This looks like a development platform, kind of like a Raspberry Pi. The manufacturer just supplies the platform, it's up to makers to come up with cool ways to use it. The stupid scalper pricing on Pi based stuff lately has me looking at those, glad you did this video.
Try not to limit yourself, if there's HW you love and rely on, we want to know about it. If you're offered something really cool and handy, we want to know about it 👍
I have a 216, which I dedicate to running SpinRite. I connect it to a drop-in SATA III dock. For power on/off, I use a smart plug, and just tell Alexa to power it up or down. I have no complaints! I'm currently running SpinRite 6.1 RC-1, doing a Level 5 on a 4TB NAS drive. The ZIMABOARD is warm, but not anywhere near alarmingly so. It's perfect for this application.
I think this is a fair review and I was in the same boat. I had been buying Orange PI's for much less and didn't see the purpose of this. After setting it up I went nuts with it and have things running in my home lab that I was too lazy to setup previously. For the time being I was able to mount my aging NAS shares via cifs and that is working great. I have a raid enclosure I will add to replace the nas, but for now it is fine. I tried Jellyfin, but unfortunately it sucks for live tv, Plex has no issues at all and can stream 3 channels at a time with no quality issues. I would love to see a PRO version of this, I am not sold on the cube....
FYI, I went to the Zima shop and their PCIe to NVMe SSD adaptor is on sale for $9.99. And if you sign up for their news letter you get $10 off. So you can get one for essentially free. Now I tried, but it tells me that they can't ship to my perfectly normal address in central CA. So, I went and added the USB 3.0 to 2.5' SATA III adapter to the cart because I wanted one of those too and it suddenly decided that it could find my address. So I decided why the hell not and picked up both, with shipping all told $21.80. Super good deal!
19:55 what are these cheaper solutions? I know you mentioned old hardware, but honestly from new off shelf stuff there isn't anything like this, especially with this price it's not that expensive.
I just picked up a 216 model (on sale!) to replace my rpbi 3b that just died! Using it to free up specific services+ports for LAN use that I had to allocate on my main homelab server temporarily. :-D Can't wait until I have it on hand! I'm between dietpi to check out their x64 version, ubuntu server minimal, and arch. It's gonna be a super light docker host primarily running pihole
The ZimaBoard definitely needs a newer generation low-power CPU - a Jasper Lake N5105 should increase the performance a lot (almost double) without affecting the price much. Maybe offer a 16GB RAM version with the N5105. Definitely a power and reset switch. Another reviewer wanted direct POE support, but a POE splitter looks good enough to me.
My Zima board mostly gathers dust these days. I ran it for a while to do Tadarr re-encoding with a Syncthing folder. It was fun for a while. Then it wasn't. I'll keep it and it's at the ready for any time a project comes to mind; but mostly it gathers dust.
I think it's neat. Not sure I am in love with the form factor. I like the passive cooling but as soon as you add things to it. Pci. You might as well get something with a case. What this is missing is a rack mount case adapter.
I agree that it would be cool to have options for more permanent deployments, but I feel that it’s meant more for prototyping and such. This is when I really wish I had a 3D printer (and engineering skills haha)
A little stand that holds a NVMe and 2 2.5” drives that you could bolt on and connect to the SATA and PCIe seems like a no brainer accessory to make it a open air NAS. I’m sure someone’s already 3D printed that but would be nice if it was available to buy for us normies.
I have one of the 2GB variants from when it Kickstarted. I've relegated it to a Plex server. It will transcode some video okay, especially if downscaling for remote streaming, but it's not useful beyond that in my case.
after like year and a half with my atom n570 netbook i've found what kind of "swiss knife" this thing is: testing polygon - testing h/w software polygon - testing OS'es *OR* being squashfs livecd but on steroids xD node - k3s
I don't understand the form factor. How am I supposed to use this thing? Am I supposed to mount it on a board? If I use the IO on it I'll have cables coming out of both ends and a pci-e card just kind of hanging off of one side? It's not exactly sleek if it turns into a cable medusa as soon as you use it. The drives have nowhere to mount, so they're just kind of hanging off, or running to another enclosure that's not affixed to it at all? It looks like a mess.
