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(Mods feel free to delete this if not permitted)
Hey all,
So I know the Dell T20 and Microservers get a lot of love in the forums for being good starter servers etc however with the release of the MS-01 earlier in the year and the fact that these are starting to reach people I thought it might be worth while getting a thread started and with that I also wanted to post my experience of buying and setting 2x of these units up to potentially save people some of the troubles that I (and others) have experienced
I've had these ones (12600H barebones kit) for just under a week now and in all honesty I am pretty impressed, there has been a lot of publicity on them for manufacturing defects, quirks with hardware etc after they finally arrived they have been relatively stable.
Delivery Process
In terms of the ordering process I think that is definitely the most frustrating part of the process, I'm not sure if it has been improved in recent weeks however I ordered my units on the 24th January with the advisory of a March delivery date, well March came and went and after chasing Minisforum several times it appeared as though they were going to be delivered in April, well fast forward again and some more chasing and that turned into late April. They were despatched on 18th April and finally arrived on the 29th (6 days stuck in Hong Kong, 2 days travelling the US, 1 day travelling Europe to finally arrive in the UK and at my house after another day). I would definitely bear this in mind if you are ordering them for an urgent project etc as whilst their at ETAs on the website I found these to be less of an exact time scale and more of a guideline.
The staff on the support team at Minisforum were pretty decent when emailing them, they took 1-2 days to respond on average and I had a feeling they may have been trying to calm the waters as it looks like quite a few people were frustrated at the lack of info around delivery dates and the miscommunication with units being despatched later than expected but overall they came across as pleasent enough and could give somewhat useful info on despatch times, especially as it got closer to actually being despatched.
The website delivery monitor was not great though as it didn't seem to register the unit as posted until it had departed Hong Kong, not sure if that is intended but it does mean if you don't contact support you might not know the correct despatch date of the unit until it has been intransit for a few days
Boxing and assembly
Once they arrived, I was very impressed with the packaging, whilst the boxes had no extra packaging around them in the exterior cardboard box inside the actual OEM boxes there was plenty of soft foam to keep them secure in their travels, each unit also came with some extra screws, the U.2 to M.2 adapter and an NVME heatsink.
Getting into the units was okay, the case works on a sled system where you press a clip on the rear and slide the exterior towards the front, whilst no reviewer seems to have highlighted this (That I am aware of) I found mine to be quite stiff to the point where I felt I was exerting an excessive amount of force to slide the case off. It did eventually come out but definitely not as easy as it's made out to be but by no means a deal braker, just watch your fingers as if you slide it back you will cut yourself (As did I)
Inside the unit, it is well constructed, it doesn't feel flimsy, everything seemed to be secured correctly and it was easy enough to install the extra DIMMs (Which involves taking the cooler off by removing three screws and a bit of a wiggle). To install any U.2 or M.2 drives you need to flip the unit over and install them in the relevant bays, again all quite easy albeit watch when tightening the M.2s as I found mine had a tendancy to bow on the second of the two units so the screws needed slacking off.
The unit also has a M.2 A+E WiFi card which oddly enough seems to be installed without a screw event though there is a place for one, it used a weird plastic bracket which held the antenna connectors on but this looks to have prevented Minisforum using screws, again not a big issue as I gave it a good shake etc and it didn't come loose but just odd more than anything else.
For the PCI-e card installation this is a little tricky, there is a little plastic clip at the side of the unit which needs unscrewing, then you pivot the plastic piece towards the motherboard to slowly wiggle it out before wiggling it back up and flicking it out, this will allow you to then slide in your card towards the PCI-e port before putting it back in. A few people out there mentioned this was extremely fiddly and whilst it is definitely unusual and a tad awkard I would put this as way easier than getting the actual case open.
Installation
So, this one is important, when you first boot the unit it will take a long time, almost an abnormally long time as it checks the checks the RAM installed. The unit looks like it is dead when its doing this but just hang on until you see the post screen.
Once the unit is up the UEFI is basic but fairly polished, you can tweak various settings (Of which many I do not know what they do).
