MinisForum MS-01: A Pint Sized Workstation Powerhouse

Do you need a workstation? How about an itty bitty one? Then the Minisforum MS-01 Mini PC is for you!
Check it out here: s.minisforum.c...
SR-IOV Forum Thread: forum.level1te...
Minisforum compatible thread: forum.level1te...
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Intro and Outro Music By: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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[@Level1Techs]

Minisforum MS-01 Compatibility Database: forum.level1techs.com/t/minisforum-ms-01-compatibility-database/208655/3

[@excitedbox5705]

I would buy this but... no AMD. I hate that intel OEM bribes still keep mini pc manufacturers from offering the newer AMD CPUs. They are always at least 2 gen's behind their intel offerings. Especially with an APU these would be amazing since the efficiency and additional GPU power of the AMD APUs would make up for the lack of having a dedicated GPU.

[@jorper2526]

@@excitedbox5705 There are Ryzen 8000 mini PC's out there right now.. Ryzen 7 8845HS.. Newest gen.

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

@@excitedbox5705 Bro is so lost on AMD VS Intel that he missed that this is a MINI PC, not a standard PC.

[@Semi-Detached]

ETA Prime had a video not to long ago about a company who is making after market coolers for the RTX 2000 and RTX 4000 cards that fit inside the MS-01. He had an early version of the cooler for the A2000 and it work. Looked neat.

[@Jims-Garage]

Great video. I bought two of these a couple of weeks ago and am awaiting shipping. I'll be doing a whole new video series on documenting my migration. I'm really excited with the prospect of a thunderbolt 4 ring backhaul network. Pretty cheap in theory... Wish me luck haha. Look forward to the SR-IOV vid.

[@KptnKMan360]

I literally purchased a MS-01 a few weeks ago to replace my entire huge homelab, and its been running great for weeks. I'm using Unraid, not Proxmox, because I was able to migrate my master server in 5 minutes. Migrated my storage as well without a hitch, I'm using a Terramaster D6-320 DAS via USB 3.2gen2, and works great. Very pleased, the only issue I see is that it gets very hot.

[@demetriceredmond7498]

What all are you running on your home lab when using your MS-01

[@spiralout112]

Amazing they packed all that connectivity into such a small package. Wanted to do a usff server a while back but ended up doing a ITX system in a Jonsbo N1 instead because dammit I want 10gb AND a SAS card! This is definitely a step in the right direction!

[@frustratedalien666]

They shipped mine a couple of days ago. Can't wait to get my hands on it. This is as close as it gets to a perfect mini PC for my needs right now

[@lumendio3]

Same!!

[@Stalgicmusic]

How long was the shipping from your date of purchase?

[@frustratedalien666]

@@Stalgicmusic nearly 2 months

[@ericneo2]

I'd love to see this sort of device with an AMD CPU.

[@sixdonuts]

Yeah, the 10GB SFPs are cool but when I want cores I think AMD.

[@allandresner]

@@sixdonuts my thoughts exactly.. surely its coming

[@fukov3400]

I’d love to see it from a reputable manufacturer. Minisforum has good ideas but dogshit QC and after sales support.

[@hugevibez]

Please Minisforums, if you read this, consider something like the AMD Ryzen Embedded 8845HS on this platform. It supports ECC RAM and you get 4 extra PCIe lanes.

[@ericneo2]

@@fukov3400 You won't see it from a reputable manufacturer because they are all charging 4 times the price of these Chinese mini-pcs so that they can appease shareholders instead of customers. That's why they all pulled out of the market even Intel who made the market segment. They just refused to charge reasonable prices.

[@fwiler]

Finally someone making stuff that is interesting. This is definitely the right direction. Tired of manufacturers making the same old configurations that no one really wants. Now if we could only get more pcie lanes and kick Intel in the balls for purposely restricting bifurcation.

[@tommybronze3451]

I’ve got those in the proxmox cluster already and no issues so far … and damn fast for customer level low power mini boxes.

[@ClayBellBrews]

Also when you install proxmox; or any hypervisor you need to do the intel microcode update because of the e-cores.