I think you're approaching it exactly how I was originally. I don't think it really makes a ton of sense for permanent deployments. It's more for prototyping ideas and just trying fun things out quickly. For that, it works really really well. And then you can either deploy it later on in a use-case where it doesn't need stuff hanging out of it or just build something cool like what Raid Owl just put together in his most recent video.
12 min in, and i STILL have no idea.. WHAT is a Zimaboard? Is it a mini pc? Is it a small form factor VM host? Is it a diy networking appliance to make into a diy NAS, Router, or Hardware-based Security Appliance? Realistically, it looks like its just a mini pc, with the added benefit of having the external x4 port? I dunno.. still!
My hype for the „Small Size Servers“ is currently getting lower and lower, they cost more and more and their availability lowers also more and more. The Raspberry is the best example for that. Hey, i give that systems that the size and energy consumption would outclass traditional PCs in the server department, but the cost to price ratio is currently the worse. Not to speak about the upgrade options of an ATX System. For comparison: - My latest servers i bought, cost 300 Euro each, with 6 Core AMD CPU, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB M.2 SSD - If i want to compete to this and i buy the most powerful ZimaBoard i currently pay on Amazon 160,48 Euro (reduced price from the regular price of 232,59 Euro), and for that i just get 4 Cores, 8 GB of RAM and 32 GB of Storage Sry, but not sry, are they sane to charge that? And i already know what will be the answers (because i heard them a couple of times): - “Yeah but your Server need more energy” Yeah, but they also deliver much more power in terms of computing - “Yeah but the chips are limited” Sry, but that is complete nonsense, you can get regular CPUs left and right. The prices rise because a couple of traders resell the devices and limited the available pool of items. The would there be a shortage on chips, why do just the small board pcs rise like crazy hm? - “Yeah, but the ZimbaBoard has this and that capability” Which is nice i have to admit, but the ATX Tower design allows me to add and upgrade the components for my needs, for a relative small price, even beyond what is capable with the ZimaBoard - “Yeah, but you can install software xyz on there” And my 3 Servers are all Linux based, i can also install everything on there what i want: A HackIntosh, Linux or even Windows. And i can use all the software i want to use there and ofc in a greater scale. Not to mention that there is plenty of hardware solutions to implement Hey, don’t get me wrong ❤ the small pcs/servers had their time, but the greed of traders and the vendors ruined that market for good. I also have a raspberry pi 3+ here still at home, alongside his bigger brothers. When the raspberry had a reasonable price it was a very great deal to get a small computer which i good for new comers and professionals to make awesome things with it. But now it become a senseless Luxus product, without any reason and, especially without any benefit for the customer.
I think the appeal in this is a little bit less small server and more of a prototyping board. Its really good for just trying things out quickly. And if you have the money and don't need anything super powerful, it does look way cooler than most small server setups.
It's not a review but.. ❤ It's too bad the last model didn't have a good better cpu (like hyperthreading model) or/and more emmc like 64gb (wish they would use socketed emmc/msata so user upgradable or replaceable)
I know some of their team has watched it and I talked to them after a bit. Seems like there is some potential for them to release some cool stuff down the road. We’ll see I guess!
Except 1 bad package and CasaOS sh1t the bed and wiped all data on the server including attached RAID disks. DO NOT USE CASA OS (if you value keeping your data)
Anyone having video out issues on these boards? Im having a hell of a time getting video. Using the same display port adapter\hdmi cable and monitor, I can get the display to come up once in every 20 tries or so. Makes no sense at all. I keep rebooting the machine over and over until finally a display comes up. Does this trying to get into BIOS, boot to CasaOS or Booting to Ubuntu
OH NO! I just checked and I accidentally had the wrong SKU selected when I made the link. It needs to be the 5.5x2.5mm version. Send me an email and I'd be happy to comp you a replacement. That's totally my fault.
