Category: PC Hardware

Minisforum MS-A2

A while ago I picked up a Minisforum MS-01 to act as a lab machine, in replacement of my aging 2018 Mac Mini units. You can read about it here:

New Home Lab Beast – Minisforum MS01

It’s proven to be excellent so far, and has handled everything I’ve thrown at it. Now though, Minisforum have top-trumped it and released the MS-A2. This is in the same chassis as the MS-01 however it’s now based on the Ryzen 9 9955HX 16 core/32 thread processor…and wow is it a beast.

The specification of the unit I have is as follows:

-> AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX – 16 core/32 threads

-> 96GB DDR5 RAM

-> 4TB Lexar NM790 NVMe

-> Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe

-> 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) – No USB4/Thunderbolt

-> 2 x 2.5Gb Ethernet

-> 2 x 10Gbe SFP+

-> HDMI 2.1

There’s no USB4/Thunderbolt on those USB-C ports, but they do support DisplayPort Alt‑Mode 2.0 which I think is up to 8K/60Hz or 4K 144Hz.

So very similar to the MS-01, bar the lack of USB4/Thunderbolt. It’s a lot of connectivity – interestingly, mine is marked up as USB4 on the back, but it absolutely is not!

Internally it’s just as strong. There are three NVMe slots, all supporting PCI 4.0 x 4, however interestingly slots two and three are configured as Gen 3 in the BIOS, and not Gen 4. I imagine this is to do with cooling, however I’ve configured the ports for Gen 4 and so far it’s been all good. There is a fan directly above slots 2 & 3, but it does not extend to slot 1.

Interestingly, with slot 1, you can install an adapter for U.2 drives, which could be incredibly useful.

It’s a solid platform, with great connectivity.

Benchmarks

Let’s look at the benchmarks first, comparing it to the 13900H in the MS-01, and the M4 Max 16 core in my main laptop.

Benchmarks

That is a solid improvement over the MS-01 isn’t it! The 13900H has 6 performance cores with hyper-threading, and 8 efficiency/non-hyperthreading cores. This compares to the 9955HX having ‘only’ 16 performance cores, all supporting hyper-threading.

For comparison, the M4 Max in the table above has 12 performance cores, and 4 efficiency cores. That is an impressive bit of silicon isn’t it?!

The performance increase over the 13900H is substantial, and for a lab machine incredibly useful. I’ve copied across my main HyperV lab (Active Directory, Exchange, SQL, and Skype/Teams integration), and there is a notable difference in performance on the MS-A2 over the MS-01, although to be clear it runs very well on both.

Drive performance is great on both NVMe slots that I have in use. Note that slots 2 & 3 are configured for Gen 3 by default, however I have changed them to Gen 4 in the BIOS. Below shows the primary (Lexar) and the secondary (Samsung)drive respectively.

Primary NVMe Benchmark

Secondary Drive NVMe Benchmarks

Network performance over the 10Gbe and the 2.5GB was solid too. Note that on the MS-01 I had issues using both SFP+ ports with SFP+ to RJ45 adapters in them – I think they were overheating. I haven’t tested that in the MS-A2 however both the MS-01 and the MS-A2 are using fibre SFP+ connections in both ports, and over fibre they’re solid and work at circa 1Gb/s to/from my SSD NAS.

Impressive performance all round. I’ve included the Apple chip for reference – the story would be more interesting there if we included power per watt wouldn’t it? Talking of power…

Minisforum MS-A2 Power Consumption

At idle, with the configuration outlined above (2 x NVMe, 2 x 10Gbe SFP+ connected), I’m seeing power consumption at circa 25-30watts. That seems roughly in line with the MS-01, which surprised me a little.

MS-A2 Idle Power Consumption

The gap widens under load however – which is what you’d expect. When running Cinebench R24 I was seeing peak power usage around 130-140watts.

Minisforum MS-A2 Power Consumption

I understand that the default TDP of the Ryzen 9 9955HX in the MS-A2 is configured at 55Watts. You can however configure that in the BIOS up to 75Watts if you wish – I’ve not as yet looked at that to see if it has any real-world impacts, however it’s certainly something I’ll be having a look at – theoretically that could offer a 15% ish uplift in performance in multicore workloads, so worth a look see.

Costs

It is a little bit pricier than the MS-01 – let’s compare the two. Firstly, the MS-01.

Let’s now have a look at the MS-A2.

MS-A2 Costs

For my non-UK readers, the above costs are in GBP, and include VAT – our sales tax – at 20%.

So the base unit is more expensive than the MS-01, even more so as you can get further discounts on the MS-01 compared to when I originally bought them.

