Add to your order

  • Coverage for accidental damage including drops, spills, and broken parts, as well as breakdowns (plans vary)
  • 24/7 support when you need it.
  • Quick, easy, and frustration-free claims.
Cover this product:
3-Year Protection $33.99
4-Year Protection $44.99
Cover all of your eligible devices:
Asurion Complete Protect: One plan covers all eligible past and future purchases (Renews Monthly Until Cancelled) $16.99/month

Add to your order

  • Coverage for accidental damage including drops, spills, and broken parts, as well as breakdowns (plans vary)
  • 24/7 support when you need it.
  • Quick, easy, and frustration-free claims.
Cover this product:
$229.99
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, May 17. Order within 19 hrs 27 mins
In Stock
$$229.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$229.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Support
Product support included
What's Product Support?
In the event your product doesn't work as expected or you need help using it, Amazon offers free product support options such as live phone/chat with an Amazon associate, manufacturer contact information, step-by-step troubleshooting guides, and help videos. By solving product issues, we help the planet by extending the life of products. Availability of support options differ by product and country. Learn more
Support
Product support included
In the event your product doesn't work as expected or you need help using it, Amazon offers free product support options such as live phone/chat with an Amazon associate, manufacturer contact information, step-by-step troubleshooting guides, and help videos. By solving product issues, we help the planet by extending the life of products. Availability of support options differ by product and country. Learn more
Packaging
Ships in product packaging
black leaf Ships in product packaging

This item has been tested to certify it can ship safely in its original box or bag to avoid unnecessary packaging. Since 2015, we have reduced the weight of outbound packaging per shipment by 41% on average, that’s over 2 million tons of packaging material.

If you still require Amazon packaging for this item, choose "Ship in Amazon packaging" at checkout. Learn more
Packaging
black leaf Ships in product packaging

This item has been tested to certify it can ship safely in its original box or bag to avoid unnecessary packaging. Since 2015, we have reduced the weight of outbound packaging per shipment by 41% on average, that’s over 2 million tons of packaging material.

If you still require Amazon packaging for this item, choose "Ship in Amazon packaging" at checkout.
Learn more
Include
Add a Protection Plan:
Sorry, your monthly warranty plan was removed because these plans are currently only available for single-item orders.
Add to your order

3 Year Office Equipment Protection Plan

from Asurion, LLC
  • No Additional Cost: You pay nothing for repairs – parts, labor, and shipping included.
  • Coverage: Plan starts on the date of purchase. Malfunctions covered after the manufacturer's warranty. Power surges covered from day one. Real experts are available 24/7 to help with set-up, connectivity issues, troubleshooting and much more.
  • Easy Claims Process: File a claim anytime online or by phone. Most claims approved within minutes. If we can’t repair it, we’ll send you an Amazon e-gift card for the purchase price of your covered product or replace it.
  • Product Eligibility: Plan must be purchased with a product or within 30 days of the product purchase. Pre-existing conditions are not covered.
  • Terms & Details: More information about this protection plan is available within the “Product guides and documents” section. Simply click “User Guide” for more info. Terms & Conditions will be available in Your Orders on Amazon. Asurion will also email your plan confirmation with Terms & Conditions to the address associated with your Amazon account within 24 hours of purchase.

4 Year Office Equipment Protection Plan

from Asurion, LLC
  • No Additional Cost: You pay nothing for repairs – parts, labor, and shipping included.
  • Coverage: Plan starts on the date of purchase. Malfunctions covered after the manufacturer's warranty. Power surges covered from day one. Real experts are available 24/7 to help with set-up, connectivity issues, troubleshooting and much more.
  • Easy Claims Process: File a claim anytime online or by phone. Most claims approved within minutes. If we can’t repair it, we’ll send you an Amazon e-gift card for the purchase price of your covered product or replace it.
  • Product Eligibility: Plan must be purchased with a product or within 30 days of the product purchase. Pre-existing conditions are not covered.
  • Terms & Details: More information about this protection plan is available within the “Product guides and documents” section. Simply click “User Guide” for more info. Terms & Conditions will be available in Your Orders on Amazon. Asurion will also email your plan confirmation with Terms & Conditions to the address associated with your Amazon account within 24 hours of purchase.