@@HardwareHaven No way dude you're good, I already returned it no problem, and gonna order the right one now. I just didn't notice the size on the page myself. Keep up the good work, I enjoy the underground stuff you're doing on the channel.
@HardwareHaven That would be perfect for a small raid 0 nas, I have 5 14TB drives sitting around unused, combined with a 5 port sata card this little thing could bring my dream of a budget nas come true!
Eh, I've got a rpi 4 serving me as an "all-in-one" device with docker + pihole, 2 dns resolvers, router, firewall while (also) playing a 24/7 live stream and I don't think it would be a good idea to squeeze as much info on those little devices. Simply because they are really small and no way performance-efficient, and forcing it too much will lead to some serious stuttering. Just saying that the rpi 4 and the zimaboard are "technically the same" and the only thing that -REALLY differs from one another is the power draw. ...unless you REALLY want to use a x86 specific software for some reason. Even then, theres always pimox.
Technically the same… … except for the PCIe slot, dual NICs and SATA ports. And on the Pi side, GPIO and camera IO. Very different not to even mention x86 vs arm, which can be a big deal depending on what you’re doing. To be clear, I love RPis
And I literally ran into an issue 2 days ago where I couldn’t find software I needed that was ARM compatible for a very specific task, so that can be a very real issue
Ah gotcha. Probably because I’m a bit more scripted for those because I have to fit a lot into a short amount of time. I try to still sound genuine because I am haha. At least I haven’t sold out too much for now 😂
This looks like a development platform, kind of like a Raspberry Pi. The manufacturer just supplies the platform, it's up to makers to come up with cool ways to use it. The stupid scalper pricing on Pi based stuff lately has me looking at those, glad you did this video.
Yes, it’s definitely more for prototyping ideas. Not sure why I didn’t explicitly say that haha. I’m still getting used to writing scripts lol.
Try not to limit yourself, if there's HW you love and rely on, we want to know about it.
If you're offered something really cool and handy, we want to know about it 👍
For sure! Just sometimes it’s not interesting haha
@@HardwareHaven maybe make a video where you accept most offers and give. A mini review for each
Like one video with multiple reviews? Or just do a mini review rather than a full video?
@@HardwareHaven Whichever way helps you best play the algorithm game 👍
You make the videos and we'll watch them 😆
@@edwardfletcher7790 Wish I knew what that was haha!
I have a 216, which I dedicate to running SpinRite. I connect it to a drop-in SATA III dock. For power on/off, I use a smart plug, and just tell Alexa to power it up or down. I have no complaints! I'm currently running SpinRite 6.1 RC-1, doing a Level 5 on a 4TB NAS drive. The ZIMABOARD is warm, but not anywhere near alarmingly so. It's perfect for this application.
What you just did is a really good and comprehensive product review. You did a good job. You should do more.
Great to have such confidence you could fix problems. Hypothesis is always a nice land.
New Hardware Haven video 😎😎😎😎😎
I think this is a fair review and I was in the same boat. I had been buying Orange PI's for much less and didn't see the purpose of this. After setting it up I went nuts with it and have things running in my home lab that I was too lazy to setup previously. For the time being I was able to mount my aging NAS shares via cifs and that is working great. I have a raid enclosure I will add to replace the nas, but for now it is fine. I tried Jellyfin, but unfortunately it sucks for live tv, Plex has no issues at all and can stream 3 channels at a time with no quality issues. I would love to see a PRO version of this, I am not sold on the cube....
FYI, I went to the Zima shop and their PCIe to NVMe SSD adaptor is on sale for $9.99. And if you sign up for their news letter you get $10 off. So you can get one for essentially free. Now I tried, but it tells me that they can't ship to my perfectly normal address in central CA. So, I went and added the USB 3.0 to 2.5' SATA III adapter to the cart because I wanted one of those too and it suddenly decided that it could find my address. So I decided why the hell not and picked up both, with shipping all told $21.80. Super good deal!
19:55 what are these cheaper solutions? I know you mentioned old hardware, but honestly from new off shelf stuff there isn't anything like this, especially with this price it's not that expensive.
What he meant was "jack of all trades, master of none"
I just picked up a 216 model (on sale!) to replace my rpbi 3b that just died! Using it to free up specific services+ports for LAN use that I had to allocate on my main homelab server temporarily. :-D Can't wait until I have it on hand! I'm between dietpi to check out their x64 version, ubuntu server minimal, and arch. It's gonna be a super light docker host primarily running pihole
The ZimaBoard definitely needs a newer generation low-power CPU - a Jasper Lake N5105 should increase the performance a lot (almost double) without affecting the price much. Maybe offer a 16GB RAM version with the N5105. Definitely a power and reset switch. Another reviewer wanted direct POE support, but a POE splitter looks good enough to me.
My Zima board mostly gathers dust these days. I ran it for a while to do Tadarr re-encoding with a Syncthing folder. It was fun for a while. Then it wasn't. I'll keep it and it's at the ready for any time a project comes to mind; but mostly it gathers dust.
Guru meditation ! Nice easter egg ! Many thanks for great content and all best from Croatia.
Još jedan Hrvat koji gleda HH 😊
A PCIE riser cable would solve the varying thickness of PCIE boards.
you give me hope .... thank you
I think it's neat. Not sure I am in love with the form factor. I like the passive cooling but as soon as you add things to it. Pci. You might as well get something with a case. What this is missing is a rack mount case adapter.
I agree that it would be cool to have options for more permanent deployments, but I feel that it’s meant more for prototyping and such. This is when I really wish I had a 3D printer (and engineering skills haha)
Can i ask what speakers those are behind u on you setup? They look pretty nice
Crazy how many times you say It looks really cool.
A 1U rackmount chassis to mount X of these with an update version with POE and/or USB-C power (on the sata ports side) with noctua 40mm fans.
Might not even need the fans with how low power these are. That would be sweet though if I had a rack to put them in haha
@@HardwareHaven they don't need it. RaidOwl just did a with 3 and a small 5 port switch, and it use 10w at idle.
But I like the safety.
@@guy_autordie for sure 👍🏻
I think you should invent a simple NAS setup with that small pc tho, that'd be cool.
I sort of did with open media vault haha. Next video includes some NAS stuff as well 👍🏻
Waiting for the follow up video!!!
And 90k subs👀
A little stand that holds a NVMe and 2 2.5” drives that you could bolt on and connect to the SATA and PCIe seems like a no brainer accessory to make it a open air NAS. I’m sure someone’s already 3D printed that but would be nice if it was available to buy for us normies.
Oh for sure, but I’m so tired of 3D printing being the solution. Just take my money haha
Yep usually the GPUs that draw from the PSU still need to draw the 75W from the PCI-e
Its perfect for PFsense or OPNsense... only 6 watts...
Definitely! This is probably going to be used quite a bit when I either want to try out router software or just need a testlab router
If only it had a current CPU like an N5xxx or N6005 and 16 GB RAM...
You could get an angled riser for the pcie port right? So you can aim cards upwards making them "stand up" like you are used to from a motherboard.
Installed Casaos on a raspberry pi and none of the apps from the app store actually work. Hope the zimaboard is not the same. Waiting on mine.
I have one of the 2GB variants from when it Kickstarted. I've relegated it to a Plex server. It will transcode some video okay, especially if downscaling for remote streaming, but it's not useful beyond that in my case.
Yeah, unfortunately, the 4 GB model seems to be the sweet spot
Yes
you have the best intro.
after like year and a half with my atom n570 netbook i've found what kind of "swiss knife" this thing is:
testing polygon - testing h/w
software polygon - testing OS'es *OR* being squashfs livecd but on steroids xD
node - k3s
How about 3D printing the case add-ons? Like housing for a PCI card, SATA drives.
Given the choice between a Zimaboard, the Zimaboard Blade and the new Raspberry Pi5, which is the superior machine to use as an entry level home lab?
