This Might Be The Perfect Mini PC

► The Minisforum MS-01:

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Music (in order):
"If You Want To" - Me
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🎥 Curious About the equipment I use to make my videos?
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Timestamps:
0:00 This is all I've ever wanted
0:33 Sponsor - Aranet
1:55 The MS-01 Specs
5:00 The U.2 Situation
6:11 Some benchmarks and power draw
8:01 Video editing and gaming
9:22 Power draw with Linux
9:35 Transcoding with Jellyfin
10:00 Proxmox and 10Gb Performance
11:10 vPRO / AMT
12:39 Some complaints and suggestions
15:33 Pricing and Value Proposition

[AG-qrsy]

Just want to say thanks for adding what I assume was voice corrections ("280") rather than popup graphics. For those hard of sight it makes for an easier experience. Thank you good sir. 👍

[TheQuickSilver]

I really appreciate your personal, practical take on this and the in depth look. It may be in a different class than some of the systems that you often review but it can also do a lot more. Thank you!

[mzimmerman]

Taking 2u when in a rack is rough. Adjusting the case to take 1u and possibly some airflow adjustments would be great. Could market it as a bastion/utility server.

[weakbruteforce]

He said "I don't mind burning bridges with companies that send me bad products!" 😂 +1

[hydroponicgard]

My big problem with this kind of design is that it only supports 1 slot half height PCIe cards. If it was 2 slot, I'd be more than willing to pay that price for one. Bonus being I could turn it into a multi-task server, with max TDP of just an enterprise CPU.

[r_firefly]

Important note for anyone who considering putting a U.2 drive in this system:
The height of the U.2 drive must not exceed 7mm, which excludes some of the most popular U.2 drives on the market, such as Kioxia CD6, WD SN640, or Samsung PM1733/1735, which are all 15mm drives.

I saw this machine but still got myself a Think Station P3 tiny. I chose an ES motherboard so that I got 3 M.2 slots. I paired the P3 tint with the i5-12400 and it was 1/3 cheaper than the MS-01 with the 12900H option.
There seemed to be an i5-12450h option with the MS-01, but it is not available and we don't know when they will start selling this option. I don't really like the i9 CPU that MS-01 provides right now because I don't want to stretch the cooling system too far.
I did see the appeal of the dual 10G NIC but for someone who doesn't really need it, it is a piece of hardware that consumes power and does nothing. On the other hand, I can add USB type A, DP, HDMI, or TypeC with video and charging to the Tiny via expansion modules, which makes it very flexible. However, doing this does sacrifice the PCIE cutout.
It is also more difficult to install PCIE cards sideways compared to Tiny's riser approach. At least it doesn't require a special PCIE bracket though.

All in all, I think both MS-01 and P3 Tiny are both nice SFF machines. It really comes down to whether you prefer the dual 10G SFP port and the USB4 port, (Yes, it is USB4 rather than Thunderbolt, although they are functionally the same.) or more flexibility.

I will also provide a quick technical comparison here for anyone interested:


P3 Tiny |VS| MS-01
form factor: Standard size |VS| A bit larger than Standard size. (Matters if you want to put it in a server rack.)
CPU: Any CPU from Intel 12, 13 and 14GEN |VS| 13900H, 12900H, or 12450H. (12450H not available yet.)
iGPU: MS-01 is always better as mobile chips always get better iGPU compared to their desktop counterpart.
NIC: i219-LM 1Gx1 |VS| i226v 2.5G + i226LM 2.5G +x710 10Gx2. (Both machines can support vPRO.)
PCIE: Gen4/5 x8 |VS| Gen4/5 x8. (Gen5 is available on 13th Gen CPUs.)
PCIE specific: Need custom PCIE bracket |VS| Difficult to install and uninstall.
USB Expansion: 4x10G type A + 2x5G type A + 1x10G type C |VS| 3x10G type A + 2x 480 M(2.0) type A + 2x40G USB4. (Tiny can expend 4x 5G type A or 1x10G type C with Video and charging expansion module, by giving up the PCIE cutout.)
Video Expansion: DP1.4 + HDMI 2.0 |VS| HDMI 2.0 + 2xUSB4. (Tiny can expend 2xDP, 2xHDMI, or 2xTypeC DPalt via the expansion module, by giving up the PCIE cutout.)
Storage Expansion: 2xM.2 |VS| 2xM.2 + 1x M.2/U.2. (Tiny get 3xM.2 on the ES motherboard)