Asurion Complete Protect: One plan covers all eligible past and future purchases on Amazon

from Asurion, LLC
  • Buy a lot of stuff on Amazon? Tons of items eligible for coverage, from the latest tech like laptops, game consoles, and TVs, to major appliances, sporting goods, tools, toys, mattresses, personal care, furniture, and more.
  • Accidents happen. That’s why for your portable products we cover accidental damage from handling such as drops, spills and cracked screens. We also cover electrical and mechanical malfunctions, power surges, and wear and tear.
  • Past and future purchases covered. 30 days after you are enrolled, all eligible past purchases (up to 1 year prior to enrollment) and future eligible purchases made on Amazon will be covered by your plan as long as you are enrolled.
  • Fast, easy claims. Frustration-free claims, with most filed in minutes. We will fix it, replace it, or reimburse you with an Amazon e-gift card for the purchase price of your product (excluding tax). File at Asurion.com/amazon.
  • No hidden fees. For just $16.99 a month + tax you’re covered for up to $5,000 in claims per 12-month period. *THIS PROGRAM IS MONTH-TO-MONTH AND WILL CONTINUE UNTIL CANCELED* Coverage for all products ends 30 days after the plan is canceled. Cancel any time.
Add an Accessory:
$239.88
Added to Cart
$69.99
Added to Cart

ZimaBoard 832 Single Board Server Router X86 Single Board Computer Personal Cloud Network Attached Storage 4K Media Server Dual Gigabit Gateway - PCIe x4 SATA 6.0 Gb/s for HDD/SSD

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 218 ratings
Amazon's Choice highlights highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately.
Amazon's Choice in Computer Servers by zimaboard

$229.99
FREE Returns
Coupon:  
Zimaboard 832 8g/32g
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$229.99","priceAmount":229.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"229","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"fZzNGTQ7%2Fqn%2B8f%2ByGSdLYHFQH4TquoahqFssVYKb%2FkCzYtVettxWzIvJY1kYPpTB%2FBqN9xeuTi258O3a%2BF7gN%2B528yKLZ9KuuZaLgC46J5S9KoA7kYY6L%2BxFv0CXwarweqwavjszjtBVKXhdWoD5A0yOuQTxTnHZQE5bXZhkxqED6l4v4yFplCL42663jC%2Fu","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Brand zimaboard
Model Name zimaboard832k
Special Feature single board server, 4k media server
Frequency Band Class Dual-Band
Wireless Communication Standard 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Compatible Devices mini computer
Frequency 2.2 GHz
Included Components 8G/32G 832 Single Board Server, SATA Cable, 12V/3A Power Adapter
Connectivity Technology Ethernet

About this item

  • World's First Hackable x86 Single Board Server - ZimaBoard is a low-cost single board server exclusively designed for makers, DIYers and geeks. Equipped with Intel Celeron N3450 Quad Core operating at 1.1GHz to 2.2GHz, it has both the expandability of an x86 single-board computer, and the appropriate power of a micro server, perfect for edge intelligence and smart home projects.
  • PCIe x4, SATA 6.0 Gb/s & Dual Gigabit Ethernet Onboard - Fully customizable and expandable with onboard interfaces, PCIe x4 interface caters to a variety of user needs. Also, with a large number of PCIe accessories available in the market, you can easily extend your ZimaBoard setup with 2.5Gbe, NVMe NGFF SSD, WIFI dongle, XMOS/DAC module, and many more!
  • Personal NAS, 4K Streaming Server, VPN Router & IoT Gateway - With ZimaBoard, you can setup a 4 Terabyte personal cloud in 5 minutes and no more monthly bills, configure a secure VPN to protect your digital footprint, tune your network with OpenWrt and , build a 4K media server that runs with Plex, share and collaborate with team members on your files, or upgrade your smart projects across different systems.
  • Pre-installed CasaOS - A simple & elegant home cloud around Docker ecosystem, changing the way families view modern living. From photo and video storage to smart home device management, and encrypted communications, CasaOS is the one-stop ideal home cloud system to keep families safe and protected in the digital age. And zimaboard also compatible with OS like Linux(default)/ Windows / OpenWrt / / Android / Libreelec.
  • Package Includes:1x ZimaBoard 832, 1x SATA Cable, 1x 12V/3A Power Adapter; Any questions, please email us by click the "zimaboard" or contact us with zimaboard offical site,We are always ready to ​listen to you.
Make it a bundle
We found 7 bundles with this item:
ZimaBoard 832 Single Board Server Router X86 Single Board Computer Personal Cloud Network Attached Storage 4K Media Server Dual Gigabit Gateway - PCIe x4 SATA 6.0 Gb/s for HDD/SSD

Frequently bought together

$229.99
Get it as soon as Friday, May 17
In Stock
Sold by IceWhale Technology Limited and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
$9.90
Get it as soon as Friday, May 17
In Stock
Sold by IceWhale Technology Limited and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
$12.99
Get it as soon as Friday, May 17
In Stock
Sold by IceWhale Technology Limited and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Important information

On-mode power consumption

6 watts

Looking for specific info?

