Is the Zimaboard good?

CoveWolf · April 8

Hey everyone! Wanted to get into starting a homelab at some point and was looking at some cheap hardware to start with. I found this product called the Zimaboard and wanted to know if anyone has used it or could recommend something better. I am attracted to it since it’s pretty small and can fit on a desk. I know an old office pc would be cheaper and faster. However I don’t really have space which is unfortunate. I also don’t really have specific goals with what it would be used for. Anything that works good with CasaOS is what I’d be using (Stuff like a Plex server or nas) for me I see it as a nice computer that I could tinker with but again would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

link to Zimaboard: https://shop.zimaboard.com/products/zimaboard-single-board-server

jaslion · April 8

Thats expensive for a ancient n3350 single board. Not to mention a n3350 is dogshit slow. Like a athlon athlon 64 from 2005 is just as fast.

Whilst small this has no IO. As a base system it's basically not usable as you need drives for storage which will increase size and because this is not in a case it will take up a lot of desk space immediately. Also again it's dogshit slow just as a nas it will have to work hard enough.

Like the 250$ best one is the only one that is considered usable to me and it's not worth it.

By the time you set it up to be a nas or plex server it's going to be taking up as much as a SFF office pc. Also those office pc's are actually MEANT to be put under a monitor and act as a monitor stand. To save A LOT of desk space. Is that an acceptable solution?

Also when you set up a server all it needs is a lan connection (wifi or cable) and power. It can literally sit ANYWHERE.

Somerandomtechyboi · April 8

22 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Like the 250$ best one is the only one that is considered usable to me and it's not worth it.

theres also the zimablade which looks to be alot cheaper for a similar spec

though 96$ for a shitty quadcore celeron is still pretty awful when you can get 6th gen and up sff for the price of the 67$ dualcore one which will completely annihilate the celeron, also stuck with a single slot so you have to pay over ddr4 prices for a 16gb ddr3 sodimm which is just stupid though i am kinda curious how well 8gbit ddr3 ocs but i can just buy those in ecc form

yea you should just buy some old 4th gen i5/7 and up sff, outperforms those crappy celerons whilst costing less and having alot more expandability

you can also buy a used 2011-3 workstation like the z440 if you want a bunch of cores, ram, and pcie lanes for dirt cheap though power draw will be higher

CoveWolf · April 14

Thanks everyone for the input. I see that it is underpowered for the price. I still have some interest in it but I appreciate the recommendations of getting a sff pc instead. Will consider it!