This NEW Homelab NAS looks interesting // ZimaCube Prototype Review

Today, I'm diving into the world of compact computing with the ZimaCube, a new offering from IceWhale, the creators of ZimaBoard. I'll give you a comprehensive review of the ZimaCube prototype. From first impressions to in-depth specifications, I cover it all. Discover if this device is the right fit for your Homelab needs and learn about its Pros and Cons. #HomeLab #TechReview

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Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction
00:46 Kickstarter Campaign
01:29 First Look and Impression
03:01 Hardware Specs
08:11 Look inside
13:44 Software
16:49 Power Consumption
17:38 Conclusion

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[trapexit]

The storage features are certainly an issue. As the author of mergerfs I've been in talks with them since they used mergerfs for their "merge storage" feature they have in CasaOS but I think they are a bit of overwhelmed with everything and spread a bit thin. Their wrapper around mergerfs for instance is barely usable. The UX and UI however is slowly coming together and they have been receptive to feedback. We'll see.

[accesser]

Some lights out remote management on the pro version would be really nice

[Tri-Technology]

Unfortunately no ECC support. Otherwise the Pro model has really nice specs. Do you know what GPU size fits in this case? They sell ift with the RTX A2000, but is that upgradeable or already the maximum size?

[thespencerowen]

Yay ZimaCube. I’m a backer and excited for this.

[Kurisutm]

- If you're thinking of the N100, I really recommend you stick with a smaller and more of the shelf solution like a basic synology for a better experience. If you fill this thing up with drives you will want to be running ZFS / RAID, and this thing might not be able to keep up.
- Most traditional NAS devices you can buy in a sleek little package tends to be quite expensive. This definitely gives you flexibility and a lot of networking and the i5 version can probably run some homelab stuff on it no problem (such as plex) while also serving as a pretty fast NAS with all the PCIE and M.2 slots.
- As a most likely relatively niche and low volume product, you're note getting as much value for money. If you build something yourself you can blow this thing out of the water, but that's not what this product is about.

[mybellyisapinata]

Appreciate you not just glossing over your critiques of the product, especially considering their involvement. Good on ya!

[iancurtisfan]

Thanks for the video I think I'll stick with synology. But I believe Zima can become a good competitor, which will stimulates the business and moves the future for NAS technology forward.

[ilovestitch]

I'm unsure on the n100 processor version, especially at this price point. The price for the 10-core i5 version seems a little high on the kickstarter as well, especially when considering the price points of the ZimaBoard and ZimaBlade servers, but I'm definitely interested all the same. For now though I think my trusty gen8 proliant server with 12 drive bays will continue to do its job even if it costs much more in power. It's hard to argue with a secondhand server with 10x the processing power and memory capacity, and twice the disk capacity of one of these at a third of the cost...

[joshuamuthiah]

Unrelated but can we get a tutorial on the desktop background you’re using?? I recognize cmatrix but how did you get it to continuously run?

[yannickgranger]

@christianlempa did you try a virtualized truenas ?

[TheTrulyInsane]

I am surprised that they didn't take advantage of the ZimaBoard to the point where they made something like this as a docking station, where you could upgrade the ZimaBoard later on and maintain the 'Cube' format.. if I'm making sense..

[thoriig]

Jonsbo N2 or N3. Put in own hardware spec, install truenas scale and satisfied 😊

[LakedaimonII]

At that price an n300 would have been more in focus. N100 is good for pfsense and similar only.
To me the zimacube classic is non-sense hardware.

[michelkeus]

Have to say that the video does a good thing showing the pro's and con's for the ZimaCube. Unfortunately when looking at it from a distance and taking out the emotion there is nothing left but a simple small board with an Intel laptop CPU on it and some memory in a nice case. When looking at the price and power usage both are very much on the high side. The cheapest version is $499 voor N100 one and this does not include the quad M.2 adapter shown in the video. If I compare this to for example a Topton N100 PC with 16GB DDR4, 4x 2.5Gbit NICs and a 256GB SSD those go for $230 (barebones it is $164). Not entirely the same of course but just an indication that this price for this solution is more than double. From people using those systems I've seen reports of idle power usage in the 10-15W range. So power usage for this system is also fairly high.

[nadtz]

Even at MSRP this isn't bad if you want something 'plug and play' but as someone who had been building my own NAS for a while now I could roll my own and get anywhere from 8 to 16 disks and 4+ NVME. Wouldn't be N100/i5-1235U levels of low power and to match the feature set it would probably cost a bit more but 65W TDP CPU (before disks) is acceptable for me for now. If I were looking at a 4 disk Synology or something along those lines I'd probably think about one of these but I think a N300 option would have been a nice addition to the lineup between the base and the pro.

A busy N100 will get hot so the fan is a good idea but kind of puzzling the N100 only comes with 8gb memory, 16-32 seems a no brainer.

[handrzej]

Did you read a lot of questions about PCIe lanes available for M.2 NVMe and PCIe slots on board ? NVMe performance is unknown. They use PCIe switch chips on motherboard. Both CPU hasn't enough PCIe lanes available for all M.2 and PCIe slots and networking.

[hcjkruse]

Seen this unit "reviewed" and reviewed by several YouTubers now.My takeaway :

The soldered case fans on full speed and artificial single channel make this a no go for me for me. Sticking to my Haswell box longer. Curious about the I5 version.

[dopeytree]

Power consumption was a bit wasted. Can you run some more tests does it support APSM? type in the command and show what it shows. Then also run powertop. I expect some of the extra chips they are using are causing the cpu to not reach higher c states.

[Trains-With-Shane]

Given some of the decisions made with the board layout, connectors, lack thereof, CPU choices, and price point I think I'd rather just have the chassis, backplane with a standard cable, drive sleds. and a pico PSU or whatever equivilent option is available using that 220w brick. And then just spec my own board, cpu, and ram.

[harry]

Servus Christian, muss gestehen das Teil ist schon sehr teuer für das was eingebaut ist und leisten kann :/ Aber danke fürs ausführliche Review