Product information

Warranty & Support

Product Warranty: For warranty information about this product, please click here

Feedback

ZimaBoard 832 Single Board Server Router X86 Single Board Computer Personal Cloud Network Attached Storage 4K Media Server Dual Gigabit Gateway - PCIe x4 SATA 6.0 Gb/s for HDD/SSD

ZimaBoard 832 Single Board Server Router X86 Single Board Computer Personal Cloud Network Attached Storage 4K Media Server Dual Gigabit Gateway - PCIe x4 SATA 6.0 Gb/s for HDD/SSD


Found a lower price? Let us know. Although we can't match every price reported, we'll use your feedback to ensure that our prices remain competitive.

Where did you see a lower price?

Fields with an asterisk * are required

/
/
/
/
Please sign in to provide feedback.

What's in the box

  • 8G/32G 832 Single Board Server
  • 12V/3A Power Adapter
  • SATA Cable
  • Product guides and documents


    From the brand


    Product Description

    zimaboard server

    What is ZimaBoard ?

    Single Board Server for Creators

    ZimaBoard is a low-cost single board server exclusively designed for makers and geeks. It has both the expandability of an x86 single-board computer (SBC), and the appropriate power of a micro server.

    zimaboard sbc with pcie

    PCIe x4 Onboard - Fully Customizable and Expandable

    Expandability is the core of ZimaBoard's design concept.

    It packs with an onboard PCIe x4 interface as PCIe is the major physical interface that caters to a variety of user needs. Also, with a large number of PCIe accessories available in the market, you can easily extend your ZimaBoard setup with 2.5Gbe, NVMe NGFF SSD, WIFI dongle, XMOS/DAC module, and many more!

    zimaboard works

    Personal Cloud

    • Up to 36TB Storage Space
    • 100MB/sec Write Speed
    • 0 Recurring Fee

    ZimaBoard allows you to easily expand to 36TB disk space (2 x SATA) as your data grows. Enjoy fast reading and writing experience just like your local hard disk when connected via gigabit network.

    zimaboard works

    Personal Cloud

    soft ware router

    Software Router

    zimaboard media server

    Plex Media Server

    zimaboard personal clound

    File Share & Collaboration

    zimaboard parts
    casaos

    ZimaBoard FAQ’s

    Q:Does the power supply support 110v?

    No. We recommend that you use the official 12V/3A power adapter for ZimaBoard.

    Q:Does ZimaBoard support a single 8T hard drive??

    ZimaBoard can be expanded to 36TB HDD (2x18TB) via two SATA ports onboard. Please note that external power supply for 3.5inch HDDs will be needed as power supply from the ZimaBoard could be insufficient

    Q:Does SSH need to go into the server and open the port itself?

    SSH is opened by default

    zimaboard 832 Sata PCIe 5 Port PCIe to NVME PCIe 2.5G AX260 wifi
    ZimaBoard 832 Kit PCIe to 5 Port SATA III Adapter PCIe to NVMe SSD Adapter PCIe to Dual Port 2.5G Ethernet Adapter AX210 WiFi 6E PCIe Card
    Customer Reviews
    4.3 out of 5 stars
    218
    4.8 out of 5 stars
    7
    4.5 out of 5 stars
    31
    3.9 out of 5 stars
    3
    Price $42.99 $12.99
    Use for Single Board Home Server SATA Adapter NVME Adapter Ether Adapter Wifi Adapter

    Customer reviews

    4.3 out of 5 stars
    4.3 out of 5
    218 global ratings

    Customers say

    Customers like the quality, ease of use, and value of the networking router. They mention that it's well made, allows for fast and easy file sharing, and is a good single board PC for server. That said, some complain about the power. Opinions are mixed on performance.

    AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

    6 customers mention6 positive0 negative

    Customers are satisfied with the quality of the networking router. They mention that it is well-made, solid, and has stayed up without a hitch. Some say that it would be a great single board PC for a server. Overall, most are happy with the product's quality.