Fan Noise

The fans are very audible on the unit – similar to the MS-01. Ask the unit to do practically anything and the fans will spin up. It doesn’t bother me, however if it’s right next to you I suspect it could get irritating? That’s very subjective, and hard to qualify.

Support

I think the comments I made back when looking at the MS-01 still bear true: Now, this is worth being aware of. I’ve seen a few horror stories about dealing direct with Minisforum, and if it was anything like my experience dealing with Geekom I’d be very nervous about buying direct. Buy from Amazon however and any problems you can make their problem, and their returns process is usually excellent.

Summary

So far I’m very impressed by the thing. It’s a super-fast version of the already impressive MS-01. For my use – as a lab virtualisation machine – it’s a great fit!

Minisforum seem to be producing some great stuff. I’m really looking forward to testing their upcoming NAS device for example.

Anyway, any questions about this unit please let me know, and I’ll do my best to answer.

EDITed to add – while I remember, this unit doesn’t support vPro like the MS-01.

June 30, 2025
UGREEN Thunderbolt M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure

Well this will be an exciting post…about storage. But then it’s useful to find information about things you’re considering buying isn’t it, and I’m fortunate to get access to some decent tech, so I thought I’d share my experiences.

I’ve recently been sorting out some of my fast storage – stuff I use for video editing and the like. While I can run this directly from my NAS it’s never quite as smooth as running it from a fast SSD – and Apple’s SSD pricing is criminal, so external it is.

I now use a couple of Thunderbolt 5 enclosures and the performance – and the reliability so far – has been awesome. They are, however, expensive. So I also have some UGreen Thunderbolt 4 enclosures. These ones in fact:

UGREEN 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure

These units cost about 65GBP which is about 200GBP cheaper than the TB5 units, but the performance is still solid. This one has a Samsung SSD 990 EVO Plus 2TB drive in it – and the performance connected directly to my Macbook Pro M4 Max is pretty good:

UGreen Thunderbolt Enclosure

By way of comparison, this is the performance in the Thunderbolt 5 Enclosure:

Thunderbolt 5 NVMe

So far then, so very good.

The case is a little chonky – 120 x 48 x 19 mm – and it weighs about 200 grams. This is still small enough to throw in a bag when needed. It also comes with a fan for cooling – I understand it’s supposed to varey its speed, but I’ve not noticed that. It’s either on (and barely audible), or off! It’s not an issue anyway, and I’d much rather have the fan than not.

In terms of device compatibility, the unit will accept 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280 NVMe units, which is pretty flexible.

At the cost I am very happy with them – it’s not that much more than a USB3 enclosure but they top out at 1Gbps, so I think it’s a worthy uplift in terms of performance.

Anyway, I did warn you this wouldn’t be interesting.

June 5, 2025
Thunderbolt 5 Storage

Earlier I had a need to move a 500GB Virtual Machine to another one of my virtual hosts. I could of course have copied it across my 10Gbe network, which would have taken 20 minutes or so, but instead I thought it simpler to throw it on an external NVMe drive I have. My Mac happily told me it was going to take 2.5 minutes to copy the virtual machine to the drive.

TWO AND HALF MINUTES!

In the end it took nearer three, but hey, that’s fast. This got me reminiscing. Back in the day when I first started working on ‘larger’ stuff, I did a lot of Novell Netware. We used to use Fujitsu 500MB SCSI drives in our normal server setups (the M2624FA I think)…. like this:

Fujitsu M2624FA SCSI Hard Drive

This was hooked up to 10Mbps Ethernet – mostly Co-ax (Cheapernet), and then later moving to UTP (at a heady 100Mbps). What I remember about those drives is that copying that 500MB drive to a new server typically took about 20 minutes. That’s about 0.4MB/s. Shudder. The drives themselves were capable of more than that – sometimes a whopping 4MB/s – but the overheads of copying/delivering over 10Mbps limited that.

Now, I’m sat here copying a 500GB virtual machine at about 2.8GB/s. That’s 7,000 times faster. That’s some progress. At 0.4MB/s it would have taken 14.5days…assuming it didn’t just melt.

I then got thinking about some of the Microsoft Exchange implementations I’ve done over the years. IOPS and drive performance were king in those configurations. We’d end up putting in a lot of drives to meet the performance requirements rather than the space requirements – single enterprise drives would often only deliver 150-200MB/s, with maybe a 150IOPS per drive. For a 5,000 mailbox solution, you’d need about 5-10,000IOPS (I haven’t worked this out fully, don’t @ me!). So you see the problem. Here’s a 16TB Toshiba Enterprise Drive for example:

16TB Spinning Hard Disk

Now a single NVMe (PCIe 4×4 for example) 500,000 to 1,000,000 IOPS. So yeah, the world changed.