[jburnash]

Another excellent video. Interesting product, and seemingly pretty well targeted.
I always enjoy your videos - in a world of shouty tech vids, your quiet and calm approach is a pleasant change. Keep up the good work!

[GEEKOMPC]

Interested in trying GEEKOM mini PCs?😉

Your custom sound tracks are my one of favorite parts of your videos. Hoping we can get a mixtape on Spotify to add to my playlist.

[fishberk]

That was such a fun and interesting watch! I'm currently on the hunt for some ITX build ideas to put together for my mother, and you've got my noggin rollin'. Thanks a bunch!

[accesser]

Really hope they do a few more models similar to this, perhaps with i7 or lower power CPU

[morsikpl]

Finanly got 3 of them today!
I ordered lowest tier with i5-12600H and I tried to fill it with 96GB which as docs says should only works with highest i9-13600H. 96GB Worked flawlessly on that lowest tier! Also, SFP+ ports are based on Intel X710 and has SR-IOV which allows to create up to 64 virtual network interfaces - great for virtualization - I think noone mentioned that ever! Apparently SR-IOV for Xe Graphics should also work but I haven't got it working. It looks like Alma Linux has older kernel which doesn't have drivers latest enough, so I'll be trying later with other distros or maybe just kernel recompiling. With all of that found, the deal is getting better and better each minute...

16-threads of pretty great processing power, 2x SFP+, 2x RJ45 2.5G, 500GB SSD and 96FB RAM for 4000zł (about 1000 USD / 930 EUR) is GREAT DEAL! I found X710 PCIe network cards for 1/4 of that! Unbelievable great deal! I'm supper happy and I got 3 of them :D

This wll be great Kubernetes cluster (or maybe even OpenStack?)!

[scooterjes]

Not practical for actual use but if you want to really stress/test Plex transcoding get a 4k HDR file and transcode it down to 240p or lower it will look like garbage but will stress the heck out of your GPU/APU.

[camerontgore]

I actually bought this air quality sensor a few months ago and immediately integrated it into home assistant. It's great for letting me know when the CO2 levels are getting to high.

[HaydonRyan]

Great point on the height. Would love to see a rackmount version of this

[nadtz]

While this particular device doesn't tick all the boxes for me it's pretty cool that minisforum is listening to all the people who have been asking for a device like this. I agree that making it that size is kind of a miss, but it's honestly not a bad first effort to iterate from for an 02 in the future.

[amessman]

I wouldn't mind 4 of these, in a cluster for ESXi or Proxmox. Dual 10G means having a separate NAS, ah it would be the perfect setup.

[Space_Reptile]

Reminds me of the Thinkstation Tiny's from Lenovo, those also have a PCIe slot in a 1L package

[Bareego]

Yeah still prefer my N100 machine with 16GB ram and 512GB SSD that cost me $143. now that's bang/buck. Personally I don't see the point of high performance small computers, if you want performance you'll get more performance with a regular sized machine for the same money. Small performance systems will always be limited by the cooling solution. It's different at the lower end. The form factor really suits the N100, it's just SO good. I'm happy I bought one. The SFP ports are pretty rad though, quite unexpected in such a machine. with all those cores and using a M.2 to SATA adapter it would make for a sweet file server and/or proxmox box. BUT, if I wanted to build something like this I'd just buy some 2nd hand rack server dirt cheap, as you mentioned it's too big/heavy for VESA mounting. It just looks like a really odd hodge podge mix of features, more like a machine you'd use for industrial use.

[Shinare]

Since the internals slide out easily maybe you could just 3D print a taller shell for a double height card.