    "...It has a bigger footprint than the RasPi, but it's still tiny. Quality is far nicer than I expected at this price point, and it feels heavy and solid..." Read more

    "...I do really like it for my application and it's much nicer construction quality than other cheap Mini PCs...." Read more

    "It’s a good single board PC for how server but I think they should include 2.5G instead of 1G ports since people are going to use it mostly for..." Read more

    "Pretty good quality well made, nice design a little bit expensive; the device was bought to be used as a firewall, pfsense was installed and work..." Read more

    3 customers mention3 positive0 negative

    Customers find the networking router easy to use. They mention that it runs amd64 architecture and allows for fast and easy file sharing across both machines on a private network.

    "...It seems snappy, and my benchmarking confirms it: The ZimaBoard is much faster, and it runs amd64 architecture which is nice...." Read more

    "...The NIC is fast enough to stream 1080p media to another device for decoding, but it can't keep up the video decoding itself (missing audio aside)...." Read more

    "Great unit to slow" Read more

    3 customers mention3 positive0 negative

    Customers are satisfied with the value of the networking router. They mention that it is a good bang for the buck, and is cheaper than RPi. Some appreciate the nice design, but find the device a little bit expensive.

    "...Very good bang for the buck and am very happy with it, even though i did end up getting rid of the stock operating system in favor of pure debian." Read more

    "...They're cheaper than RPi and far more useful.I wish I'd tried one sooner." Read more

    "Pretty good quality well made, nice design a little bit expensive; the device was bought to be used as a firewall, pfsense was installed and work..." Read more

    6 customers mention4 positive2 negative

    Customers are mixed about the performance of the router. Some mention that it works well, is very silent, and has a remote desktop that works extremely well. They say it runs non-stop without a single issue. However, others say that it crashing over and over and gets into a weird state.

    "...Turns out, the ZimaBoard is as rugged as it looks, and the passive heatsink does its job, even in the heat." Read more

    "...a small switch, they've been running for a few months now non-stop without a single issue. I even forget they're even there since it's so quiet...." Read more

    "...They're cheaper than RPi and far more useful.I wish I'd tried one sooner." Read more

    "...2. Sometimes Zima gets into a weird state and will not power on. Plugging in the power cable makes the power light flash once and turn off...." Read more

    5 customers mention0 positive5 negative

    Customers are dissatisfied with the power of the router. They say it's underpowered, weak for serious projects, and too expensive for simple projects. Some say the storage is not reliable and started failing after a month.

    "...The bulk of tech support is through Discord only and it's very poor, plus no solutions are saved or browsable for future use given the fleeing..." Read more

    "Too weak for serious projects, and too expensive for simple projects." Read more

    "...wanted to like this little device, but in the end it simply isn't very good for my needs...." Read more

    "The onboard storage is not reliable, started failing after a month...." Read more