Anyway, enough reminiscing! What about that drive I was copying to? Well, it’s an external Samsung 990 Evo Plus 4TB installed in an ACASIS 80Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure. The performance of this setup is simply epic:

Thunderbolt 5 NVMe

So about 5.5GB/s write, and 5GB/s read. That compares pretty well with the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro M4 Max:

MacBook Pro M4 Max Internal SSD Performace

Thunderbolt 3/4 was also pretty fast of course, but it couldn’t get close to the internal speeds – this is a 2TB version of that same Samsung drive but in a Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 enclosure:

Samsung 990 Pro 2TB/Thunderbolt

That external Thunderbolt 5 enclosure is a bit pricey at about 250GBP, however you pay the price for new stuff don’t you. It does work, and it works very well. It’s also got a cooling fan in which I thought could be helpful as I’ve often seen drives slow down considerably under constant load due to heat – there’s also the faster cache to consider too. These 990s have about 400GB of pseudo-SLC cache on them before they slow down.

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with them (I’ve a couple), and am always constantly surprised by the performance. Being able to use Carbon Copy Cloner for example to backup a few TBs from one to the other becomes a quick coffee break rather than a plug in, forget, check tomorrow operation.

Anyway, that’s enough reminiscing for one day. New stuff is newer, faster, spankier – who knew.

May 30, 2025
JetKVM – IP Keyboard/Video/Mouse

Getting remote access to some machines – headless servers for example – can sometimes be a challenge. Sure, there’s RDP or VNC, however that requires the machine to be up, on, and usable doesn’t it? What about those times you need to deal with machine that isn’t accessible for whatever reason? Or if you need to do something that requires a good old fashioned keyboard, monitor and mouse? BIOS/Service Pack upgrades for example.

Well, that’s where these KVM units step in (Keyboard, Video, Mouse). Essentially they are devices that connect to the PC HDMI post, and provide a keyboard & mouse via USB. They then connect to your network allowing you to remote control that PC/Mac as if you were sat physically in front of it.

I tend to use Mac mini devices as my headless servers as they’re so capable, and use so little power. One challenge you have with those is that on a fresh reboot, if you have FileVault enabled (encryption), you must login with a physical keyboard at the device to get at the keys to unlock the drive for normal boot. This is a huge pain for a headless server.

I had taken to configuring a small boot OS that was not encrypted, and then having another encrypted partition with my ‘real’ user on. This would mean you would initially connect remotely and login as the unencrypted user over VNC, logout, and re-login as the user that has the encrypted partition. I’d move that user’s home folder to the encrypted drive too. A bit of an effort.

This unit solves this challenge as you’re effectively logging in from a local keyboard.

I’ve been through several KVM units like these over the years and never really found one that I got on with fully. Then I stumbled on the JetKVM on Kickstarter.

This is a small device that plugs in to your HDMI port, a USB port, and an Ethernet port on your network. It picks up its own IP Address (which it helpfully displays on the small screen), and you can then connect to the IP using a web-browser:

JetKVM Connected

It takes minutes to setup, and so far it’s been awesome. It’s done exactly what it said it would do. There are some considerations of course – a big one being power. If, when your machine goes to sleep, it stops powering your usb ports, then you could have an issue as the JetKVM gets its power from the USB Port. Fortunately, they provide a pass-through cable that allows you to power the JetKVM with a mobile-phone USB-C charger.

This was interesting as my observations with the Mac mini M4 have been that it does indeed power down the USB Ports on sleep…but, for some reason, the JetJVM maintains power. I know that Apple does use a low-power sleep system for keyboards and the like, so perhaps it’s through that mechanism? In any event, you can power it separately if you require. I also understand that a PoE version is in the works.

On the subject of power, the device doesn’t allow for physical power-down and re-start of the end-device. Not surprising if you think about it! I control that differently anyway, using Smart plugs. Depending on your use case however, help could also be coming for that….

There’s also an RJ11 Port (serial). All the software is Open Source and is up on GitHub – I’d expect to start seeing some cool extensions coming! Perhaps one of those extensions could deal with power?

JetKVM ports

JetKVM Front View

They do provide a cloud-access model too, to allow remote-access. Currently, this requires authentication with Google. I’ve not tried the remote access element as I have my own mechanisms to provide remote-access where it’s needed, however it looks like a fairly decent offering.

