus is nicer in my opinion. Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.
Odroid is definitely more powerful. Things in Zimaboard's favor, PCIe x4 ready to go, and fully integrated case. One could convert the m.2 on the Odroid to a PCIe slot, but it won't be pretty. The Odroid cases are designed for disks and their network card, not a standard PCIe card. Great though if one wants a diy NAS.
Been running the zimaboard 832 as pfsense firewall for a couple of weeks and whenever I transfer a large file between networks the LAN interface stops responding and I have to reboot it. Have had to reboot it 3-5 times for no apparent reason as well because my network connectivity would suddenly stop working while doing everyday normal things such as watching youtube or browsing the web.
i miss working in a b2b environment versus a consumer oriented one for the different way branding and marketing is done. it still irks me when companies make meaningless branding statements in a b2b marketing u can get away with being misleading or dishonest for a while, but you cant get away for a second with spewing meaningless word salad at a customer at least not a customer big enough to have a purchasing dept
I have a 216 with the SATA card connected to 24TB raw and it works great as a pure NAS, even with my suboptimal software configuration. It probably would be fine with even larger JBODs, though significantly larger JBODs might require a higher-spec model.
These look fun. I was also hesitant based on the realtek chips. Do you know if setting up HA with PFSense is possible by using the USB ports or some other very lightweight PCIe adapter? Edit: I should have looked harder, saw their USB 3.0 to ethernet adapter, maybe that could be the heartbeat cable.
I have 3 Udoo x86 Ultra nodes, they are not fast but don't really use any power at all. I'm waiting for something with faster nics to run Ceph on xcp-ng as 1gb is slow.
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 :)
Hi Tom, have you tested the Unifi controller on that board? I'm curious to see what that does in terms of usability and performance. Might try it myself when I find the time. My zimaboard has been lying in stock for months already...
@@keyboard_g probably, yes. I like the NUC better as well for a stand alone home server, or cluster even. But I like this one for firewall. If there was a model without the PCI port, sata, etc just for this, would be much nicer even. The design with the dissipator on top is pretty neat. I like that too.
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS After looking at it in more detail, it still won't be enough for me to replace my setup. I need something with 8 GbE ports + 2 10GbE and just having 1 PciE doesn't allow that to happen. It seems it will not be feasible to not use a switch to break out connections. I've been looking specially more silent and lower power consumption. My current setup pulls around 70W (custom Vyos Router + Netgear S3300-28X Switch + HP Mini PC (docker))
@@ralmslb dunno but 8gbe ports and 2x 10gbe sounds more you need a switch than a router. A router is a device that moves traffic between subnets so ideally it won't need more than 2-3 ports unless you have an ungodly amount of subnets that all need to talk to each other (which kinda defies the point). If you just need to segregate different LANs you should use a managed switch with VLANs. Also 10Gbe on a router? do you actually have 10Gbe of traffic that must be NATted? Because if you don't then it can just move through the switch instead
@@marcogenovesi8570 Im calling router broadly. Im using VyOS as a router and firewall and I do have 10GbE traffic but is storage acess from and to TrueNas. What you are saying is true and is what I have, its a VyOS box with 2 x 10GbE ports and a switch, but to have better power consumption, ideally I would like to join the 2 into a single device.
I get that channels like this are for the enthusiasts, you can tell because most hardware featured is running truenas or some variant. At least he does mention alternatives, briefly. Just keep it basic a reliable, well supported Linux distribution, docker, and some kind of file merger software for storage. If it is just media, not personal files, and you're happy with the risk, there is no need for a high level of duplication and zfs snapshots, etc. Some of these alternatives dont write data in some exotic format, so if you lose one drive, you still can read the remaning drives. Pick the right tool for the job instead of jumping straight to the most advanced tool out there. Sometimes, a 20 dollar tool will do the job as well as a 200 dollar tool. Also, there are a lot of portable devices out there that can be used for multiple backups of that precious data and you can even place them off site. Just my opinion.😊
installing truenas is simpler and more foolproof than installing a linux distro, mergefs and configuring samba and docker manually. Heck even Unraid or OpenMediaVault are simpler to use than doing all manually from CLI
If you calculate how long it will take for this investment to pay off in terms of electricity costs, it turns out that it will never be, because it will fail first or you will have to replace it because it will be completely obsolete.