    An interesting idea with a lot of flaws.
    3 Stars
    An interesting idea with a lot of flaws.
    The ZimaBoard is a x86 PC in a very small form factor. It comes with "CasaOS" installed but you can just as easily attach a external SSD and install Windows 10 or Ubuntu (Linux) with no problems. For those OSes I would strongly recommend getting the 8GB RAM model, they both work with 4GB but there isn't much free RAM left. Ubuntu is noticeably snappier than Windows 10 with 4GB.There's a couple of important issues to know about using the ZimaBoard in a Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) environment, though some of these points are common to any OS:1. Wake on LAN is not supported. This is because the ZimaBoard uses the aging and buggy Realtek RTL8168 chip. Windows 10 will only let you install the Realtek "rt640x64.sys" driver from 2015 that does not support Wake on LAN and no combination of any system setting or registry hacking will disable the automatic driver installation. This behavior overrides Realtek's driver installer too, so that won't work. There's no way to use modern Realtek NIC drivers, period. Maybe on Ubuntu it's better but I didn't try further.2. Sometimes Zima gets into a weird state and will not power on. Plugging in the power cable makes the power light flash once and turn off. To fix this you have to disassemble the case and unplug the CMOS battery which is thankfully socketed, then power it up. I've observed this happens the most when any kind of sleep or hibernation feature turns on. If you didn't know this, you'd just think it was dead and return it as junk. Be sure to disable all sleep, hibernation, and power saving OS options to avoid this.3. Because both wake on LAN and sleep/hibernation are broken the ZimaBoard can never operate in a low power mode. You can experiment with throttling controls (easier to do in Ubuntu) to try to make it as slow as possible but the power savings don't come close to supporting real sleep/hibernation. Consider the ZimaBoard to be an always-on PC and budget electricity and heat for it accordingly (the heatsink does get quite warm when active, when idle it's warm to the touch but not overly so).4. Out of the box both CasaOS and Windows 10 assume hibernation works which means your device will turn off after 30 minutes and never turn on again until you cycle the power and/or the CMOS battery connection. It's a big "gotcha" for new users that is very poorly documented by the ZimaBoard makers.5. ZimaBoard is billed as "hackable" but is NOT open source. There are no schematics available, no documentation that I could find for any of the connectors, no listing of the components used unless you want to physically take it apart and look at all the chips. The documentation that is available is very poor, sparse, and only focuses on the most superficial applications like media streaming.6. There is no internal sound device and no audio output over the mini Display Port connector. It has a "Intel Apollo Lake SoC - High Definition Audio Controller" peripheral but doesn't expose any output device for applications to use. You'll have to add a USB or PCIe sound device and connect it externally through an analog output. There's also no built-in Wi-Fi or bluetooth. So budget the two USB ports carefully.Now despite all that it worked for my application; I connected the two Ethernet ports directly to two different Windows 10 computers and use the ZimaBoard to share a 500GB SSD to both devices, mapped as a network drive. This allows for fast and easy file sharing across both machines on a private network that isn't online. In addition Remote Desktop works extremely well so you can administer the system with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached. I'm really pleased that it met this specific need so perfectly. Not happy about the lack of sleep/hibernation though.The ZimaBoard concept is cool, and they have an almost-good idea. It needs a substantially better NIC chipset, more documentation, and needs to feel less like a Kickstarter project that died after they shipped the product. The bulk of tech support is through Discord only and it's very poor, plus no solutions are saved or browsable for future use given the fleeing nature of Discord. It took a lot of searching to find information that they should just be throwing on to a wiki somewhere.The NIC is fast enough to stream 1080p media to another device for decoding, but it can't keep up the video decoding itself (missing audio aside). Likewise it performs well when the desktop is in 1080p but lags considerably when in 4K.I can't really recommend the ZimaBoard unless your use case is very similar to mine and you don't mind the caveats I described. I do really like it for my application and it's much nicer construction quality than other cheap Mini PCs. It has a lot of potential as a NAS or other network device.Included are screenshots of system info from CPU-Z and HWINFO so you can see the system specs.
    Thank you for your feedback
    Sorry, there was an error
    Sorry we couldn't load the review

    Top reviews from the United States

    Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I bought the ZimaBoard as a small server for my barn which lacks heating and air conditioning. The ZimaBoard's big heatsink looks perfect, and removes the possibility of a fan failing in the harsh environment. It hasn't faced summertime heat yet, but it runs cool so far. I'll update this review if something goes wrong when the hot weather arrives.

    It seems like the ZimaBoard would be comparable to the Raspberry Pi 4, but as much as I love the RasPi and the company's mission, the ZimaBoard is really in a different league. It seems snappy, and my benchmarking confirms it: The ZimaBoard is much faster, and it runs amd64 architecture which is nice. It has a bigger footprint than the RasPi, but it's still tiny. Quality is far nicer than I expected at this price point, and it feels heavy and solid. So far so good. It appears that this will be a great little headless server, and might even have enough grunt for desktop use.

    UPDATE 07/23/2023:
    It's summertime and my ZimaBoard has stayed up without a hitch, even in an environment without air conditioning. This week I moved 7TB of data through it with rsync, which caused a continuous load of about 35% CPU usage for 24 hours, and it handled the task, no problem. And this was during a heat wave with 100°F (~38°C) daytime temps. Once the CPU nears 50°C it throttles down, keeping temps in check, and without much performance hit in my case. Turns out, the ZimaBoard is as rugged as it looks, and the passive heatsink does its job, even in the heat.
    Customer image
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very Capable Little Computer
    Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2023
    I bought the ZimaBoard as a small server for my barn which lacks heating and air conditioning. The ZimaBoard's big heatsink looks perfect, and removes the possibility of a fan failing in the harsh environment. It hasn't faced summertime heat yet, but it runs cool so far. I'll update this review if something goes wrong when the hot weather arrives.

    It seems like the ZimaBoard would be comparable to the Raspberry Pi 4, but as much as I love the RasPi and the company's mission, the ZimaBoard is really in a different league. It seems snappy, and my benchmarking confirms it: The ZimaBoard is much faster, and it runs amd64 architecture which is nice. It has a bigger footprint than the RasPi, but it's still tiny. Quality is far nicer than I expected at this price point, and it feels heavy and solid. So far so good. It appears that this will be a great little headless server, and might even have enough grunt for desktop use.