[@ClayBellBrews]

Nice, ty for doing the compatibility db. I’m running the Google Coral TPU (single) in the e-key slot (I don’t need wifi/bluetooth). All good, but the dual TPU doesn’t show up at all, not even as a single. I agree on the case size miss. Being able to fit the A2000/A4000 would be a great add.

[@Kalman29]

Thanks, I have an ms-01 on order and planned to try a tpu, good to note. How was your shipping experience?

[@ClayBellBrews]

@@Kalman29 I got my TPU from Mouser, they're local but they ship pretty fast if it's in stock. unless you mean the MS-01, I pre-ordered mine, shipping was quick once they released.

[@wiebowesterhof]

I'm genuinely tempted to see if I can pick one of these up, but due to the problems with the intel chips, definitely would be looking into AMD for now. This is pretty awesome, and it sure beats having my laptop with screen open (to stop it overheating) stuck in my rack at home. Use the laptop for trips only, and I don't really see the need for a full desktop setup now. For business use, this is awesomeness.

[@SuperMari026]

These videos are so good for me. Keep it up Wendell

[@stevek662]

kinda missed the headphone jack overlay. also, thanks for the video! i love these little pcs and all the variety they offer.

[@lostmind223]

Finally! Been waiting for this from Wendell.

[@livewire98801]

Since the case just slides onto the chassis, it would be fairly easy to make a 1u rackmount shell that had a built in full size PCIe slot with an extension cable. If they don't release one, someone should do it in the aftermarket. I would buy the rackmount case without the pci-e slot tho, I'm planning on using mine as a firewall and network services VM host.

[@JamesBurger-v2i]

i would definitely buy this if it was able to fit an A4000 or similar. very much looking forward to hosting a full blown llm home assistant with this type of machine in the near future!

[@carlosdestro]

Are you sure about the location of the headphone jack?

[@Kane0123]

It’s there, you just have to push hard enough

[@NeuroDIY]

@@Kane0123 lol

[@johndelabretonne2373]

Wendell, is it worth saving a little bit of money and going with the 12900h instead of the 13900h? What would I be missing out on in your scenario here with a 12900h?

[@ghostpld1337]

I ordered the 12900H barebone I couldn't quite see what the big difference was. Yes, there is a difference. the new one is faster. but for the price, I didn't mind

[@davidwilson5265]

I have not had luck getting enterprise 20110 with the power loss caps to fit under the cooler. Similarly the u.2 can't be more than 7mm

[@jenesuispasbavard]

Another great reason for U.2 is the Optane 905p. Game changer.

[@canaconn2388]

It doesn't fit

[@s980845]

NerdWare makes a single slot cooler for the a2000 and a4000. Once it's installed on the GPU, it fits perfectly in the MS-01!

[@hardrocklobsterroll395]

Pretty cool but I would love to see it with the AMD chip from the BD790i and a little bit more GPU room.

[@DigitalJedi]

I really wish this thing was just a little taller. Being able to fit some dual-slot GPUs would really open up some options.

[@frankwong9486]

I wish they would make a slightly thicker one so we can put a dual slot card or birficiation thing there

[@joesimonetti]

Then build an MITX. That's not what the MS-01 is for.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

​@@joesimonettimost mitx cases are significantly larger than necessary just for that purpose.

[@frankwong9486]

@@joesimonetti alright let's ignore the bigger itx size and try write the list , can you suggest a itx board with dual usb4 port , dual 2.5G , dual 10G network, triple M2 which have similar price ( similar socket mount processor included in the cost ) ?

[@DmitriWeissman]

I have just one question: using proxmox, will I be able to fully passthrough the iGPU to a VM so the VM will output to HDMI both video and sound ?

[@jimbospirit]

Love my MS01, after cpu firmware update in proxmox 100% stable. 1 month uptime as of today. I went with Ableconn PEXM2-130 in pcie slot to get two more m.2 slots. Tempted to get a owc thunderbay for it, but I've never had good luck with usb & stability. No idea if thunderbolt is any better.

[@sapph1ros]

Hey, has it still been stable from that point? Considering getting it as well for proxmox, in i9-13900h and 96g ram.

