Minisforum MS-01 PCIe Card and RAM Compatibility Thread

[PigLover]

Now, back to this device: is this a Gen 3 x8 or better PCIe slot?

PCIe slot is 3.0 x16 physical / x8 electrical.

 

[markconstable]

I'd be really interested to know if anyone has managed to get iGPU passthrough working with the onboard XE gfx in a Proxmox VM so that the PCI slot could be used for more NVMe storage?

 

[powermatt]

I'd be really interested to know if anyone has managed to get iGPU passthrough working with the onboard XE gfx in a Proxmox VM so that the PCI slot could be used for more NVMe storage?

Passthrough of the iGPU is largely not needed thanks to virtio-gl. In fact, it's better since you can give it to every VM on the host.

QEMU/KVM Virtual Machines

Unless you want it for quick sync, in which case... I can find out once I get mine.

 

[PigLover]

I'd be really interested to know if anyone has managed to get iGPU passthrough working with the onboard XE gfx in a Proxmox VM so that the PCI slot could be used for more NVMe storage?

You can use sr-iov to share the igpu. Can't confirm for this box but I've tested with i9-13900H cpu (in a different system) using Proxmox 8.0 and 8.1.

Use this guide: Proxmox VE 8.1: Windows 11 vGPU (VT-d) Passthrough with Intel Alder Lake - Derek Seaman's Tech Blog

 

[Tsatsar]

@Patrick or other owner of this PC, have you or could you test specific sfp+ modules (RJ45 or fiber) that work with the onboard X710 NICs?
Thank you in advance.

 

[Horst U]

@Patrick is it possible to connect 4 TB Nvme SSD's on the Minisforum website they say only 2TB but maybe you can try more.
Thanks for your great work!

 

[mrpasc]

If you can find single sided 4TB: should work. Double sided may not fit or get too hot.
would be interesting if enterprise grade 22110 ones perform well or do overheat…

 

[bugui]

Hi Patrick, first of all, congratulations for this excelent review.
I would like to use this ms-01 as home server and All Flash Nas using the 2x10ge embedded ports, just 1.5x times Asustor nastor networking capacity.

But, In order to increase the amount of nvme disk, I was planning to use oculink card installed in ms-01 PCIe slot and use one or two oculink cables to connect 2 or 4 nvme drives.
In order to have a nice and good looking finish an ICYDock or similar nvme external enclosure can protect and cool this external flash storage.
My question is will the ms-01's pcie accept the oculink card?
And what are the available PCI lanes has this ms-01 PCIe slot? Are they PCI 4.0?


Thanks in advance
Hernán

 

[RedRover72]

It would be a perfect all-in-one edge device if it could do NAS duty, too. But, I’m dubious about their claims of TB3 capability. I’m using an 8-bay OWC DAS now; this would be perfect to take on the DAS and make it a NAS instead.
I know this thread is about expansion cards, but if someone could plug a Thunderbolt device into this little guy?
I’d also be curious to know if they have the appropriate headers on the motherboard for a real TB4 card.

 

[Edwinem]

Same as RedRover72, I'm looking to upgrade my old HP Microserver Gen 8 (I love it and It's already modded xD) and wanted to add an M-ITX motherboard, but there's tons of compatibility issues. BUT, this gave me the idea of throwing this in the chassis, using it as a router to a swtich and also use a Pcie expansion to bring two SFF 8087 connectors for the drives and use it as a Router + NAS combo.

¿Do you think it would be able to handle the Pcie card + 2 NVME (Optional but desirable for cache) + Routing on the 2.5Gb interfaces? Given that I'll have to virtualize the pfsense at least.

Also I would like to use the existing powersupply but with an i9... That's for another thread xD

 

[v1k0d3n]

@Patrick I was pretty happy to see you tested the Intel X710-DA4 card, but would the X710-T4 card be a potential better option? Same throughput, etc...although 10GbE vs SFP of course, but at least 10GbE ports are becoming more common, etc. If the sizing is the same, then at least we wouldn't have to fight with the cage/fitment issues (if you could even call it an "issue").

I ended up buying this card on eBay along with an MS-01 before seeing your review, so I'm hoping the T4 card works fairly well. It would be replacing my current pfSense system which is leveraging a Supermicro SYS-200-8D unit (because that unit is a bit too loud). Seems like this would be a much welcomed upgrade with all the I/O potential.

Thanks for your video! This is a great little box...

 

[reasonsandreasons]

I'm really excited about this system and went ahead and ordered one. The question I would like to see answered is about the Thunderbolt. In the video, Patrick mentioned support for Thunderbolt 3. Is that only for display output? What about the possibility of an eGPU. Could I connect a thunderbolt 3 enclosure with a 4090 to this system?

My assumption would be that they're using the built-in Thunderbolt 4/USB4 controllers on the processor, so yes, it should.

 

[TLN]

Or keep all cores enabled, using the following flags:
ignoreMsrFaults=TRUE
cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE

You can add them on boot time during install/first time, then add it later into your ESXi via GUI/esxcli (such as "esxcli system settings kernel set -s ignoreMsrFaults -v TRUE"). Keep in mind you will loose HT on your P-cores, so figure what makes more sense: higher core count but slower cores, or smaller core count but with faster HT. HT isn't recommended by VMWare anyway, but neither are these small CPUs, so ‍ ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

I assume I'll be able to select P vs E core in CPU affinity, if I decide to have some small VMs running on E-Cores to keep P-cores for other heavy workloads?