You can see all the current docs here:

JetKVM Documentation

I paid 68US$ + 19$US Shipping back at the beginning of April, with the unit turning up about 10 May. I suspect now they’re clear of the Kickstarter campaign these will start popping up on Amazon and the like – and I suspect, when they do, I’ll have some further ones to buy.

Very happy with the unit so far, it’s been really useful!

May 22, 2025
Cleaning Drives

If like me you swap between operating systems for external drives you can sometimes find yourself in the situation where – for whatever reason – you can’t partition a drive how you want. Usually it’s if I’ve been swapping between Linux/Windows etc. and have been doing unusual things.

Anyway, it’s real easy to clear down that partition table on a drive in Windows using something called DiskPart.

In my example below, I have a USB stick that’s not behaving. It could be any type of drive I believe.

Windows Explorer

Let’s clear down that USB stick. First, start a DOS prompt as Administrator, and then run the program ‘DiskPart’. Next, type ‘list disk’, and you will see a list of your drives. Make sure you select the right drive! You do not want to be wiping the wrong one…. In my example, it’s the 119GB USB Stick, Disk 4.

DiskPart

Next, we’re going to select that drive, and clean it. To do that, you use the command:

select disk 4

clean

Again, be extra careful and make sure you’ve selected the right drive!

DiskPart Clean

That drive is now sparky new and you can go off and do what you want with it.

Computer Management

March 29, 2025
New Home Lab Beast – Minisforum MS01

2025-07-03 22:13:25: Minor update. I’ve now got hold of a Minisforum MS-A2. You can read about that here:

Minisforum MS-A2

===============

I’ve been in the hunt for new home-lab virtualisation servers. I previously used two 2018 Mac mini i7/64GB units. They have been solid units, and have served me well. I used Parallels Desktop for 90% of the virtualisation, with some VMWare Fusion in there too. They’ve lasted YEARS and have been rock-solid…but, their performance against their power consumption has been lacking compared to current offerings.

So I took a dual approach – for my constant stuff that needed to be on all the time (backups, some video conversion automation, AdGuard type stuff) I bought an Apple M4 Mini. More on this in another article, however it sips power while also being highly capable.

For my lab stuff – think 90% Windows, 10% Linux – I needed something x86. First, I looked at Geekom and their Mini IT13, and it was disastrous. I actually bought one direct from Geekom, and three from Amazon. All of them after a week or two just wouldn’t turn on.

Amazon Geekom Orders

I returned them all – so much so Amazon put me on the returns naughty step so I had to get AmEx involved, who were, as usual, absolutely badass at getting my money back.

This is when I stumbled on the Minisforum MS-01. The specs on this thing seemed out of this world.

-> Intel i9 13900H

-> Dual DDR5-5200 up to 96GB

-> 2 x USB4

-> 2 x 2.5Gb Ethernet

-> 2 x 10Gb Ethernet

-> HDMI

Have a look for yourself at all these ports – absolutely mad.

MS-01 Rear

Internally, the unit supports up to three NVMe slots. THREE. 1 PCIe 4×4, one 3×4 and one 3×2. Additionally slot 1 can be configured to use a U.2 NVMe too. The graphics are integrated UDH750 I think, but – and here’s something else that amazed me about this unit – it also comes with a half-length PCIe 3×4 slot! With it being half-length you’re limited by what you can put in there, but there’s certainly options out there.

I was quite blown away when I saw the specs of these units, and couldn’t order one fast enough, and to spec it out. The spec I’ve gone for is:

-> 96GB RAM

-> 1 x 4TB NVMe

-> 2 x 1TB NVMe

This is connected now over 10Gbe for the main LAN, and 2.5Gb for my HyperV machines. Absolutely bonkers considering its size.

What’s the performance like? Well, let’s look at the primary SSD to start. This is a Lexar 4TB 4×4 that I already had.

SSD Performance

That’ll do. The other two SSD are a bit slower at about 2200MB/s read/write, still really acceptable.

The Intel 13900H in the MS-01 has a base TDP of 45watts but apparently can boost up to 115watts – it’s a mobile processor of course. By way of example, the desktop i-13900 has a base of 65W and boosts to 219W…but requires significantly more cooling.

You can see the Geekbench benchmarks for the 13900H here. If you want a bit of a giggle here’s the comparison between the 13900H and the binned M4 Max (I have the unbinned M4 Max). So processor performance is pretty good too – certainly good enough for what I need it for.

What about power consumption? At idle, the unit seems to average between 25 and 33watts, which is 0.6KwH to 0.8KwH per day.

MS-01 Power ConsumptionScreenshot

This does seem a little high compared to what some other people are reporting – several are reporting idle figures of 15-30 watts, but I’ve not seen it go that low. Perhaps it’s the spec and of course I have the 10Gbe interface in use.