Watching because I'm interested in the board and respect your opinion, not because of the click bait titles. (sorry, not said harshly, but I know that stats can be focused upon)
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS hahaha ... fair enough.🏆 I mean, I've seen how the the sausage is made in all this stuffm as I am backstage at an online nerd publisher. So I feel for you that things like this even have to co-exist in your brain at any point. 👍Equally, I understand when you have to go full on GURN for the thumbnails like Louis has started to do lately. 😏
Some reviews & Idea using Zimaboard from my friends
@TechnoTim 20 Home Server Projects You Can Start TODAY - CasaOS + ZimaBoard
ua-cam.com/video/La3NJZtI5OE/v-deo.html
@HardwareHaven Haven ZimaBoard: The Home Server Swiss Army Knife
ua-cam.com/video/V_ZdvrIMKEQ/v-deo.html
@CraftComputing Computing Move Over Raspberry Pi
ua-cam.com/video/_m27qP_H0z0/v-deo.html
@RaidOwl 10 Watt HA Proxmox Cluster ft. ZimaBoard
ua-cam.com/video/JfZuZ6zE7AI/v-deo.html
@2GuysTek Honey, I Shrunk the Firewall...AGAIN! - pfSense on a ZimaBoard!
ua-cam.com/video/5Yjr7bM99Ko/v-deo.html
Power is expensive here. I've found a great use for the ZimaBoard as a hardened backup repository. The Zimaboard fits inside the chassis of the (desktop form factor) HomeLab server it's backing up. All drives are in the chassis’ internal cage, with some connected to the motherboard and some connected to the ZimaBoard. Keeps it nice, tidy, and low-power while providing full logical/administrative separation between live/backup. I'll get around to documenting it at some point!
Thanks Tom! Glad it passed the TrueNAS test! 😅
I use my 832 for software defined radio projects. The small size fits perfectly in small water proof boxes, so I can use it outside.
I have had the Zima 832 for about 6 months now. It runs my home firewall with no issues so far, and no problem with the Realtek NICs.
I have the 832 and love it. Running TrueNAS with 2 HDDs (mirrored) and it barely pulls 15-20 watts. I chose to build a custom case out of leftover wood and standoffs. Came out great! There is even a “cpu fan” connection on the Zimaboard.
Use it for a Proxmox cluster. Passive cooled, dual nic and a PCIe slot 👍🏽
That's pretty much what RaidOwl did. Pretty cool setup!
I’m buying this for something fun to play around with in my Home lab. But mainly using it as a teaching tool, I have some students who are just learning some fun stuff.
With the popularity of NUCs, the Zimaboard in my opinion will be just the entry point for those who wants to start a homelab. They are strong and reliable, but with NUCs from Intel or Beelink you get more powerful (and still not power hungry) processors which can do more things on virtualization as well as tasks like encoding videos for those who want to. Don't know if I am right, but that is my thought on this one... I love the Zimaboard still!
Good video tom, i think these are starting to take over the Pi's :)
Being that they are well made, X86 based, and available I think they are going to become much more popular.
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS Fully Agree !!
I was thinking Optiplex for a NAS was a better fit right when you showed it. Funny. Zima is a neat tinker thing for that wattage though.