For my units I mainly poked around with the following bits:
Now, this is where it gets a bit bizarre, many people out there are using Proxmox and KVM on these. For me I'm more familiar with Windows Server and I wanted them for a cluster setup I had planned with my NAS. So, I looked in the UEFI for Intels RAID provisioning tool and it was nowhere to be seen, no boot keys, no menus, no nothing.
I checked online and couldn't find anything other than a mention for VMD on a different device that advises it has to be provisioned from within the OS.
So I installed Windows (Adding the VMD drivers where needed) and got to the start menu and opened device manager and for love nor money could I get all the drivers installed. From my experience I can advise that:
I didn't fancy that so after scouting online I found that a few people worked out that ASRock offered the APPX package in one of their driver kits, I'm sure it is out there directly but I used that and low and behold it worked by installing with the following commands:
Day to day running
If you have used the T20s, Microservers or even devices like the Lenovo, Dell and HP minis then you are probably used to a fairly low noise affair, the MS-01 is definitely not loud but I would say that it is audibly noticeable in a quiet room and if something triggers the unit to turbo up it can get fairly loud, not rack mount server loud but definitely louder than you would want in a living room or bedroom etc.
Many people commented on temperatures being the achillies heel of the MS-01 however in the later revisions (Of which it appears mine are) the unit seems to cap out at around at around 50c-60c depending on ventilation. If you are stacking these (As I am) I would recommend getting some large rubber feet or a shelf system as the bottom unit runs 10-15c higher as it does appear to rely on the ventilation on the top of the unit so it is something worth consiering if these are going to be in an enclosed area. Likewise people have suggested replacing the pre-installed TIM however I won't be doing that until something requires me to
Running Windows Server it definitely takes longer to boot than the previous HP Mini units I had, I imagine a lot of this is down to the hardware as you get a fair old wack for your cash but it is noticeably slower but a trade off I am happy with, it might be faster on systems suchas Proxmox but if you are running Windows Server be prepared to wait a little bit on boot.
For the NICs I decided against using the 2.5G units in my case and added in a I350 4 port units into mine which will act as management NICs and VM traffic NICs with the 10G SFP ports being used to connect to the NAS. I profess I do not have the facilities to fully test these however completing an entire Veeam backup and restore from SSDs to SSDs and HDDs I found it regularly pushed 5Gbit/s with the botleneck being elsewhere so you will definitely not be dissapointed with these units for raw networking power.
For whatever reason I did find that when setting up failover cluster on these units it took me a good few attempts but I would put that down to some of the policies I have applied to them rather than the units themselves as so far they are going pretty stable (For now) with them running my VMs for the past few days. The only issues have been down to my own stupidity (Misconfiguring the hosts etc).
As of yet I have still to get AMT working on the unit, I can confirm it is indeed alive as if I use localhost:16992 on the unit I am able to access the web GUI on the units themselves however I can't seem to get them to pick up an IP address, I'm 95% sure this is down to the units in Windows Server being silly (Or my ineptitude) but again, one worth noting.
Summary
Overall if you are looking for small PCs to run stuff on I think these are cracking bits of kit, especially for sub £500 brand new (Unloaded) as when you compare them to buying brand new mini PCs from HP and Dell etc you get a lot more for your money.
There are definitely trade offs compared to the HP and Dell Mini PCs however when you consider the 10G NICs, 2.5G NICs and 3x M.2 ports I personally would think the trade offs are well worth it, maybe not for a day to day workstation or HTPC but definitely as a home server if you are looking for something brand new and running the latest kit.
Compared to tower servers they are definitely more faffy and don't have the same refinement in terms of drivers and compatability if you compare them to the T20 and Microserver series considering they aren't officially enterprise kit but if you are willing to sacrifice some time tinkering with them they are pretty decent, I'm definitely considering getting some more in the future to play with.
If anyone else has ordered these units I'm keen to hear what your thoughts are, what you are using them for, if you have any tips/tricks and overall what your experience has been from start to finish and if you would still get the MS-01 or something different
Hey all,
So I know the Dell T20 and Microservers get a lot of love in the forums for being good starter servers etc however with the release of the MS-01 earlier in the year and the fact that these are starting to reach people I thought it might be worth while getting a thread started and with that I also wanted to post my experience of buying and setting 2x of these units up to potentially save people some of the troubles that I (and others) have experienced
I've had these ones (12600H barebones kit) for just under a week now and in all honesty I am pretty impressed, there has been a lot of publicity on them for manufacturing defects, quirks with hardware etc after they finally arrived they have been relatively stable.
