alt Hacker NewsAn ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review
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Nice device but the experience write up is more about distro choices than anything. It's quieter than the older units and it's harder to run 2 disk ssd raid because of some design choices. Is it faster? How many virtuals? What's the throughput if you use it for complex network related roles not offloaded to the microtik switching/routing kit?
Does FreeBSD work better?
$599 seems like a lot to me. You can get numerous older, much more powerful Mini PCs (e.g older ThinkCentre Tiny series) or even a base brand new M4 Mac Mini for that kind of money.
Admittedly, the 10G interfaces and fast RAM make up for some of it, but at least for a normal homelab setup, I can't think of an application needing RAM faster than even DDR3, especially at this power level.
For those who don't need quite that much power I recently added an Orange Pi 5 to my own homelab, the RK3588 SoC packs an impressive punch for what it is
No ECC makes this a show stopper for me.
Funny, I just bought one of these last week. Agree with the article. Mine came with storage and Debian preinstalled. If you buy one from Amazon, keep an eye on price. I bought, then the next day the price dropped $150. Ordered another one and returned the expensive order.
> Yes, while I use Fedora on my laptop, I also know Fedora is generally not a good option for a server.
Why is Fedora not considered good for a server?
Why is the power supply 2x larger than a Macbool Pro PS unit? Cheap? What about GaN?
What speed is the PCIe slot? The Minisforum site talks about it being x8, but doesn't mention if its Gen4 or Gen5
slight tangent, but anyone had experience with running asahi on a m2 MacBook headless? I have a m2 air with a damaged screen id like to repurpose. Mostly want docker containers or something coolify adjacent
site down for me; here's an archive link:
Not sure I understand this distinction.
> I’ve always wanted an ARM server in my homelab. But earlier, I either had to use an underpowered ARM system, or use Asahi...
What is stopping you using Mac with MacOS?
anyone using proxmox on that?
> There is also one other perk: while the MSRP is $599, I got it for $559 despite a RAM shortage.
At that price, why not a mac mini running linux? I think (skimming Asahi docs) the only things that would give you trouble don't matter to the headless usecase here?
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/minisforum-stuffs-ent...
> The strange CPU core layout is causing power problems; Radxa and Minisforum both told me Cix is working on power draw, and enabling features like ASPM. It seems like for stability, and to keep memory access working core to core, with the big.medium.little CPU core layout, Cix wants to keep the chip powered up pretty high. 14 to 17 watts idle is beyond even modern Intel and AMD!