I really like the idea, but I think this is going to be a "wait and see for gen 2/competitors" for me. It's almost there, I love the idea of having a low profile, low power x86 SBC, but in it's current incarnation, for my uses it's not quite there as someone who's working on trying to trim down my used server hardware (but keeps finding really tempting deals....) having some very small form factor x86 solutions will be great. I could get an adapter but I think built in PoE is the one really missed opportunity that I think would have netted the sale for me. Depending on project needs, I'll probably lean more towards a NUC-like, but there's definitely a nice niche and projects that benefit from this, just take a bit of carving out, and hopefully don't run into the Pi issue, prices have seemed to go up some more since when I first saw the hype train coming so we'll see how that pans out.
I built a Truenas Scale on an Odroid H3, 16 GB ram, 500GB NVME (that's just what I had laying around), 2x 2TB SSD. The SSD's are attached to a plastic 2.5 -> 3.5" tray & I mounted the H3 board on top using long brass standoff's. On top of the whole thing I put a 120mm fan again mounted with long brass standoffs. This is a great learning platform for me (I'm struggling a bit with ZFS permissions), and it is currently serving as a third level backup of my Synology. I could have also used the EMMC as my boot drive and used the NVME slot to drive more SSD's ... although at that point just build yourself a big boy NAS .
CasaOS looks fantastic and easy to use. I am glad you talked about running alternative OS's on this board. Everyone does realize that CasaOS is a Chinese company, headquartered in Shanghai, PRC, right? Do not expect an ounce of privacy with your information and documents. If you read their FAQ about privacy on their website they say that it is open source and that they "try" to keep your information private. I would be really interested if someone could run a test with CasaOS to see if it is calling home to China and what information is being sent back. Thanks!
My Zimaboard is running pfsense and has been running well for a while now.
I have one and I like it. I use it for my RO DNS, NUT upsmon and uptime Kuma. Since it uses only 6W I can shutdown my main servers (where my ADs are) when power goes down.
I have a 216 with the SATA card deployed as a pure NAS and I like it it's pretty neat and also pretty much set it and forget it. Way better than what I was doing before.
I'm buying this for something fun to play around with in my home lab . But mainly using it as a teaching tool , i have some students who are just learning some fun stuff
Is this first generation from them ?
If so id be interested to see that gen2 might bring, such as faster nic
I can see why you are not running an Arm based single board computer. You are already down by one. 💪
I have one and use it for Pfsense. Like you I would like to try it with 2 or 4 drives as a SAN
Outside of the pcie connector, you can get way more power from tiny pc / nuc machines. It only makes sense if you intend to use pcie expansion.
It’s as if you didn’t watch the video.
@@mavfan1I did. He asked for our thoughts below. That’s my thoughts, not worth it to me even if buying new, and not the referenced old Dell.
I believe they sell adapters to convert m.2 to pcie, so technically a lot of the mini pcs on Amazon could be used like this
I have some pis running some stuff on my network. I use some pis for OSMC video content also. They work fine. Pis have become harder to get and more expensive, so where I can I use esp32 for web-enabled sensors and to drive some led projects, as that is more cost effective and a pi would be overkill. I have also taken to a few fanless dual hdmi mini pcs (N5105) for lightweight basic computing. I'm less inclined to build a new desktop due cost, space and power consumption.
Seems like after buying various options and the fact that everything is exposed, you can can get better deals on off lease micro pcs that have much more power albeit use more watts but everything is contained within a nice case. 😊
1:04 I've never actually owned a Dell. I don't see myself ever owning one, either. But I do have a couple of 6th gen PCs lying about and I've been thinking of slapping TrueNAS on the i3 - one.
I have a 16 bay JBOD Supermicro chassis that has a backplane in it. It's connected to my truenas scale server but it might be nice if one could add something like a LSI 9211-8i to the Zima board and secure it in the Jbod chassis and make a 16 bay stand alone pure NAS storage server out of it.
These look interesting. Do these run on Linux o/s? It looks like it has a nice GUI so you don't have to fool around command line unless you want to.
If you are into solar, the old power-hungry servers can be easily offset in electricity costs.
Thank you, Tom. Nice video 👍
You're healing up nicely.