[@Renee.Dominique1]

Will this SSD fit in the U2 slot of the Minisforum MS-01 and function without any issues? It's a Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN650, U.3, 15MM, 15,360GB, 2.5-inch, PCIe.

[@joseph_p]

I'd love to see these exact features, but in an ITX motherboard.

[@TTM1895]

How would you suggest dealing with the heat? Things like this usually have a problem holding on to heat. I know 80 degrees centigrade is not high, considering cpu's can run up to 100° c, but overall if it is used the way as intended, other components would certainly do well to avoid long-term exposure to the captured heat.

[@xan590]

does anyone have sort of a "paranoia" of Chinese brands? I am really impressed by Minisforum effort to develop hardware in such a small form factor but still undecided whether I should trust this Chinese brand.

[@praetorxyn]

How do you feel about using this as a Forbidden Router? I’d like to get one and put Proxmox on it, then passthrough the iGPU to the Debian VM and use it for all my Docker containers. I’m debating putting an Opnsense FM on there for Forbidden Router purposes, but I don’t know if it has all the ports I’ll need without an add in card.

[@capt-ivate]

Some advice: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoTJfXVmrp6sgs0&lc=UgxaE0iJMvTQlbdugbB4AaABAg

[@leakyabstraction]

One omission is the power consumption :( For some reason it's very difficult to find power consumption data for these products, even though idle power consumption in particular is highly important for a lot of users. I'd want to know how much does it consume while idling, out of the box, what bios tweaks it has to decrease power draw, and whether it allows to disable some onboard components to decrease the power draw.

[@jessed1709]

A plus-size version with space for a full sized (compact) GPU would be very appealing.

[@DigitalJedi]

For sure. Dual-slot and full length would be awesome. The CPU keeps up with the 13600K so it's not like it's going to hold many GPUs back. I could picture something like this with a low-profile 4060 being an awesome tiny box.

[@FrenziedManbeast]

Wendell, I would be interested to hear your musings/thoughts on the implications of running a Disk Shelf with this unit even though it lacks 'real' ECC memory. This topic in general interests me due to my recent learning efforts in ZFS.

[@theyehsohz]

need more clearance on pcie options + storage, but the bios is kind of mid if even

[@LackofFaithify]

ECC, it's always ECC. Though to be fair that is a problem of Intel's creation that everyone gets to suffer from. And is it me or has the Intel segmentation gotten even worse lately?

[@tommybronze3451]

no bruv - it’s just you. intel has in mind best interest of every single … investor 😂 if only amd didn’t turn into such a cluster f, we would’ve had it all by now.

[@janjansen6263]

Is there any good reason to buy the 13th gen other than the slightly higher frequency?

[@jgz2]

How would you connect 4 - 12TB HDD's to the MS-01. There doesn't seem to be any sata ports. If one could, would the supplied power brick be enough?

[@789654123654789]

I like these little Minisforum machines, but you can't get firmware support for them. I'm still on their release firmware for their B550 mini-pc (the one with the mutant PCIe dock) because they haven't bothered to release any updates.

[@mjn96]

If I understand correctly, you can cluster them using thunderbolt and have the ethernet ports free? So with 3 of these you could technically have a switch(6x10+ 6x2.5)/router/nas(with hba and jbods) all rolled into one contraption?

[@garrysmith9515]

Does the MS-01 support ReBAR or other direct memory access between CPU and GPU?

[@e1nsdrei792]

Please guide/link us on how to set up a local LLM one can talk to! :)

[@subliminal_donkey]

Do you know what is the GPU compatibility with this MS-01? I was hoping to get a pretty big graphics card and just run it with the top off the case, something like a RTX 4060 but what about the power requirements? What's the most powerful GPU that this can take, assuming you are willing to mod the case or run it while open :) thanks!

[@MarkConstable]

I would much prefer if the next model was exactly half the width of a 19" rack and would fit in 2ru to give it extra height for PCI cards and cooling. It's neat being so tiny but the excellent hardware possibilities are somewhat crippled simply because of that tinyness.