What about under load? It seems to peak at about 115-120w but then settles in to about 90w. Assuming 90w consumption that’s 2.2KwH/day (rounded up), which isn’t insignificant, but then how often are you going to have it flat out..?

Assuming you work it hard for 8 hours a day, but the rest it’s fairly idle, running costs at GBP0.29/KwH would be as follows.]

MS-01 Power Consumption

Just for the purposes of comparison – the M4 Mini I bought for my 24×7 automation stuff (Plex, backups etc.) averages about 5w at idle, and uses 65watts under full load.

M4 Mini Power Consumption

It’s a fairly decent difference isn’t it? Saying that, the M4 Mini can’t do all the x86 virtualisation that I need, but it’s still a reasonable comparison.

So what do we have at this point? Well, we have a small, powerful PC, with great networking, internal storage, and reasonable power consumption. There must be some downsides, right?

Well, so far, not too many. I do have some observations however. Firstly, noise. If these units are next to you, you will hear the fans. They seem to spin up even with the slightest of activity. They’re not particularly loud however you will hear them. They don’t bother me at all.

I also have a weird issue with the networking. Firstly, those two 10Gbe SFP+ ports. If I try use both of them they work for a little while but eventually I start to get problems with disconnections and the performance plummeting. If I had to guess, it’s because I’m using SFP+ to RJ45 connectors in there, and they’re getting heat soaked – so in effect, I can’t use both SFP+ 10Gbe connections at the same time. Not a huge issue given it also has two 2.5Gb ports.

Next is a weird one, and it sounds like a configuration bottle neck I’m hitting rather than an actual problem with the unit. With HyperV configured to use the 2.5Gbe interface only, and with management etc. on the 10Gbe port, I only get circa 2.5Gb performance not the 10Gbe port. In fact it’s so close to 2.5Gbe it makes me think this is a config issue. If I remove the HyperV configuration I get nearer the 10Gbpe. Something I’ll look into in the future I think, however it’s not that big a deal to me in reality.

2025-02-25 20:32:04: I’ve now resolved this – it wasn’t just suspiciously close to 2.5Gbps it was 2.5Gbps…but it was reporting as 10Gbps. Essentially I was using a cheap non-managed 10Gb/2.5Gb switch, and an SFP+ to RJ45 converter on the MS-01. I swapped the switch for a 10Gbps QNAP managed switch and what do I see… the port running at 2.5Gbps. Swapping out the SFP+ to RJ45 connector and just using a straight fibre connection I now not only have the 10Gbps connection, it’s also running a lot cooler. I’ll test both 10Gbps connections shortly and see if running them both is workable.

10Gbps File Copy

What am I running on it? Well, my longer term plan is to configure it as ProxMox unit, for now however it’s running Windows 11 and HyperV. Not a great combination, but good enough for something I’m working on. I mean look what it’s running right now:

HyperV

That’s not too shabby is it?

Oh while I remember, the unit also supports Intel vPro for remote management – this allows for remote control, including BIOS level KVM access. How cool is that? Very useful for when trying to manage the unit remotely, and far more like grown up server solutions. It’s pretty impressive.

Costs

Now on to the thorny issue of costs. These are not particularly cheap units. Let’s look at this build – although I did have the SSD kicking about already.

Lab Build

NOTE: For my US readers, the above costs include our sales tax (VAT) at 20%.

So the cost isn’t insignificant, but for the capability I think it’s a bargain?!

Support

Now, this is worth being aware of. I’ve seen a few horror stories about dealing direct with Minisforum, and if it was anything like my experience dealing with Geekom I’d be very nervous about buying direct. Buy from Amazon however and any problems you can make their problem, and their returns process is usually excellent.

What’s Coming

It’s also worth being aware of the Minisforum MS-A2 that’s due for release circa April 2025. This has an AMND Ryzen 9 9 9955HX Core/32 Thread processor in it which will be even faster than the i9-13900H, so perhaps it may be worth waiting for that?

Then again if you’re always waiting for what’s around the corner you’d always be waiting for what’s around the corner.

Summary

I’m very happy with this Minisforum unit. The connectivity is bonkers, its power consumption reasonable, and its performance is certainly good enough for my purposes as a virtualisation lab host. I’d go as far to say as I’d be happy to use it as my every day machine should needs be, it’s that capable. It’s a little pricey – certainly compared to the Geekom, but then so far it hasn’t decided to become a paperweight – and there’s some concern about direct support from Minisforum, but so far, everything has been rosey and I suspect I’ll end up buying another one.

February 14, 2025