Delivery Process
In terms of the ordering process I think that is definitely the most frustrating part of the process, I'm not sure if it has been improved in recent weeks however I ordered my units on the 24th January with the advisory of a March delivery date, well March came and went and after chasing Minisforum several times it appeared as though they were going to be delivered in April, well fast forward again and some more chasing and that turned into late April. They were despatched on 18th April and finally arrived on the 29th (6 days stuck in Hong Kong, 2 days travelling the US, 1 day travelling Europe to finally arrive in the UK and at my house after another day). I would definitely bear this in mind if you are ordering them for an urgent project etc as whilst their at ETAs on the website I found these to be less of an exact time scale and more of a guideline.
The staff on the support team at Minisforum were pretty decent when emailing them, they took 1-2 days to respond on average and I had a feeling they may have been trying to calm the waters as it looks like quite a few people were frustrated at the lack of info around delivery dates and the miscommunication with units being despatched later than expected but overall they came across as pleasent enough and could give somewhat useful info on despatch times, especially as it got closer to actually being despatched.
The website delivery monitor was not great though as it didn't seem to register the unit as posted until it had departed Hong Kong, not sure if that is intended but it does mean if you don't contact support you might not know the correct despatch date of the unit until it has been intransit for a few days
Boxing and assembly
Once they arrived, I was very impressed with the packaging, whilst the boxes had no extra packaging around them in the exterior cardboard box inside the actual OEM boxes there was plenty of soft foam to keep them secure in their travels, each unit also came with some extra screws, the U.2 to M.2 adapter and an NVME heatsink.
Getting into the units was okay, the case works on a sled system where you press a clip on the rear and slide the exterior towards the front, whilst no reviewer seems to have highlighted this (That I am aware of) I found mine to be quite stiff to the point where I felt I was exerting an excessive amount of force to slide the case off. It did eventually come out but definitely not as easy as it's made out to be but by no means a deal braker, just watch your fingers as if you slide it back you will cut yourself (As did I)
Inside the unit, it is well constructed, it doesn't feel flimsy, everything seemed to be secured correctly and it was easy enough to install the extra DIMMs (Which involves taking the cooler off by removing three screws and a bit of a wiggle). To install any U.2 or M.2 drives you need to flip the unit over and install them in the relevant bays, again all quite easy albeit watch when tightening the M.2s as I found mine had a tendancy to bow on the second of the two units so the screws needed slacking off.
The unit also has a M.2 A+E WiFi card which oddly enough seems to be installed without a screw event though there is a place for one, it used a weird plastic bracket which held the antenna connectors on but this looks to have prevented Minisforum using screws, again not a big issue as I gave it a good shake etc and it didn't come loose but just odd more than anything else.
For the PCI-e card installation this is a little tricky, there is a little plastic clip at the side of the unit which needs unscrewing, then you pivot the plastic piece towards the motherboard to slowly wiggle it out before wiggling it back up and flicking it out, this will allow you to then slide in your card towards the PCI-e port before putting it back in. A few people out there mentioned this was extremely fiddly and whilst it is definitely unusual and a tad awkard I would put this as way easier than getting the actual case open.
Installation
So, this one is important, when you first boot the unit it will take a long time, almost an abnormally long time as it checks the checks the RAM installed. The unit looks like it is dead when its doing this but just hang on until you see the post screen.
Once the unit is up the UEFI is basic but fairly polished, you can tweak various settings (Of which many I do not know what they do).
For my units I mainly poked around with the following bits:
- Enforcing TPM2.0
- Enabling Intel VMD (Their FakeRaid/SoftRaid solution which I will explain more about later)
- Provisioning Intel AMT (Intels barebones OOB management solution)
Now, this is where it gets a bit bizarre, many people out there are using Proxmox and KVM on these. For me I'm more familiar with Windows Server and I wanted them for a cluster setup I had planned with my NAS. So, I looked in the UEFI for Intels RAID provisioning tool and it was nowhere to be seen, no boot keys, no menus, no nothing.