[@i_scopes_i3914]

Your microphone jack highlight dot is mirrored to the wrong side of screen

[@hugevibez]

I thought it was STH Patrick that mentioned 15mm thick U.2's don't fit with the enclosure closed. Are you sure those Kioxia's fit? He could be wrong of course

[@eksquirrel1879]

Would love to see something with specs like these that is slightly bigger to put 1 1/2 - 2 slot cards in like the sff a380 for a secondary streaming/editing PC.

[@rq-nt7zi]

External GPU testing, in a third video?! Great work looking into the MS-01 powerhouse.

[@zzaretube]

Have you tried playing with thunderbolt networking on this box? I am planning to get three of these and create a proxmox cluster with thunderbolt network (ring topology) for ceph internal network. Would love to know if that would work before purchasing three of them.

[@Galileocrafter]

What about the network routing performance with OPNSense or vyos ? I have a 1 Gig service but want to upgrade to 10 Gig and wonder if this would fit as a router.

[@InsaiyanTech]

I JUST WANT THIS in a 1u pretty much

[@chrisw4144]

Is there anyway to have dual power supplies that's reliable on these kinds of mini pcs?

[@wyattbonnette3414]

stick it in a 1u with a few tweaks and we are certainly moving into the home lab environment.

[@john_in_phoenix]

Thanks, very impressive system at a good price. I am disappointed the 4000 doesn't fit!

[@chrisweeksnz]

I'd love to know if the new nVidia a1000 will work for transcoding (single slot, 50W, half height, unsure about the card length).

[@jamesdwi]

you can also cross connect the usb4 connections, and get 25gbit some one got 2.7GB/s with those ports

[@jonny2085]

Can you do a video on setting up a ceph cluster using USBc HDD Docks like the 5bay from Sabrent. Think these are super cool and easy to throw on a shelf

[@capt-ivate]

I had a super weird issue while migrating from my old pve, that was a massive pain to diagnose. I was running pfsense in a virtual machine within proxmox, Other virtual machines on the same host were getting dhcp addresses completely fine but anything outside of the box wasn't, Turned out it was because of one of the 2.5G ethernets (I226-LM) Was discarding the DHCP packets, Read up on similar cases and apparently it is due to the fact that it is the designated vPro interface and even though I had ME Bx (vPro / AMT) disabled in the BIOS, It was still not working. Super frustrating but there's a workaround the other interface (I226-V) works just fine! Swapped the bridge over to the other port and swapped the cables and everything worked fine.

[@danagoyette7932]

If only it had ECC memory! I actually like vPro more than IPMI, because it allows you to remotely control an Intel GPU instead of a garbage 2D VGA chip. But on the other hand, vPro serial-over-LAN has been unreliable every time I've tried it.

[@kirksteinklauber260]

Does the Intel Arc A380 low profile card can be used for VDI passthru? Ej: up to 5 VMs. It has 6 GB of RAM. I think for a small VDI server could be a good option but not sure if it works

[@questionablecommands9423]

I really hope the next iteration of this computer is 1U in height (or 2U but with a width to put 2 or three side-by-side in a rack)

[@abavariannormiepleb9470]

AMD + unbuffered ECC SO-DIMM, please.

[@Ray88G]

Check out the new Erying 13th gen motherboards . You can use desktop DDR5 and there's way more expend-ability

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Do they do full-blown Ecc?

[@F5alconsHouse]

i want these features in a nas case to do a ceph cluster

[@declanmcardle]

Have you tried to put Optane in the U.2? Is it too tall? Does the case not close?

[@Level1Techs]

Too tall. Later in the video I use m.2 optane which is fine

[@declanmcardle]

@@Level1Techs I see that now @6:30 or so. Not familiar with P4801X - not on NewEgg only EBay.

[@teaearlgrayh0t]

What is the point of small factor, if you have huge power supply.

[@cassiohui]

If only they had a 7945hx like they do in their BD790i

[@excitedbox5705]

Sadly Intel bribes all the mini PC manufacturers not to offer AMD's newest gen. There are so many chinese OEMs and not a single one offers an AMD mini that is not 2 gen's behind.

[@fukov3400]

@@excitedbox5705put the crackpipe down and step outside. Intel offers better oem support, drivers and likely has far better availability - they have their own foundries across the globe after all. Nobody is paying off minisforum or beelink, AMD is just way worse at their jobs in this respect compared to Intel.