Zima bd. is nice. Odroid's H3Plus is nicer in my opinion.
Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.
Odroid is definitely more powerful. Things in Zimaboard's favor, PCIe x4 ready to go, and fully integrated case. One could convert the m.2 on the Odroid to a PCIe slot, but it won't be pretty. The Odroid cases are designed for disks and their network card, not a standard PCIe card. Great though if one wants a diy NAS.
@@Zeric1 👍
Been running the zimaboard 832 as pfsense firewall for a couple of weeks and whenever I transfer a large file between networks the LAN interface stops responding and I have to reboot it. Have had to reboot it 3-5 times for no apparent reason as well because my network connectivity would suddenly stop working while doing everyday normal things such as watching youtube or browsing the web.
i miss working in a b2b environment versus a consumer oriented one for the different way branding and marketing is done.
it still irks me when companies make meaningless branding statements
in a b2b marketing u can get away with being misleading or dishonest for a while, but you cant get away for a second with spewing meaningless word salad at a customer
at least not a customer big enough to have a purchasing dept
Would love these for pfSense but the Realtek NICs are a non-starter.
I'd love to see this hooked up to a large JBOD and see how it is as a NAS.
I have a 216 with the SATA card connected to 24TB raw and it works great as a pure NAS, even with my suboptimal software configuration. It probably would be fine with even larger JBODs, though significantly larger JBODs might require a higher-spec model.
Witness for a ceph 2xHA cluster on Proxmox?
These look fun. I was also hesitant based on the realtek chips. Do you know if setting up HA with PFSense is possible by using the USB ports or some other very lightweight PCIe adapter? Edit: I should have looked harder, saw their USB 3.0 to ethernet adapter, maybe that could be the heartbeat cable.
I advise not using USB Network adapters with pfsense, they are not very reliable.
Just bought a 4 gig model for $60 new
I have 3 Udoo x86 Ultra nodes, they are not fast but don't really use any power at all. I'm waiting for something with faster nics to run Ceph on xcp-ng as 1gb is slow.
Without even watching the video. We know the answer to the question is "YES", but it all depends what you're using it for.
What do people use a cluster for?
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 :)
I don't think it can transcode 4K
Honestly I am kind of over the sbc thing I like the mini pc better anymore
Hi Tom, have you tested the Unifi controller on that board? I'm curious to see what that does in terms of usability and performance. Might try it myself when I find the time. My zimaboard has been lying in stock for months already...
I did not but it should work fine.
You could buy a used but complete and working notebook for this price.
Is it fast enough to upload 70mb-100mb files?
What happens when the EMC storage have been written to too much? If there is a possibility.
it can boot from Sata or USB too
I’d spend a little bit extra on a lattepanda delta 3 over the zima.
A shame it does not come with Intel NICs.
If you don’t need the pcie connector, you can get the smallest nuc with everything Intel and way more cpu power.
@@keyboard_g probably, yes. I like the NUC better as well for a stand alone home server, or cluster even.
But I like this one for firewall. If there was a model without the PCI port, sata, etc just for this, would be much nicer even. The design with the dissipator on top is pretty neat. I like that too.
Which software/dashboard do you use to the metrics @ "Low Wattage" section ?
Netdata ua-cam.com/video/Hsq6ebnzPtI/v-deo.html
I wanted to connect the Zima to my Netapp DAS but sadly it won’t accept my LSI HBAs. Anyone got a similar thing running?
If a Zimaboard was just used to power a media server, running just one drive, would the 2 core, 2GB model be enough?
Depends on the media
This looks like a great candidate for an Home Router
It is
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS After looking at it in more detail, it still won't be enough for me to replace my setup.
I need something with 8 GbE ports + 2 10GbE and just having 1 PciE doesn't allow that to happen. It seems it will not be feasible to not use a switch to break out connections.