I don't understand the form factor. How am I supposed to use this thing? Am I supposed to mount it on a board? If I use the IO on it I'll have cables coming out of both ends and a pci-e card just kind of hanging off of one side? It's not exactly sleek if it turns into a cable medusa as soon as you use it. The drives have nowhere to mount, so they're just kind of hanging off, or running to another enclosure that's not affixed to it at all? It looks like a mess.
I think you're approaching it exactly how I was originally. I don't think it really makes a ton of sense for permanent deployments. It's more for prototyping ideas and just trying fun things out quickly. For that, it works really really well. And then you can either deploy it later on in a use-case where it doesn't need stuff hanging out of it or just build something cool like what Raid Owl just put together in his most recent video.
Pretty Cool,I love this video!
I love this kind of stuff, but I'm always asking why would I pay for new hardware when more powerful used hardware can be had for the same price.
12 min in, and i STILL have no idea.. WHAT is a Zimaboard? Is it a mini pc? Is it a small form factor VM host? Is it a diy networking appliance to make into a diy NAS, Router, or Hardware-based Security Appliance?
Realistically, it looks like its just a mini pc, with the added benefit of having the external x4 port?
I dunno.. still!
But now I need to know,”did the Tesla GPU work?”
opnsense on this would be something I'd watch.
This would be a great device to try it out on for sure!
Yey! Zima Boards are really cool!
Actually the concept of Zimaboard is quite cool but it didn't make any sense for me at first lol
Same. Haha
just bought two of them
I'd love to see if the rx 6400 or the rtx 4000 ada sff would be compatible
Icewhale 😂
Nice video, how much do the models cost btw?
Between like $100-200 depending. It’s shown in the video and there’s a link in the description that you can check out and even get 10% off
@@HardwareHaven Cool
My hype for the „Small Size Servers“ is currently getting lower and lower, they cost more and more and their availability lowers also more and more. The Raspberry is the best example for that.
Hey, i give that systems that the size and energy consumption would outclass traditional PCs in the server department, but the cost to price ratio is currently the worse. Not to speak about the upgrade options of an ATX System. For comparison:
- My latest servers i bought, cost 300 Euro each, with 6 Core AMD CPU, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB M.2 SSD
- If i want to compete to this and i buy the most powerful ZimaBoard i currently pay on Amazon 160,48 Euro (reduced price from the regular price of 232,59 Euro), and for that i just get 4 Cores, 8 GB of RAM and 32 GB of Storage
Sry, but not sry, are they sane to charge that? And i already know what will be the answers (because i heard them a couple of times):
- “Yeah but your Server need more energy” Yeah, but they also deliver much more power in terms of computing
- “Yeah but the chips are limited” Sry, but that is complete nonsense, you can get regular CPUs left and right. The prices rise because a couple of traders resell the devices and limited the available pool of items. The would there be a shortage on chips, why do just the small board pcs rise like crazy hm?
- “Yeah, but the ZimbaBoard has this and that capability” Which is nice i have to admit, but the ATX Tower design allows me to add and upgrade the components for my needs, for a relative small price, even beyond what is capable with the ZimaBoard
- “Yeah, but you can install software xyz on there” And my 3 Servers are all Linux based, i can also install everything on there what i want: A HackIntosh, Linux or even Windows. And i can use all the software i want to use there and ofc in a greater scale.
Not to mention that there is plenty of hardware solutions to implement
Hey, don’t get me wrong ❤ the small pcs/servers had their time, but the greed of traders and the vendors ruined that market for good. I also have a raspberry pi 3+ here still at home, alongside his bigger brothers. When the raspberry had a reasonable price it was a very great deal to get a small computer which i good for new comers and professionals to make awesome things with it. But now it become a senseless Luxus product, without any reason and, especially without any benefit for the customer.
I think the appeal in this is a little bit less small server and more of a prototyping board. Its really good for just trying things out quickly. And if you have the money and don't need anything super powerful, it does look way cooler than most small server setups.