[@jorper2526]

​@@excitedbox5705 Umm.. EliteMini UM780 XTX?? Neptune HX100G? UM773? CWWK R7-7840HS Heck, just go and search, there are Ryzen 8000 series mini pcs trickling into the market now..

[@jmwintenn]

@@excitedbox5705 intel and nvidia been doing it forever, such sad.

[@shadowarez1337]

Didn't they get sued for this with labtops?

[@Hyponx]

Been thinking this PC would be a good starting point for a small NAS server instead of a mini-ITX board

[@christianpeter4686]

I would like to see a video about the minisforum ar900i ❤

[@Level1Techs]

Already on the channel from a few weeks ago? :)

[@Karti200]

Overall opinion of that product as someone who ordered 2 of those for our company for Veeam backup proxy - because of the SFP+ ports that just takes space, i would not call it a "workstation". More like a wrong-named product Yes - you can put an PCIe card - so even an GPU, but you are forced for a single slot height model... so really Quadro T1000, RX 6400 or A380 is max you can place in it... so kinda missing those workstation horsepower. I really hope for MinisForum to relase a variant of this MS-01 WITHOUT SFP+ ports and rearranged back ports so they could fit 2 slots high low profile cards - imagine using an A2000 inside of it or something like that

[@icmann4296]

Would you also consider a review of the Qotom Q203xxG9?

[@brandonkarm9092]

Question for ya Wendell... What are the benefits of a Linux box or proxy mox, with a vm running plex vs Windows and plex server? Curious as I have run a windows based plex server for years, without issue.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Obviously, the benefits are same with any virtualization platform - ability to easily snapshot/backup, make copies to play around with, and, mainly, to have other VMs/containers running alongside to make better use of resources (home assistant, databases, other OSes, router, nas, whatever).

[@omidyt8260]

Heads up, if you're using Opnsense to build a router on this machine, make sure that you don't use the i-226 LM NIC as your LAN. The DHCP is not working on this interface.

[@ulamss5]

what's the cheapest mini pc with at least 2x USB 3.2 (or higher) ports?

[@drewadlof]

I wonder if someone is going to 3D model a top hat for this workstation to allow for bigger graphics cards like the RTX 4000 SFF Ada. I hope someone else does it before me so I don’t have to try and experiment with my 3D printer when I get one of these.

[@nuclearchef-san8304]

I machined my own case with 11guage/.125” 7075 T-7 aluminum alloy, and fit a 20gb Rtx-4000 Ada graphics card,and modded for a 15mm height u.2 drive as well, but that’s me, I’ve got the time,and a small machine shop. So no not for everyone too do, but if you want to 3d print or custom build well that’s on you for now,disassembly is a pain in ass too reverse engineer/custom build/modify if you really want too do it right. Greetings from Tokyo,Japan!

[@drewadlof]

@@nuclearchef-san8304yeah I thought about pulling out the motherboard and the rest of the PC components and put it into a bigger aluminum chassis. I figured it would be difficult to fully disassemble, so I was hoping I could lazily replace the top panel with a larger box-like top-hat panel to provide enough room for larger PCIE cards to fit. Kind of like some of the top hats created for some of the popular SFF itx cases

[@nuclearchef-san8304]

@@drewadlof You don’t have too do what I did necessarily,as you say 3d printing a top hat of the case may be all that’s needed too do. I just work with Metal more soo than 3d printing,and my machine shop while small is also used in my business as well,so no real loss too me in materials /equipment and such,only loss is time/dissassembly of original device then calculation of needed space and whatever materials you choose too rebuild with to do it.This is something I have done for around 30 years now, and have many of my own preferences,when a manufacturer of a device didn’t have or do what I needed/wanted it to do..I do Howvever agree with your idea as well!

[@nuclearchef-san8304]

Even better still is if they(MiniForum) offered this exact device with Amd -8845HS/HX cpu, with 780m+ igpu, more power/custom configuration of power -option/cooling system, and and option for SFF type dedicated GPU! But ya can’t get it all,I guess! That is why I’ve built my own or modified the hell out of for 30 years!

