ZimaBoard 2 1664 x86 Home Server, Quad-Core N150, 16GB DDR5, 64GB eMMC, PCIe 3.0×4 Expansion, Dual 2.5GbE & Dual SATA3.0, Low-Power 24/7 Fanless, All-in-One NAS/Router/Docker/Home Lab with ZimaOS

I bought my Zimaboard 232 for a pfSense project, to build a dedicated site-to-site Wireguard tunnel between my data core pfSense router and a new remote node. As a long-time Raspberry Pi builder, I was really excited by the possibilities of the Zimaboard. My first impression was that the coolness factor is just off the charts. The heatsinks look sweet. No fans. Dual NICs, PCIe slot, how cool is this! The chipset even supports AES-NI CPU crypto, which is really important for VPN routers (even though I don’t get to take advantage of that with Wireguard). The possibilities are vast with this thing. For my application, I added rubber feet to stabilize it on a flat surface. The Zimaboard has enough weight to make it stick to a desktop nicely with the added feet. I’m a bit surprised this wasn’t included with it. Installing pfSense was exactly as it usually is (F11 key to enter boot device selection to boot from USB). It went quick with no surprises. It assigned the two NICs to re0 and re1, left and right ports on the rear of the Zimaboard respectively. I have read online that pfSense sometimes has issues with Realtek NICs, but after 3 weeks of heavy traffic utilization, I have had zero glitches. I have not had to disable hardware checksum offload in pfSense. Solid. I have pushed close to 10 TB of data through my Wireguard tunnel in the last 3 weeks, and it hasn’t missed a beat. The processor keeps up with Wireguard throughput up to around 150mbps very well. I will attach a screenshot of the pfSense dashboard that was captured after a large file transfer had been running through the Wireguard tunnel for about 10 minutes at around 80mbps. This is perfect for my application. It also comes with some very cool stickers, which I just love. Nice touch. Rock solid on pfSense so far. So cool!

I bought the ZimaBoard as a small server for my barn which lacks heating and air conditioning. The ZimaBoard's big heatsink looks perfect, and removes the possibility of a fan failing in the harsh environment. It hasn't faced summertime heat yet, but it runs cool so far. I'll update this review if something goes wrong when the hot weather arrives. It seems like the ZimaBoard would be comparable to the Raspberry Pi 4, but as much as I love the RasPi and the company's mission, the ZimaBoard is really in a different league. It seems snappy, and my benchmarking confirms it: The ZimaBoard is much faster, and it runs amd64 architecture which is nice. It has a bigger footprint than the RasPi, but it's still tiny. Quality is far nicer than I expected at this price point, and it feels heavy and solid. So far so good. It appears that this will be a great little headless server, and might even have enough grunt for desktop use. UPDATE 07/23/2023: It's summertime and my ZimaBoard has stayed up without a hitch, even in an environment without air conditioning. This week I moved 7TB of data through it with rsync, which caused a continuous load of about 35% CPU usage for 24 hours, and it handled the task, no problem. And this was during a heat wave with 100°F (~38°C) daytime temps. Once the CPU nears 50°C it throttles down, keeping temps in check, and without much performance hit in my case. Turns out, the ZimaBoard is as rugged as it looks, and the passive heatsink does its job, even in the heat. UPDATE 08/05/2024 It's been two snowy winters and two very hot summers and my Zimaboard has been rock solid, all without climate control. Aside from reboots from updates or the occasional power outage, it's been up and available, no hiccups, no drama. During an especially frigid stretch last winter I threw a shoebox over it for a couple days, but I doubt if it even needed it. I always know that when I SSH over to it, it'll answer. Couldn't be happier.