@@HardwareHaven I mean, the small factor design has its advantages. But especially on your channel I saw what even older ATX Systems can provide ❤️☺️
annoying comment, too long, start a blog
Hummm, outchn this isn a swiss army knife, it's a mini leatherman; same the computer
Hi. I'm interested in the usb hard disk case of the video. :) What's its name? Thanks.
proxmox doesnt suppotrt emmc installs
Well that makes sense then, haha
It's not a review but.. ❤ It's too bad the last model didn't have a good better cpu (like hyperthreading model) or/and more emmc like 64gb (wish they would use socketed emmc/msata so user upgradable or replaceable)
Great video
Thanks!
After watching this video strongly feel you should present your views and findings on it to the developers, so it can hopefully be improved upon?👍
I know some of their team has watched it and I talked to them after a bit. Seems like there is some potential for them to release some cool stuff down the road. We’ll see I guess!
Wow you almost reached 100k
I know… it’s crazy! 😬
Too many videos recently about this board, they decided to spend hardly on this
Except 1 bad package and CasaOS sh1t the bed and wiped all data on the server including attached RAID disks. DO NOT USE CASA OS (if you value keeping your data)
Isn't Zima cheap wine coolers?
Yes it was 1990s although they had a redo in 2017 in USA some things are better left to fond memories!
so the hardware and os are both chinese. does that raise any concerns?
Anyone having video out issues on these boards? Im having a hell of a time getting video. Using the same display port adapter\hdmi cable and monitor, I can get the display to come up once in every 20 tries or so. Makes no sense at all. I keep rebooting the machine over and over until finally a display comes up. Does this trying to get into BIOS, boot to CasaOS or Booting to Ubuntu
return it
Where can I find the PoE adapter to power ZimaBoard?
I KNEW I forgot something. Thanks haha
amzn.to/41CZsDm
Got a question for you. I got the 12v PoE adapter and it didn't fit when I got it. Is there another one out there that would work?
OH NO! I just checked and I accidentally had the wrong SKU selected when I made the link. It needs to be the 5.5x2.5mm version. Send me an email and I'd be happy to comp you a replacement. That's totally my fault.
@@HardwareHaven No way dude you're good, I already returned it no problem, and gonna order the right one now. I just didn't notice the size on the page myself. Keep up the good work, I enjoy the underground stuff you're doing on the channel.
Can you add a pcie card that has 4 sata slots and get this board to recognize all them?
Yep!
@HardwareHaven That would be perfect for a small raid 0 nas, I have 5 14TB drives sitting around unused, combined with a 5 port sata card this little thing could bring my dream of a budget nas come true!
@@Rob-dd3mn I can’t really say much, but you might wait a month or two 👀
Eh, I've got a rpi 4 serving me as an "all-in-one" device with docker + pihole, 2 dns resolvers, router, firewall while (also) playing a 24/7 live stream and I don't think it would be a good idea to squeeze as much info on those little devices. Simply because they are really small and no way performance-efficient, and forcing it too much will lead to some serious stuttering.
Just saying that the rpi 4 and the zimaboard are "technically the same" and the only thing that -REALLY differs from one another is the power draw.
...unless you REALLY want to use a x86 specific software for some reason. Even then, theres always pimox.
Technically the same…
… except for the PCIe slot, dual NICs and SATA ports. And on the Pi side, GPIO and camera IO. Very different not to even mention x86 vs arm, which can be a big deal depending on what you’re doing. To be clear, I love RPis
And I literally ran into an issue 2 days ago where I couldn’t find software I needed that was ARM compatible for a very specific task, so that can be a very real issue
you dont sound the same when you do sponsored videos. dont know what it implies, but yeah, very noticable.
Hmmm interesting. Are you talking about videos like this or sponsored spots?
@@HardwareHaven Sponsored spots
Ah gotcha. Probably because I’m a bit more scripted for those because I have to fit a lot into a short amount of time. I try to still sound genuine because I am haha. At least I haven’t sold out too much for now 😂
...oh, forgot to ask: WHY don't you do "reviews"?
Lack of expertise in my opinion as well as a lack of interest in being a reviewer. I’d rather just tinker with it haha
@HardwareHaven Makes sense, just curious
Only 10k subs til 100k
It's wild... 😬
Still doesn't make sense
Great video
Thanks brother!