    UPDATE 07/23/2023:
    It's summertime and my ZimaBoard has stayed up without a hitch, even in an environment without air conditioning. This week I moved 7TB of data through it with rsync, which caused a continuous load of about 35% CPU usage for 24 hours, and it handled the task, no problem. And this was during a heat wave with 100°F (~38°C) daytime temps. Once the CPU nears 50°C it throttles down, keeping temps in check, and without much performance hit in my case. Turns out, the ZimaBoard is as rugged as it looks, and the passive heatsink does its job, even in the heat.
    Images in this review
    Customer image Customer image
    Customer imageCustomer image
    42 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I have no issues with the product, or using the zima board. It was easy and exactly what I wanted.

    I can't find a way to message the shipper but this was sent in an unsealed box. The label put on the outside but not taped. I am grateful it arrived safely but anyone could have just opened it and took anything out of the box. There is zero sealing on it. I am just asking to please put 1 piece of tape on the opening.
    3 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2024
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I turned this into an 8tb storage server that is now running 3 vm's and 4 containers and is an absolute beast on my tiny home network. Very good bang for the buck and am very happy with it, even though i did end up getting rid of the stock operating system in favor of pure debian.
    One person found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I ordered a few of these and velcroed them to the back of my monitor with a small switch, they've been running for a few months now non-stop without a single issue. I even forget they're even there since it's so quiet.
    2 or 3 of these can run Windows Server 2019 or Server 2022 as ADDC/DNS for a small company. I load-tested 2 of them running Windows 2019 with 400 users hitting the Zimaboard simulating logins and they didn't break a sweat, CPU usage hovered around 30% on the primary and 22% on the second. No heat issues. Highly recommended
    5 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 432 4g/32gVerified Purchase
    The ZimaBoard is a x86 PC in a very small form factor. It comes with "CasaOS" installed but you can just as easily attach a external SSD and install Windows 10 or Ubuntu (Linux) with no problems. For those OSes I would strongly recommend getting the 8GB RAM model, they both work with 4GB but there isn't much free RAM left. Ubuntu is noticeably snappier than Windows 10 with 4GB.

    There's a couple of important issues to know about using the ZimaBoard in a Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) environment, though some of these points are common to any OS:

    1. Wake on LAN is not supported. This is because the ZimaBoard uses the aging and buggy Realtek RTL8168 chip. Windows 10 will only let you install the Realtek "rt640x64.sys" driver from 2015 that does not support Wake on LAN and no combination of any system setting or registry hacking will disable the automatic driver installation. This behavior overrides Realtek's driver installer too, so that won't work. There's no way to use modern Realtek NIC drivers, period. Maybe on Ubuntu it's better but I didn't try further.

    2. Sometimes Zima gets into a weird state and will not power on. Plugging in the power cable makes the power light flash once and turn off. To fix this you have to disassemble the case and unplug the CMOS battery which is thankfully socketed, then power it up. I've observed this happens the most when any kind of sleep or hibernation feature turns on. If you didn't know this, you'd just think it was dead and return it as junk. Be sure to disable all sleep, hibernation, and power saving OS options to avoid this.

    3. Because both wake on LAN and sleep/hibernation are broken the ZimaBoard can never operate in a low power mode. You can experiment with throttling controls (easier to do in Ubuntu) to try to make it as slow as possible but the power savings don't come close to supporting real sleep/hibernation. Consider the ZimaBoard to be an always-on PC and budget electricity and heat for it accordingly (the heatsink does get quite warm when active, when idle it's warm to the touch but not overly so).

    4. Out of the box both CasaOS and Windows 10 assume hibernation works which means your device will turn off after 30 minutes and never turn on again until you cycle the power and/or the CMOS battery connection. It's a big "gotcha" for new users that is very poorly documented by the ZimaBoard makers.

    5. ZimaBoard is billed as "hackable" but is NOT open source. There are no schematics available, no documentation that I could find for any of the connectors, no listing of the components used unless you want to physically take it apart and look at all the chips. The documentation that is available is very poor, sparse, and only focuses on the most superficial applications like media streaming.

