Beelink EQ12 Pro: Low Power High Core Home Server!

If you are looking for a power efficient server with a low TDP value, high core count, and 2.5 Gbps networking, the Beelink EQ12 Pro may just be the little mini PC for you. With the i226 network adapters it can run either VMware vSphere or Proxmox, XCP-ng, etc. In this video we take a look at the unit, the processing power, RAM capacities, and running virtual machines using VMware vSphere 8!

Introduction to power efficient mini pc for Home Server - 0:00
Introduction to the Beelink EQ12 Pro - 0:30
Intel N305 processor with 8 cores and 8 threads - 00:45
Comparing to the N100 - 0:56
DDR5 memory - 1:13
Talking about the documented 16 GB Max memory - 1:20
Talking about installing 32 GB of memory - 1:30
Talking about the NVMe 2280 slot - 2:33
Intel i226 controller with dual 2.5 Gbps network - 3:30
Physical look at the Beelink EQ12 - 4:00
Looking at the EQ12 Pro in VMware vSphere - 5:15
Talking about TPM errors and warnings with the EQ12 in vSphere - 5:43
Looking at the variety of servers running on the EQ12 Pro - 6:15
Looking at the performance monitor in the vSphere Client - 6:57
Talking about the responsiveness of the unit - 7:15
Talking about the N305 running virtual machines - 7:44
Concluding thoughts on the Beelink EQ12 Pro with the i3 N305 processor - 8:06

Written write up of the Beelink EQ12 Pro:

5 Tips to install ESXi on a Mini PC:

Looking for a Ryzen 7-based mini PC? Check out my write up of the Beelink SER5 here:

[marcusrodriguesadv]

Great, shoutouts from Brazil, i have 3 of these being my proxmox cluster and i`m glad to know they can get 32gb, i definitely will upgrade their memory, thanks for your content.

[accesser]

Great work, I really like last few reviews of mini PC's for home labs I would love to see more brands.

[sehajpreetsingh]

I'm convinced you've voiced the ads I'm seeing lately on the internet, lol.

[rednax]

Great video. Thank you. Any actual TDP/ power draw numbers?

[dukeseb]

I bought a couple of these a while back to make a promox cluster. Nice have the 2 2.5g Ethernet one for storage lan and one for LAN

I put a data boot ssd in with a 2TB nvme for the storage

[steph]

Nice. Did a memtest complete successfully on this unit after adding the 32gb ram stick?
Being out of specs, there always the probability of getting weird errors, memory corruption, etc...

[JasonsLabVideos]

Good video !! Small package BIG power !

[bpire]

Hi, did you manage to install Proxmox (any version) on this mini-Pc?

[deathcometh]

What about the beelink ryzen 7 5700u? Both are about $300. Think the ryzen has the edge.

[christianlohmann]

Still trouble with AX2xx driver under linux, no BT, tried to use for Home Assistant but BT is not loading. Under Windows it’s a cute little box for simple tasks.

[markwood-patrick]

Can this unit be setup without requiring a monitor? I would like to install ProxMox and have been doing most of my container/VM work so far using a 32GB windows 11 laptop with WSL-2 but while KVM works for me and I can run libvirt and boot a variety of VM's I can't get ProxMox to boot as a VM or as a WSL distro so far. I currently don't have a monitor and would prefer not buying one or having it on my desk. Also I'm much primarily a software guy and really don't have any experience adding or replacing components within systems, how hard is this to do? Any information would be much appreciated.

[MarceloAlcantaraX]

Thanks for the video. Do you think 3 of these could be suitable for a Proxmox + Ceph home lab cluster to serve web apps and postgres?

[coedshowers]

I've had 4 of those beelink they all have died in under 2 years of use...

[ronwatkins]

Do you have a video explaining how to get vcenter for home lab? I've tried in the past and it always costs thousands of dollars.

[thenanook]

i bought mine and proxmox runs on 300mb...never try the other hypervidor, anybody knows how to fix teh issue with intel i225-v?

[juanmondragon]

Why did you swap out the ssd? You said for safe keeping but why not just leave it in there?

[fedefede]

why do you never mesure power consumption?

[pabloeleven]

Does it have the free, built in spyware?
Or is it safe..?