MINISFORUM MS-01 Workstation Core i9-13900H Mini PC Barebone Version Without RAM, SSD and OS, 2xUSB4 1xHDMI Display, 2x2.5G LAN Port, 3X SSD Slot, 2x10G SFP+ Port, Support Discrete Graphics Cards

My personal laptop died in late November of 2024 so I decided to replace it with the MS-01. I ordered the Core i9-13900H (32+1T) but in reflection should have ordered the Core i9-13900H (0+0) because I used the 1T NVMe from my dead laptop and ordered the 96GB upgrade kit (Crucial RAM 96GB Kit (2x48GB) DDR5 5600MHz (or 5200MHz or 4800MHz) Laptop Memory CT2K48G56C46S5) which will arrive after this review. To begin the packaging this comes in is very nice and the padding is almost 2 inches thick making it very ship worthy. Access to the BIOS which is very clean and easy to use is accessed by hitting the DEL key when the Minis Forum logo appears. This unit recognized and booted effortlessly from the NVMe that was in my laptop. I examined the boot drive that came with my MS-01 and all drivers were loaded but downloading the Windows 11 drivers from the Minis Forums sites is a bit challenging but once you find the drivers they are all in one RAR file. The MS-01 is very quiet, sleeps well and wakes up easily. Under heavy load the fan is noticeable but not to the point of being obnoxious. I purchased this primarily for the dual NIC cards and the (3) NVMe slots as well as the (2) Type C ports and once the drivers are installed, they work flawlessly. The build in GPU is running a pair of LG Ultrawide monitors at 2560x1080 each and while the resolution is not quite as crisp as I hoped, it is still very clear and I suspect higher quality type C cables may help this. Screwless entry to open the case is great but there is one design flaw that I have found. One cannot access the button that opens the case with the CAT5e cables in place and one cannot access the locking clips that hold the CAT5e cables in place due to the case design. To remove the CAT5e cables one must use a tiny screwdriver to press down on the locking clips. I spent a few hours researching GPU’s that would fit in this case and the options are few, especially of you are not comfortable tearing down a GPU and installing a custom GPU Cooler. Overall I am very impressed with the unit.

The MS-01 is a great, full features solution for running Proxmox. It small, quiet, has plenty of CPU power and connectivity. The PCIe slot is a little awkward to deal with, but that is really nit-picking. Super happy with the purchase.

I have two of these in a proxmox cluster. I added 64 GB of RAM and a 4TB NVME and smaller NVME for the boot drive. Both SFP+ ports are being used one for VMs and one for NFS storage. Connectivity and stability have been rock solid. VMs are very snappy most Linux based and the system has been up 24x7 since I got them and no issues. Run cool with current workload. They are running a nine node K8S cluster. I plan to add a third unit for full high availability and then the K8S cluster will be evenly distributed across the machines. I also have a few other VMs that are running on them too. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to setup a home lab and minimize their power bill.

The build quality of this mini-pc is great. It is very powerful to support 96G DDR5 memory and 4 M.2 SSD in addition to 2x 2.5G port and 2x 10G ports. This could be used as a proxmox node to host RKE2. The only issue might be heating but vendor confirmed that it is not to be worries about.

I've been using this system for about a month now, and I'm really pleased with its performance. It replaced an older tower-case system as my main workstation. Once it's up and running, the system operates smoothly and handles demanding tasks without a hitch. I decided to max out the RAM and install fast SSDs, which has given the machine an impressive boost. While I opted not to use a dedicated graphics card—resulting in slightly lower benchmark scores—the unit still dominates in everyday performance.The setup process was generally straightforward. The most challenging part was realigning the fans on the underside after installing the SSDs—a task that required a bit of patience but was ultimately manageable. I did run into an issue early on, having to return my first batch of SSDs because their attached heatsinks prevented a proper fit. Fortunately, I found a suitable alternative without those extra components.One minor caveat involves a switch on the mainboard that needs to be set correctly depending on whether NVMe SSDs are being used. The English instructions in the online manual weren't very clear on this point, which led to a bit of confusion at first. Once I figured out the correct setting, everything fell into place.

I purchased one of these direct back in January- was noted they would not ship till mid feb. Mid feb comes and goes- tried to contact them at the end of Feb to ask what was going on with shipping. Sat waiting for any response in their chat cue for over an hour and never reached anyone. Emailed them several times to cancel this mess and finally they did so. DO NOT recommend you ever try to get support as it seems very difficult to do so. As I needed this unit for critical backups I ordered directly from Amazon as it would ship immediately while their direct buy was cheaper at least Amazon had them in stock and it was worth the extra cost to get it in less than a week.Overall the unit is exactly what I needed and works as specified. Users note that the heat compound needs to be changed as it is not good on the cpu- and overall the build quality is decent. As for longevity? no idea but it is great for fast data transvers between M.2 drives and is excellent for my backup consolidation needs. Will to transfer test real world tests with it when I am done and will keep it even though any kind of warranty will be like pulling teeth ass it probably would be through China - you ship it back and hope kind of garbage. YMMV but it works and does what it is supposed to for now. Support is terrible don't expect any.