    6. There is no internal sound device and no audio output over the mini Display Port connector. It has a "Intel Apollo Lake SoC - High Definition Audio Controller" peripheral but doesn't expose any output device for applications to use. You'll have to add a USB or PCIe sound device and connect it externally through an analog output. There's also no built-in Wi-Fi or bluetooth. So budget the two USB ports carefully.

    Now despite all that it worked for my application; I connected the two Ethernet ports directly to two different Windows 10 computers and use the ZimaBoard to share a 500GB SSD to both devices, mapped as a network drive. This allows for fast and easy file sharing across both machines on a private network that isn't online. In addition Remote Desktop works extremely well so you can administer the system with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached. I'm really pleased that it met this specific need so perfectly. Not happy about the lack of sleep/hibernation though.

    The ZimaBoard concept is cool, and they have an almost-good idea. It needs a substantially better NIC chipset, more documentation, and needs to feel less like a Kickstarter project that died after they shipped the product. The bulk of tech support is through Discord only and it's very poor, plus no solutions are saved or browsable for future use given the fleeing nature of Discord. It took a lot of searching to find information that they should just be throwing on to a wiki somewhere.

    The NIC is fast enough to stream 1080p media to another device for decoding, but it can't keep up the video decoding itself (missing audio aside). Likewise it performs well when the desktop is in 1080p but lags considerably when in 4K.

    I can't really recommend the ZimaBoard unless your use case is very similar to mine and you don't mind the caveats I described. I do really like it for my application and it's much nicer construction quality than other cheap Mini PCs. It has a lot of potential as a NAS or other network device.

    Included are screenshots of system info from CPU-Z and HWINFO so you can see the system specs.
    Customer image
    3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting idea with a lot of flaws.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2023
    The ZimaBoard is a x86 PC in a very small form factor. It comes with "CasaOS" installed but you can just as easily attach a external SSD and install Windows 10 or Ubuntu (Linux) with no problems. For those OSes I would strongly recommend getting the 8GB RAM model, they both work with 4GB but there isn't much free RAM left. Ubuntu is noticeably snappier than Windows 10 with 4GB.

    There's a couple of important issues to know about using the ZimaBoard in a Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) environment, though some of these points are common to any OS:

    1. Wake on LAN is not supported. This is because the ZimaBoard uses the aging and buggy Realtek RTL8168 chip. Windows 10 will only let you install the Realtek "rt640x64.sys" driver from 2015 that does not support Wake on LAN and no combination of any system setting or registry hacking will disable the automatic driver installation. This behavior overrides Realtek's driver installer too, so that won't work. There's no way to use modern Realtek NIC drivers, period. Maybe on Ubuntu it's better but I didn't try further.

    2. Sometimes Zima gets into a weird state and will not power on. Plugging in the power cable makes the power light flash once and turn off. To fix this you have to disassemble the case and unplug the CMOS battery which is thankfully socketed, then power it up. I've observed this happens the most when any kind of sleep or hibernation feature turns on. If you didn't know this, you'd just think it was dead and return it as junk. Be sure to disable all sleep, hibernation, and power saving OS options to avoid this.

    3. Because both wake on LAN and sleep/hibernation are broken the ZimaBoard can never operate in a low power mode. You can experiment with throttling controls (easier to do in Ubuntu) to try to make it as slow as possible but the power savings don't come close to supporting real sleep/hibernation. Consider the ZimaBoard to be an always-on PC and budget electricity and heat for it accordingly (the heatsink does get quite warm when active, when idle it's warm to the touch but not overly so).

    4. Out of the box both CasaOS and Windows 10 assume hibernation works which means your device will turn off after 30 minutes and never turn on again until you cycle the power and/or the CMOS battery connection. It's a big "gotcha" for new users that is very poorly documented by the ZimaBoard makers.

    5. ZimaBoard is billed as "hackable" but is NOT open source. There are no schematics available, no documentation that I could find for any of the connectors, no listing of the components used unless you want to physically take it apart and look at all the chips. The documentation that is available is very poor, sparse, and only focuses on the most superficial applications like media streaming.

    6. There is no internal sound device and no audio output over the mini Display Port connector. It has a "Intel Apollo Lake SoC - High Definition Audio Controller" peripheral but doesn't expose any output device for applications to use. You'll have to add a USB or PCIe sound device and connect it externally through an analog output. There's also no built-in Wi-Fi or bluetooth. So budget the two USB ports carefully.