I checked online and couldn't find anything other than a mention for VMD on a different device that advises it has to be provisioned from within the OS.
So I installed Windows (Adding the VMD drivers where needed) and got to the start menu and opened device manager and for love nor money could I get all the drivers installed. From my experience I can advise that:
- If you are using Windows Server you will need additional drivers for the Thunderbolt and RAID devices
- The i226-V will need you to meddle with the .ini file or alternatively use the i226-LMvP driver (I have not tested the full stability of this but it does work for basic functionality) as Intel don't appear to like the i226-V working on server systems
I didn't fancy that so after scouting online I found that a few people worked out that ASRock offered the APPX package in one of their driver kits, I'm sure it is out there directly but I used that and low and behold it worked by installing with the following commands:
- Add-AppPackage -Path "Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx"
- Add-AppxPackage -Path "d4970e584148484098ae2508fcf79f10.appxbundle"
Day to day running
If you have used the T20s, Microservers or even devices like the Lenovo, Dell and HP minis then you are probably used to a fairly low noise affair, the MS-01 is definitely not loud but I would say that it is audibly noticeable in a quiet room and if something triggers the unit to turbo up it can get fairly loud, not rack mount server loud but definitely louder than you would want in a living room or bedroom etc.
Many people commented on temperatures being the achillies heel of the MS-01 however in the later revisions (Of which it appears mine are) the unit seems to cap out at around at around 50c-60c depending on ventilation. If you are stacking these (As I am) I would recommend getting some large rubber feet or a shelf system as the bottom unit runs 10-15c higher as it does appear to rely on the ventilation on the top of the unit so it is something worth consiering if these are going to be in an enclosed area. Likewise people have suggested replacing the pre-installed TIM however I won't be doing that until something requires me to
Running Windows Server it definitely takes longer to boot than the previous HP Mini units I had, I imagine a lot of this is down to the hardware as you get a fair old wack for your cash but it is noticeably slower but a trade off I am happy with, it might be faster on systems suchas Proxmox but if you are running Windows Server be prepared to wait a little bit on boot.
For the NICs I decided against using the 2.5G units in my case and added in a I350 4 port units into mine which will act as management NICs and VM traffic NICs with the 10G SFP ports being used to connect to the NAS. I profess I do not have the facilities to fully test these however completing an entire Veeam backup and restore from SSDs to SSDs and HDDs I found it regularly pushed 5Gbit/s with the botleneck being elsewhere so you will definitely not be dissapointed with these units for raw networking power.
For whatever reason I did find that when setting up failover cluster on these units it took me a good few attempts but I would put that down to some of the policies I have applied to them rather than the units themselves as so far they are going pretty stable (For now) with them running my VMs for the past few days. The only issues have been down to my own stupidity (Misconfiguring the hosts etc).
As of yet I have still to get AMT working on the unit, I can confirm it is indeed alive as if I use localhost:16992 on the unit I am able to access the web GUI on the units themselves however I can't seem to get them to pick up an IP address, I'm 95% sure this is down to the units in Windows Server being silly (Or my ineptitude) but again, one worth noting.
Summary
Overall if you are looking for small PCs to run stuff on I think these are cracking bits of kit, especially for sub £500 brand new (Unloaded) as when you compare them to buying brand new mini PCs from HP and Dell etc you get a lot more for your money.
There are definitely trade offs compared to the HP and Dell Mini PCs however when you consider the 10G NICs, 2.5G NICs and 3x M.2 ports I personally would think the trade offs are well worth it, maybe not for a day to day workstation or HTPC but definitely as a home server if you are looking for something brand new and running the latest kit.
Compared to tower servers they are definitely more faffy and don't have the same refinement in terms of drivers and compatability if you compare them to the T20 and Microserver series considering they aren't officially enterprise kit but if you are willing to sacrifice some time tinkering with them they are pretty decent, I'm definitely considering getting some more in the future to play with.
If anyone else has ordered these units I'm keen to hear what your thoughts are, what you are using them for, if you have any tips/tricks and overall what your experience has been from start to finish and if you would still get the MS-01 or something different
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