Move Over Raspberry Pi

What do you do when you want to host your own server at home don’t want to run your own server rack and buying a Raspberry Pi 50 computer for two hundred dollars seems just a little ridiculous lucky for you there’s a number of single board computer competitors coming to the

Market but are they any good today’s video is brought to you by brilliant.org brilliant is an essential tool for professionals looking for development in a Time scarce World whether you’re looking to boost your brain in math data science programming or even physics brilliant has a course designed to keep you engaged with

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Brilliance annual premium subscription again that’s brilliant.org craft Computing and thanks again to brilliant for sponsoring today’s video welcome back to craft Computing everyone as always I’m Jeff oh yes the Raspberry Pi for nearly two years everyone’s Darling Home lab starter PC has been pretty much on obtainium and despite a wealth of

Arm-based Linux singleboard computers being readily available the software and Community Support just isn’t the same outside of Raspberry’s friendly ecosystem but what if I told you there’s another platform that Linux has enjoyed decades worth of development and Bug fixing on and it’s often forgotten by those looking for low power servers to

Run at home this is a micro server from Zima board features an Intel Celeron and 3450 quad-core CPU up to 8 gigabytes of memory integrated graphics with quick sync video encoding two SATA ports for connecting hard drives dual gigabit Ethernet ports and even a PCI Express

2.0 x 4 slot for expansion there’s also a single mini display port for video output and the zema board does boot into a full desktop OS more on that in just a couple of minutes all of that with an integrated heatsink case and included power supply for 199 dollars it’s easy

To see why this little hackable single board computer is gaining Traction in the self-hosted crowd so quickly out of the box you get what I listed above and very little else there’s the Zima board PC itself and it comes in three different configurations you can choose

From the 120 zema board 216 which has a dual core Celeron n3350 two gigabytes of lpddr4 memory and integrated 16 gigabyte emmc module but also includes all of the expandability of the higher end models there are also the Zima board 432 and 832 models which feature upgraded quad-core Celeron and 3450 CPUs along

With either four or eight gigabytes of memory and a slightly roomier 32 gigabyte emmc the 199 price point of the 832 is the suggested retail price but I have seen these going for as little as 160 on Amazon and even as low as 100 flat for the 216 model even if the

Raspberry Pi was back to its original pricing and was readily available adding in a case power supply and storage it’s likely the Zima board would still be all around cheaper than a fully kitted out pie I have the 832 model on hand here sent to me from Zima board for this

Review just like all review videos on this channel no money changed hands Zima board has no say or influence over the content in this video and they don’t get to see it go live before you do but the funny thing about this particular video is I bought my own 832 just two days

Before they sent me an email asking me to review their 832 that’s right it’s the YouTuber Integrity reverse card your move commenters first things first the Zima board is powered by a standard 12 volt transformer with a 3 amp brick included in the Box as well as a couple

Of international plug adapters but that leads me to one of my first complaints about the system and it’s that there’s no power button on here assuming the use case is for this to be a compact server that’s designed to run headless it seems odd there’s no way to gracefully power

Down the server without logging into the web interface or connecting to a keyboard and monitor along that same point while there are a pair of Realtek gigabit Ethernet ports on the Zima board neither of them support power over ethernet which feels like a missed opportunity for use in a small business

Environment office is running a host of UniFi equipment could easily power their entire network off of a single power cord if Poe had been implemented here overall the Zima board is very well built with an aluminum heatsink bolted to the top of the board with an acrylic panel covering the bottom there’s not

Much to look at inside as all the components are soldered to a single PCB which begs the question how exactly is this a hackable single board computer there’s no access to gpio there’s no Hardware to swap out or upgrade to in fact aside from the two SATA ports and

The PCI slot there’s nothing you can really do with this that I would consider to be outside its expected use case except for hacking being one of zema’s expected use cases in this scenario which doesn’t seem to be possible out of the box the zema board is running

Casa OS a community-based open source operating system built on Debian and focused on making home-based Services easy to get up and running a lot of NASA Hardware companies focus on one-click installations for common services like Plex MB transmission sync thing and the like Casa OS instead uses Docker containers for everything meaning apps

Don’t have to be specifically built to run on this Os or even on this Hardware while I’m not a huge fan of Docker as I always prefer running a full virtual machine for both update resilience and data separation Docker does make sense to run on Lower power servers like this

One Casa OS boots into a familiar gnome desktop environment and the management interface is just a local web server that you can access either from the Zima board itself via video output or from another PC on your network one of the advertising points of the Zima board and

Casa OS is that you can get your home media server up and running in less than 10 minutes of course that is only under ideal circumstances because software updates are still a thing Casa OS is definitely easy to use but it’s not magic especially on Lower powered

Hardware so updating this took me about 20 minutes both the Debian based OS and the casa OS web server required updating before allowing me to continue though there was little indication from Casa OS why its App Store refused to load like I said it took right around 20 minutes for