Overall the device is okay however the device came with several issues which had to be fixed straight off the bat. The CasaOS version was several revisions out of data arriving with version 0.4.1, the current version being 0.4.9. I was wondering why it was so out of date and then I noticed that apt was giving me key signature errors.. I was like okay that doesn't seem great. Turned out that the date was so incorrect the ntp server was rejecting the connection from the device. I had to set the ntp sync to manual, manually adjust the date and then set it back to manual and reboot the service. Once that happened I had 557 out of date packages. After rebooting the zimaboard, I resolved most of the update issues like fixing the samba config, updating the casaos image and fixing broken packages. The overall security by default is pretty abysmal so I highly suggest to setup the device with no ports forwarded/exposed on your network. All in all the product is good just as long as you know your way around linux administration and troubleshooting as you may run into problems.

Have had this unit for the better part of a year and it works great. Initially I had issues with the CasaOS software that came with it. Couldn't get any support, which was very disappointing and cost me a lot of wasted time trying to figure out myself. About a week or so later a software update came out which fixed the issue. Since then, I have enjoyed the unit. One gripe I have is when using the SATA connector, it won't recognize existing data on the drive. So it needs to be blank or it needs to be reformatted. With the USB ports, this is not an issue. Otherwise, the unit has fast data transfers. Also, I recommend using a third party software like Tailscale to be able to securely access the connected drives remotely. This setup is far superior to the Synology I had before it. Its also very quiet.

Pricey but exactly what I needed to set up a dedicated hard drive tester runnong Steve Gibson's "Spinrite" testing software. Spinrite is an old school x86 DOS program so Zimaboard offered the perfect solution. I have it booting SpinRite from a USB flash drive. The Zimaboard setup is small enough to be easily broken down and stored when not in use, and quickly set up again. Specs are modest but it isn't meant for applications requiring lots of speed and resources.

Not my favorite homeland device but honestly love these things. If your starting a home lab there are likely better products and I wish they would release a newer version with a CPU with NPU, but the casing and external PCIe? Awesome. Would love a usb c power ability. Used it as a router for a year. Zero issues. Love that they include an os with it. Love the low performance onboard storage to use as boot. Love the accessories. Even with my complaints 10/10 rating. Please make a new unit. I have 10+ systems in my home lab and would love to try your future products!

Things to Know - You will need to update the OS the first time so that you get additional - So CasaOS comes installed and working out the box. Basically plug in to router and go. - Great Value when compared to a Synology NAS which is taking some directions I don't like. - Privacy focused is a big one for me, I own the data. - One click app install. Makes this very easy to use (Most of them are single click Docker Installs, with advanced ability to change configuration later) -Apps I care About (JellyFin, NextCloud, Vault Warden, Gitea) - Did I mention you can set up a tunnel with cloudflared and attach a sub domain to one of your local apps? Wild!! I can now access my Vault Warden (Bit Warden), online. - The functionality is going to allow me to get rid of a couple subscriptions I am using currently. (ProtonPass, ProtonCalendar, get some projects out of GitHub) - Size is nice, it takes up almost no room, and would be perfect to travel, if the charger was smaller. What I don't like - It comes with a barrel plug, but I knew that when I bought it. Just would have loved to see this powered via USB C.

Decided to buy and use as a Plex media server after seeing various online video tutorials. When the ZimaBoard is awake it runs Plex great and streams media flawlessly from my NAS. However after about a day or two the ZimaBoard seems to go to sleep and Plex media server is unavailable. Logging into the device's GUI, which is running Casaos, is also unavailable. I've turned on Wake on Lan in the device's BIOS and still the same behavior. Tried sending "Magic Packets" from various devices to the ZimaBoard but no luck. The only solution is physically unplugging power from the ZimaBoard and then plugging power back in. Not a convenient solution when trying to use as a "server". December 22, 2024 Update: Noticed that the Zimaboard went offline again. Checked and noticed no NIC link lights or activity. Tried power cycling the device. The NIC lights come on for a second and then go completely out. I've had for about three weeks. In terms of being a media server totally unreliable and a waste of time. In my humble opinion if you like to tinker and troubleshoot then this is your device. If you want something reliable look elsewhere.