The Pinnacle of Mini PC Servers - Minisforum MS-01

We review the most anticipated Core i9 mini PC of the year the Minisforum MS-01 with SFP+ 10GbE networking, a PCIe slot, and 3x M.2 slots. This has almost everything for the Windows, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu, and Linux users. VMware users may take pause. We tested a ton of cards in this system as well to see how it would work in a homelab.

#homelab

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Timestamps
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00:00 Introduction to the Minisforum MS-01
02:11 External Hardware Overview
05:12 Internal Hardware Overview
05:53 Intel Core i9 and DDR5 Area
07:01 The Low Profile PCIe Plot
08:13 3x M.2 Storage Options
10:49 U.2 Storage in a M.2 Slot and the Switch Warning Label
13:24 Performance with Intel Core i9-13900H
16:29 Power Consumption and Noise in Proxmox VE
20:00 Key Lessons Learned as a Windows Mini PC
20:29 Networking PCIe Card Plug Fest Testing for making a Firewall
24:49 Storage PCIe Card Plug Fest Testing for Making a NAS or VM host
26:34 Adding 8x 18TB Hard Drives for 144TB of Storage
26:54 PCIe Card Challenges
28:20 Wrap-up

[marcogenovesi]

That feeling when random small chinese OEMs actually listen to customers while bic corporations still make the same NUC clones 10 years later

[Galileocrafter]

13:00 They could have made that voltage switch safe by design. Meaning, if you want to install the U.2 adapter, place the switch in a way that the adapter can only be installed when it’s switched „out of the way“. Same goes for the M.2 slot. Chance is, that it could be placed that both the U.2 and M.2 could only be installed when the switch is set to the correct voltage (position).

[crimsionCoder]

Enterprise PC makers: “Customers get what they get.” Mini PC makers: “sure we can make that perfect homelab pc for you.”

[mashw]

I don't usually buy anything on impulse, but I immediately pre-ordered one of these as a barebone system when I saw the announcement as I had been looking for something *exactly* like this to both upgrade and downscale my aging 12U homelab. Glad there's no major faults and just a few quirks. Thanks for the thorough review!

[robeckel]

This is awesome! I wish this was available a year ago when I upgraded my NUC server. This product line is now on the top of my list for the next upgrade!

[jolness]

Hell yeah! Love sth content, right in time for lunch.

As always, Patrick’s enthusiasm is infectious

[jolness]

Love the new studio. Not as intimate as the old one due to the format but looks awesome and I look forward to the content you guys will produce there!

[Enigma]

I think this video should be a must for all Minisforum MS-01 team. I think you did more R&D than they did. Great video. You didn't trash the unit but you did give some Real-time Knowledge Base to the people considering using the product. Thanks for the work involved in this review. Very informative.

[danknemez]

Amazing video as always! I was eyeing this little box as an app server, but judging by what is written in the main site review and the lack of mention here, it does not support in-line ECC? Kinda feared that when I saw the 12900H/13900H CPU options. Oh well, with SFP+, U.2, a PCIe slot and all that, it really feels like it should be there.

[JamfSlayer]

Patrick, the newest rev of the MS-01 with the 13900H, the U.2 or M.2 switch is now labeled higher on the board, so when you have that adapter installed, you can now see the mode the switch is set to.

[joesweeney]

I just purchased to minisforum : a venus and a Neptune series unit. Very impressed with the quality, and we will standardized on these as Linux boxed for power users in our business. What I really want is a unit like this to run over the top of my NAS.

[NetITGeeks]

I am deep into home labbing since I was 14 years old. This video with the amount of effort you have put, you earned my Sub as well. Today I just discovered this channel and I am hookced. Thank you!

[UKCG_]

Based on STH's positive review (as well as several other YouTubers), I took the plunge and ordered one of Miniforum's MS-01 barebone systems (i9-12900H) on January 13th. Based on the website's clear labeling, I figured it wouldn't even ship until March 29th. You can imagine my pleasant surprise, however, when it arrived two days ago (January 24th). The last components should arrive tomorrow, so soon I'll be building my own home server!

[ferawyn_]

Thanks for trying the QNAP adapter cards. That's exactly the use case I'm looking at. :-)

[xKruzr]

side note: I'm not surprised the QNAP card didn't work; Minisforum rushes their BIOSes out the door. the option ROM on my Broadcom 10G cards screwed with the ability of my BD710is to POST and I bet the PCIe switch on the QNAP card triggered something in the Minisforum BIOS that caused it to have an aneurysm every time it tried to boot.

[markmonroe]

Excellent presentation. Thank you. I have been on the watch for this one all week now.

[hawkmanhawk]

You had me at dual 10gb spf+.

Three M2 slots and a pcie, just further seals the deal.

[lemagreengreen]

Impressive little box. They should look into GPU modules using mobile GPUs/power supplies in the same case, would be neat to be able to stack them and connect over USB4 with it looking quite neat.

[bastianb]

I would like you to run your power tests in a low power configuration. Most people want a system like this as a home server. In a home server application, the idle power consumption is key and the max performance is almost irrelevant.

[LordSaliss]

I wish you would do actual tests on deep packet inspection throughput. That is a far higher demanding workload for using this as a modern firewall than just routing and stateful inspection. That other mini PC you talked about in this vid for comparison doesnt even come close to 10gb routing through the firewall to WAN when running something like Surricata or ZenArmor. This one *might*, but it would be nice to see some testing and see for sure just what it can do. This one may have more cores, but it is still only 200-400MHz faster (depending on if you have the 3758R or non-R), so single traffic stream performance likely wont be more than around 1gb faster. Coming from not only the bit of extra core speed but also more IPC in this CPU.