I've been looking specially more silent and lower power consumption. My current setup pulls around 70W (custom Vyos Router + Netgear S3300-28X Switch + HP Mini PC (docker))
@@ralmslb dunno but 8gbe ports and 2x 10gbe sounds more you need a switch than a router.
A router is a device that moves traffic between subnets so ideally it won't need more than 2-3 ports unless you have an ungodly amount of subnets that all need to talk to each other (which kinda defies the point).
If you just need to segregate different LANs you should use a managed switch with VLANs.
Also 10Gbe on a router? do you actually have 10Gbe of traffic that must be NATted?
Because if you don't then it can just move through the switch instead
@@marcogenovesi8570 Im calling router broadly. Im using VyOS as a router and firewall and I do have 10GbE traffic but is storage acess from and to TrueNas. What you are saying is true and is what I have, its a VyOS box with 2 x 10GbE ports and a switch, but to have better power consumption, ideally I would like to join the 2 into a single device.
I already liked ur video from 1 minute in
Would this be a fun board for Truenas Clustering?
Yes, but don't expect performance
Unfortunately I wouldn't do it would rather go with a low power intel xeon OR AMD Pro.
nice
I like content like this. Looks like a really fun little board.
how can i get that shirt!
Will the zimaboard also run xcp-ng?
I did not try it
Hi, what SSD you use on that build?
Looks like a quadruplet of Crucial-brand SSDs of some size; I believe 1TB each but I can't say for certain.
No ECC memory -> Zima is trash.
Get a AMD 7040 based board instead.
Q: have you asked ChatGPT to design a bullet-proof home server?
I have a 4th gen i7 (t seriers) home server.
With 6 HDD drives + 3 SSD it runs on 10w-15w.
I do not see the reason why you should buy this board.
So, its not the greatest or the best. But its a solid sbc.
yup
What happened to you? Working accident? Is your arm ok? Get well!!
Motorcycle accident, I covered the details in VLOG 341
I get that channels like this are for the enthusiasts, you can tell because most hardware featured is running truenas or some variant. At least he does mention alternatives, briefly. Just keep it basic a reliable, well supported Linux distribution, docker, and some kind of file merger software for storage. If it is just media, not personal files, and you're happy with the risk, there is no need for a high level of duplication and zfs snapshots, etc. Some of these alternatives dont write data in some exotic format, so if you lose one drive, you still can read the remaning drives. Pick the right tool for the job instead of jumping straight to the most advanced tool out there. Sometimes, a 20 dollar tool will do the job as well as a 200 dollar tool. Also, there are a lot of portable devices out there that can be used for multiple backups of that precious data and you can even place them off site. Just my opinion.😊
installing truenas is simpler and more foolproof than installing a linux distro, mergefs and configuring samba and docker manually.
Heck even Unraid or OpenMediaVault are simpler to use than doing all manually from CLI
If you calculate how long it will take for this investment to pay off in terms of electricity costs, it turns out that it will never be, because it will fail first or you will have to replace it because it will be completely obsolete.
Watching because I'm interested in the board and respect your opinion, not because of the click bait titles. (sorry, not said harshly, but I know that stats can be focused upon)
I don't think of the title as click bait but "click interesting" because I do answer the question posed in the title. :)
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS hahaha ... fair enough.🏆
I mean, I've seen how the the sausage is made in all this stuffm as I am backstage at an online nerd publisher. So I feel for you that things like this even have to co-exist in your brain at any point. 👍Equally, I understand when you have to go full on GURN for the thumbnails like Louis has started to do lately. 😏
Literally says “worlds first hackable single board server” tf you mean “worlds first hackable computer”
Man, someone needs to make a small SBC with multiple NVME slots + 10Gbit Ethernet already.
Lenovo M920q + PCIe riser
Asustor's NVME nas
Seems like it is not accessible no more... Even if price would be somewhat acceptable... Anyway, waste of time at this time
They do NOT ship!!!!!
this from china? never touch