    Now despite all that it worked for my application; I connected the two Ethernet ports directly to two different Windows 10 computers and use the ZimaBoard to share a 500GB SSD to both devices, mapped as a network drive. This allows for fast and easy file sharing across both machines on a private network that isn't online. In addition Remote Desktop works extremely well so you can administer the system with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached. I'm really pleased that it met this specific need so perfectly. Not happy about the lack of sleep/hibernation though.

    The ZimaBoard concept is cool, and they have an almost-good idea. It needs a substantially better NIC chipset, more documentation, and needs to feel less like a Kickstarter project that died after they shipped the product. The bulk of tech support is through Discord only and it's very poor, plus no solutions are saved or browsable for future use given the fleeing nature of Discord. It took a lot of searching to find information that they should just be throwing on to a wiki somewhere.

    The NIC is fast enough to stream 1080p media to another device for decoding, but it can't keep up the video decoding itself (missing audio aside). Likewise it performs well when the desktop is in 1080p but lags considerably when in 4K.

    I can't really recommend the ZimaBoard unless your use case is very similar to mine and you don't mind the caveats I described. I do really like it for my application and it's much nicer construction quality than other cheap Mini PCs. It has a lot of potential as a NAS or other network device.

    Included are screenshots of system info from CPU-Z and HWINFO so you can see the system specs.
    Images in this review
    Customer image Customer image
    Customer imageCustomer image
    184 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I was going to use this for opnsense firewall along with a dual port intel Ethernet (I trust what people say about nonintel nics for firewalls) but I found it too nice. Someone else in their review noted that if these go into sleep mode you need to open them up and remove the cmos battery and put it back like back in the 1980s, it's good to know not a deal breaker for me ymmv. Anyway I'm keeping one with the built-in os and ordered another for opnsense.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    It’s a good single board PC for how server but I think they should include 2.5G instead of 1G ports since people are going to use it mostly for things such as NAS server or firewall. 1G is so outdated and if you really want to take advantage of the PCIE, getting NVME is your best option, and now days Nvmes can write and read up to 7000Mbps which makes 1G speed just useless.
    9 people found this helpful
    Report
    Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    I'd been hearing a lot about this single-board computer and when a need arose, I bought one.

    Up until now, I've been buying NUC devices for the home lab, but I have to seriously rethink that once I tried this computer.

    They're cheaper than RPi and far more useful.

    I wish I'd tried one sooner.
    One person found this helpful
    Report

    Top reviews from other countries

    Translate all reviews to English
    david mongrain
    5.0 out of 5 stars simplement parfait
    Reviewed in Canada on April 18, 2024
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    stable et ne consomme pratiquement pas d’électricité, on peu l’utiliser pour pratiquement tout.
    Alessandro
    5.0 out of 5 stars Se vuoi farti il tuo cloud privato...
    Reviewed in Italy on January 3, 2024
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    ...questa zima board te lo permette!
    Installando proxmox e se hai una solida conoscenza linux, puoi crearti la tua infrastruttura aziendale in casa e forse anche piu efficiente della maggior parte delle infrastrutture aziendali italiane!
    5 people found this helpful
    Report
    Client d'Amazon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simplicite
    Reviewed in France on October 12, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 432 4g/32gVerified Purchase
    La configuration est vraiment simple. Ce serveur est performant et ne chauffe pas. Idéal pour un serveur plex, NAS etc…
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
    Daniel Tremmel
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great board - just don‘t buy it on Amazon
    Reviewed in Germany on July 29, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVerified Purchase
    Really great board with good performance for this size and prize. The only downside: just don‘t buy it on Amazon, the same piece is almost 100USD/EUR cheaper when you buy it directly at the vendor!
    10 people found this helpful
    Report
    Sam Bossert
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great choice for a home server
    Reviewed in Canada on March 20, 2023
    Color: Zimaboard 832 8g/32gVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
    Recently I went down the rabbit hole looking for a feature rich SBC to use as a home media server (Jellyfin). And with the shortage of Raspberry pi's i decided to give this ZimaBoard a try.

    I like that its packaged in a housing already with passive cooling through large fins. The board has a PCIe slot, 2 sata ports and 2 USB ports for expansion and storage. The board also has 2 ethernet ports, So perfect for making your own router. Low TDP means no real impact on your power bill

    CasaOS is pretty easy to use. Most of the common applications are easy to download right from the included app store. You can dive into terminal and get real advanced into everything. I dont care for linux all that much so im gonna try installing windows are some point, Which you can because its a intel x86 processor and not a ARM like all the various pi's
    One person found this helpful
    Report