Both the OS and management interface to update and then it really was just as easy as selecting the apps that I wanted to install and in just a couple of clicks I had them up and running my one terabyte SSD that I connected was immediately seen by Casa OS and able to

Be added to storage in less than 10 minutes after all the updates I had my one terabyte disk added and it installed MB pie hole and volt Warden through the app store though the process still wasn’t perfect while I was able to get pie hole and Vault Warden up and running

Without any issue when it came to MB it was a slightly different story see MB and along with it Plex nextcloud or any other service that requires access to local files the permissions in Casa OS by default don’t allow it to access your external storage the built-in storage

Manager also is only there for configuring physical drives not for configuring files and folders in addition to the storage manager there is a files app installed by default and while you’re able to browse your storage again you cannot Define permissions for apps like MB to access specific folders

It wasn’t until I did some digging around for the settings of another application that I stumbled on the app settings menu for the installed Docker container which allows you to show the directories each application has created for its own local storage unfortunately the directories MB created for its

Movies and TV shows were on the emmc drive and no amount of tinkering in the files app MB container settings or locally inside Casa os’s desktop itself ever managed to get me access to my one terabyte SSD I’m obviously not a Linux Noob and I still don’t have MB working

Properly on the the server and at this point I’m not really sure that I care if someone has a solution or not the Zima board and by extension Casa OS claimed to be the simplest way to set up your own home server but even as a seasoned

Linux vet I couldn’t get the storage pointed to where I wanted it and the defaults used the wrong locations entirely documentation for Casa OS is practically non-existent as well with their Wiki being only a couple generic articles about running Docker reinstalling Casa OS if there’s a problem or directing you to their

Discord server look Discord communities are fantastic for quick questions but shouldn’t be the sole support of an operating system especially if that operating system is being shipped with a product like the Zima board not gonna be wrong I still love the hardware and features that you get with the zema

Board 832 especially at this price point the server has no moving Parts it’s incredibly well specked and is basically just an x86 PC meaning there’s nothing stopping you from installing your own OS and services so while casa us has an attractive interface for installing service applications like pie hole or

Volt Warden I’m going to find it hard to recommend it to anyone looking to use the Zima board as a Nas or a media Vault simply because of incomplete documentation and poor software implementations when it comes to file system permissions so beyond Casa OS I’m definitely happy with what’s on display

Here acceleron quad-core processor with Intel quick sync encoding support which means you can transcode all of your Plex MB or jellyfin libraries up to eight gigabytes of memory on board and 32 gigabytes of built-in emmc along with two SATA ports could make this a killer small form factor Nas box dual Realtek

Gigabit Ethernet also puts it up there with a potential PF sense box or a simple machine to run network Control software like unify pie hole or adguard so yes it is absolutely fantastic Hardware but it doesn’t mean I don’t have any complaints about it yes I would

Like to see a power button integrated onto the Box just so I could cleanly power it down without logging into a GUI interface I’d also love to see power over ethernet implemented on one of the ports simply to tidy up cable management and simplify deployments of this in

Either a home or small business situation also while they do include one SATA power and data cable this allows for two SATA connections and they will sell you the cable that supports power and data to both connections for an additional ten dollars but that feels like something that should have been

Included in the Box in the first place but because at the end of the day this is just an x86 PC and actually a rather well-equipped one you can do pretty much anything you want to do with it some of the clever things that I’ve seen done

With the Zima board are what raid Al did recently where he set up his own proxmox cluster with high availability failover using three zema boards and it’s definitely worth the watch check out the video description and I’ll drop you a link so even though it has middling

Operating system support out of the box it’s not going to stop me from recommending that you go pick up a Zima board 832 for yourself fantastic Hardware even better expandability and I will have affiliate links down in the video description where you can buy one for your next home lab or small business

Project on your way down there make sure to drop this video a like And subscribe to craft Computing if you haven’t done so already follow me on Mastodon at craft Computing for daily Shenanigans like this and if you like the content you see on this channel and want to help

Support me what I do consider joining the patreon link is also down in the video description and uh stay tuned new store options are coming soon that’s going to do for me in this one thank you all so much for watching and as always I will see you in the next video cheers

Guys Thank you it’s too bad Brett foreign today is from Surly Brewing Company it is the blast beat Sultana IPA clocking in at 6.7 percent and yes I did double check that is Sultana not Santana Sultana hop IPA fruity dank percussive I love the IPA is that when you crack

Them open and when you’re pouring them at arm’s length you can smell the the fruity notes on them like that that’s how sweet and fruit forward the front of this beer is and the flavor doesn’t disappoint this is one of those ipas I want to say it’s

Passion fruit and guava not melon rind and orange peel like this is a this is a full fruit salad with a little bit of hot backing and I’m here for it