[@Pacho18]

Wendell, do you know that we can't use KVM Hyper-V nested virt since Alderlake alongside with Intel Iris Xe SR-IOV? There's a thread in your forum that keeps unsolved bc Intel somehow broke this feature on this gen architecture god knows why if you use host-passthrough CPU model. Solved with changing the CPU model with QEMU options, but then the problems comes with Intel Iris Xe driver on Windows that will refuse to initialize and make the VF for SR-IOV to work showing error 43. Disabling nested virt and using host-passthrough CPU model makes it to work, but we're again on the start point bc you have to choose between SR-IOV OR NESTED VIRT. I just want a low-power Intel system that's able to share its iGPU alongside with using dev environments like WSL2 or WSA while i can access linux on the host too. Tried with the Minisforum NAD9, but seems like Raptor Lake is also affected as i tried too on desktop platform and is affected by the same issues regardless of which kernel i was using on linux. Seems like Intel never planned on this scenario, while using nested virt and sr-iov on linux as guest works flawlessly. As such i blame intel gpu driver team for not allowing iGPUs to work regardless of CPU model, and or fixing nested virtualization using host-passthrough CPU models. But maybe is just me doing wrong configs. Seems like i'm experiencing this behavior also with a i7 10700 so i'm not sure at all of anything i've tested. Anyways, from myself Intel's not getting any money soon enough until they fix these issues. On AMD AM4/5 all of this works flawlessly, except for the SR-IOV part, but just bc they have not any compatible products. That's solvable by using standard VFIO but you need an additional GPU if you don't want a headless host system (or single-gpu passthrough).

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

N3rdware is currently working on a single slot cooler for the RTX 4000 Ada SFF, which should be available soon.

[@xpatrikpvp]

1:16 96gb modules like 2x96 (do they even exist?) or 2x48 for 96gb total?

[@bragenr]

Servethehome tested with 2x48gb and confirmed that it worked, so I think that is what he meant. Don’t know about any 96gb DDR5 SODIMMs

[@xpatrikpvp]

@@bragenr yea thats also what i was thinking

[@Twitch_Blade]

This is perfect for the p2p proxmox cluster

[@user-oo5ji2kg8g]

If only you could use the 10gb interface with Opensense in Proxmox VM. Only delivers 1gb throughput. =(

[@elalemanpaisa]

I'd love if people using the word proxmox would say in the beginning if the tin has ecc or not

[@netxeroplus]

How do you get the Raid 0 to work, there is not setup in bios.

[@generaltso9402]

Would be interested if A4000 fit.

[@jeffnew1213]

Does anyone know if this machine would support a Tesla P4 passed through to a Windows VM running Plex?

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Needs larger housing to accommodate bigger storage (longer m2/thicker u2), pcie cards. Needs ecc. Maybe amd cpu. Then it would be really attractive.

[@nemesis851_]

Sinner!! Moving a computer while it's turned on , you'll damage the HDD..... oh wait... 🎞😂

[@declanmcardle]

Finally Wendell gets one of these!

[@TheNets]

Ok, I want this.

[@r_firefly4292]

A real bummer that 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. It is a show-stopper for me as it makes the U.2 idea a lot less useful.

[@morsikpl]

I ordered one more than month ago, and I'm still waiting one for being sent... :/

[@ghostpld1337]

Same mere. But i think they will shit them this week:)

[@GarethPW]

Lack of ECC is a deal breaker sadly

[@acquacow]

1:48 is off by a few pixels ;)

[@andrewgeiger4560]

Have 2 in use and 2 en route. Work great with Proxmox and XCP-NG.

[@UrMom-t3j]

I've been living at the salvation army and I still prefer AMD CPUs

[@Copernicus22]

Idle power usage?

[@cameronfrye5514]

Just kind of a shame to offer all that connectivity and CPU in a mini-pc form factor. It seems like just a little more space would make this a more compelling device.

[@theftking]

7:15 Yo that RTX 4000 would make a sick compact rendering thing.

[@booradley4835]

I want this as an atx cpu & MB combo! :/

[@Deletistjerk]

This and DAS?