 

[the-last-englishman]

I assume I'll be able to select P vs E core in CPU affinity, if I decide to have some small VMs running on E-Cores to keep P-cores for other heavy workloads?

In my experience, even with commands mentioned by @HQuest you will still get PSOD. Only way I managed to get ESXI stable over long periods of time is with Ecores disabled.

 

[powermatt]

I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the review that one of the three m2 slots is x2 only (per specs on Minisforum's website). This may be the reason for some of the slower drive benchmarks, and it may be worth figuring out which slot is getting shorted on lanes.

 

[TLN]

In my experience, even with commands mentioned by @HQuest you will still get PSOD. Only way I managed to get ESXI stable over long periods of time is with Ecores disabled.

That's a good reason for me to wait a bit till someone confirms ESXi. What's the most prowerful model with P-cores only? 12500T, I think? I doubt minisforum will go 2 gen back.

 

[spuwho]

I'm really excited about this system and went ahead and ordered one. The question I would like to see answered is about the Thunderbolt. In the video, Patrick mentioned support for Thunderbolt 3. Is that only for display output? What about the possibility of an eGPU. Could I connect a thunderbolt 3 enclosure with a 4090 to this system?

It would probably work, but why?

The TB3/4 bridge chip used in the eGPU enclosures are a bottleneck, especially for a 4090. Why would you spend the $ for a 4090 just to have it throttled by a wimpy bridge chip. Most of those enclosures have 16x slots, but 4x of available throughput unless they support TB bonding.

 

[spuwho]

If/when the Ryzen version of this design is released (MS-02) I would probably use that or install a Sonnet McFiver adapter (or something similar) and see if it works in one of those single slot minis.

McFiver (Multifunction adapter card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE, and two 10Gbps USB-C Ports)

Multifunction PCIe card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE port, and two USB-C 10Gbps ports. For Mac, PC, and Linux.

www.sonnetstore.com

If Minis Forum decides to drag their collective feet on the BD790i I will wait on the MS-02.

I would much rather have the MS-02 with the 7945HX 16c/32t and use the AMD EPP for power management instead of using Intel's e-cores.

For those wondering why Minis Forum removes the barebones option, the #1 issue they deal with is people trying to install RAM that is clocked way higher or weirder than the BIOS can train for. So the units don't boot or throw an error. So customers either complain or return the units. Being a somewhat low-budget company, it would be impossible for them to certify for RAM that is off the reservation. So those of you who buy RAM from "SuperBulldog Sonic XR" and their "Spike" Series from a fab in no name province, look elsewhere perhaps.

So use stock RAM and stock timings bundled from Minis Forum (or your own) as much as possible to certify your build before you get into the overclock orbit.

 

[the-last-englishman]

If/when the Ryzen version of this design is released (MS-02) I would probably use that or install a Sonnet McFiver adapter (or something similar) and see if it works in one of those single slot minis.

McFiver (Multifunction adapter card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE, and two 10Gbps USB-C Ports)

Multifunction PCIe card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE port, and two USB-C 10Gbps ports. For Mac, PC, and Linux.

www.sonnetstore.com

If Minis Forum decides to drag their collective feet on the BD790i I will wait on the MS-02.

I would much rather have the MS-02 with the 7945HX 16c/32t and use the AMD EPP for power management instead of using Intel's e-cores.

For those wondering why Minis Forum removes the barebones option, the #1 issue they deal with is people trying to install RAM that is clocked way higher or weirder than the BIOS can train for. So the units don't boot or throw an error. So customers either complain or return the units. Being a somewhat low-budget company, it would be impossible for them to certify for RAM that is off the reservation. So those of you who buy RAM from "SuperBulldog Sonic XR" and their "Spike" Series from a fab in no name province, look elsewhere perhaps.

So use stock RAM and stock timings bundled from Minis Forum (or your own) as much as possible to certify your build before you get into the overclock orbit.

I have the NPB6 barebone and it runs 96Gb DDR5 @4800 just fine, uptime is over 3 months now.

I ordered the MS-01 barebone last week, hopefully it can do the same.

@Patrick would love for you to share the bifurification settings in the bios and any other useful bios settings.

 

[Patrick]

If/when the Ryzen version of this design is released (MS-02) I would probably use that or install a Sonnet McFiver adapter (or something similar) and see if it works in one of those single slot minis.

McFiver (Multifunction adapter card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE, and two 10Gbps USB-C Ports)

Multifunction PCIe card with dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots, 10GbE port, and two USB-C 10Gbps ports. For Mac, PC, and Linux.

www.sonnetstore.com

If Minis Forum decides to drag their collective feet on the BD790i I will wait on the MS-02.

I have one of these and was hoping to do a roundup / video in September before the move. I showed @WillTaillac that and he was like you MUST do a video on this. I have all the cards on our "to do" shelf for that roundup/ video.