The Homelab Swiss Army Knife: ZimaBoard
I’ve used a lot of different small form factor machines over the years, from the Raspberry Pi to used ebay thin clients. All of them are good at some things. But when Icewhale sent over their x86-based Zimaboard for me to take a look at, I’ve been impressed with the flexibility it has for me to test new software and hardware in a relatively cheap way. It’s not spectacular at any one thing, but it’s versatile enough that it’s a great foundation for so many of my projects.
So what’s good about the Zimaboard: -Reasonable price for an x86-based single board computer -Being x86 based is a huge advantage for running the usual homelab software -Enough eMMC for a full operating system, enough for many use cases without additional storage -Dual NICs are a huge benefit to a lot of projects -Low power 12V input -CasaOS is open-source and very easy to get started with if you want the basics for your homelab without a lot of fuss
A few negatives: -PCIe slot is in a bit of a weird position, slot covers don’t fit well and hit the case, I ended up taking them all off -Not enough USB ports if you want to actually use it as a desktop (or install and OS via a GUI) -The ZimaBoard itself is beautiful, but when you add cards and SSDs, it can look very hacked together.
Contents:
Video⌗
lscpu⌗
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Address sizes: 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
Model name: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N3450 @ 1.10GHz
CPU family: 6
Model: 92
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
Stepping: 9
CPU max MHz: 2200.0000
CPU min MHz: 800.0000
BogoMIPS: 2188.80
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave rdrand lahf_lm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault cat_l2 ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust smep erms mpx rdt_a rdseed smap clflushopt intel_pt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts md_clear arch_capabilities
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 96 KiB (4 instances)
L1i cache: 128 KiB (4 instances)
L2 cache: 2 MiB (2 instances)
NUMA node(s): 1
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf: Not affected
Vulnerability Mds: Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown: Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Not affected
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; Retpolines, IBPB conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP disabled, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Not affected
lspci⌗
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Host Bridge (rev 0b)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 500 (rev 0b) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
00:0e.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster (rev 0b)
00:0f.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0b)
00:12.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series SATA AHCI Controller (rev 0b) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
00:13.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series PCI Express Port A #1 (rev fb) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:14.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series PCI Express Port B #1 (rev fb) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:14.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series PCI Express Port B #2 (rev fb) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:15.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series USB xHCI (rev 0b) (prog-if 30 [XHCI])
00:1c.0 SD Host controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series eMMC Controller (rev 0b) (prog-if 01)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Low Pin Count Interface (rev 0b)
00:1f.1 SMBus: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series SMBus Controller (rev 0b)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
vainfo⌗
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.14 (libva 2.12.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 22.3.1 ()
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointEncPicture
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD