**A Closer Look at the Zima Board: A Cost-Effective Home Cloud Server**
As we take a closer look at the Zima board, it's clear that this single-board computer is designed with affordability and flexibility in mind. The creators wanted to make a home cloud server that wouldn't break the bank, and from our initial experience, they've certainly succeeded.
**Setting Up the Zima Board**
One of the first things we noticed when setting up the Zima board was how easy it was to install Steam and run games on it. We installed the 1650 graphics card, which provided a significant boost in performance, but even with this upgrade, we were still held back by the CPU's limitations. However, overall, the system is snappy and impressive for its price.
We also found that accessing the Zima board remotely from another PC was incredibly easy. We simply opened up a browser, typed in our IP address (as long as we were on the same network), and voilà! We had access to the entire system's interface. This feature is perfect for those who want to be able to check on their server from anywhere.
**The Zima Board Interface**
The interface itself is where the Zima board truly shines. The user-friendly design makes it easy to navigate, with clear labels and intuitive controls. We were impressed by the speed of this system, which not only read at 159 megabytes per second (using the built-in eMMC storage) but also handled writes at an impressive rate when connected to a 2.5-inch SSD. And when we upgraded to an M.2 SSD using a PCIe adapter, the results were even more astonishing.
With the Zima board's ability to handle multiple drives and connections, users can easily expand their storage options or connect additional hardware components like GPUs. The system is also designed with remote access in mind, making it easy for users to manage their server from anywhere.
**Power Consumption**
One of the most impressive aspects of the Zima board is its power consumption. With a 35W power supply, this system not only meets but exceeds expectations when it comes to efficiency. At idle, the system pulls just 4 watts from the wall – an astonishing feat for a single-board computer that can handle multiple drives and connections.
However, we did notice that as we transferred data between connected drives over Network, the system's power consumption increased to around 13-16 watts. This is still relatively low compared to other single-board computers on the market.
**Conclusion**
The Zima board may not be the most powerful single-board computer out there, but it's certainly a cost-effective option for those looking for a home cloud server. With its ease of use, flexibility in expansion options, and impressive power consumption, this system has earned a spot in our hearts. We'd love to spend more time with the Zima board to see what other capabilities it holds, so we'll be keeping an eye on future developments.
**What's Next?**
As we wrap up our initial look at the Zima board, we want to hear from you! What do you think of this system? Are there any features or applications you'd like to see tested or developed for this platform? Let us know in the comments below. We'll be back with more updates and insights into the world of the Zima board.
**Additional Resources**
For those interested in learning more about the Zima Board, we've included some links to the official website, as well as Casa OS and Amazon, where you can pick up this system for yourself.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign TTA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at the zema board now this has actually been on the market for a while and I've had my eye on it and of course when we think about single board computers the first thing that comes to mind is the Raspberry Pi and of course it's a great arm-based singleboard Computer stock has been going up a little bit so it might be a little easier to get your hands on but if you're looking for a little bit of a change in something with a bit more power then the zimbabboard might be for you so when it comes to the zema board this is an x86 SBC they're advertising it as a personal cloud single board computer you can set it up as a software router you could even use it as a desktop and overall everything that I've seen so far looks very very promising now personally I do like the design they've come up with we've got an aluminum heatsink on the top so we don't need to worry about active Cooling and when it comes to IO you can expand on this greatly because we've actually got a pcie slot over here and yeah this will work with a GPU it's got two SATA ports on the bottom two USB 3.0 no ports dual gigabit Ethernet and you can pick this up with either two cores or four cores and remember both of them are going to be x86 CPUs so this actually gives us a lot of options for operating systems but this comes with Casa OS pre-installed and we will be taking a look at it I personally think it's a really nice little operating system but inside of the box with the zema board you're also going to get a SATA connector so it can connect a 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch drive to this and our power supply runs on 12 volts taking a look at the i o over here on this side we get two full-size USB 3.0 ports we also have dual gigabit Ethernet ports here and Mini DisplayPort out over here on this side we get two SATA 6 gig ports plus we've got power right in the middle for that SATA now we get that one connector but this will actually send enough power from the included power supply to do two 3.5 inch drives and finally over here we get one pcie slot now this is 2.0 X4 and it is slotted so we can basically fit any card in here and it will support a GPU it'll support network cards that will support more storage it's really up to you how you want to set this thing up there are a few different configurations that you can choose from over on the website but right now we're working with the zimmabort 832 and with this we get the Intel Celeron n3450 four cores up to 2.2 gigahertz built-in Intel UHD 500 Graphics up to 700 megahertz we've got eight gigabytes of non-user replaceable LP ddr4 Ram 32 gigabytes of emmc 5.1 storage plus we could actually boot from the sated drives or even over that pcie if we wanted to and this system out of the box is running Casa OS which is based on Debian 11 at the time of making this video but we've got an x86 platform so you could install Windows if you really wanted to attaching extra storage to the zema board is super easy it comes with a single adapter so you can just go with the 2.5 inch drive if you want to Mechanical or SSD it'll also work with a 3.5 inch drive but they do sell some extras like the Dual SATA connector that way we can have two drives here and like I mentioned we do have enough power to go with two 3.5 inch drives on this unit now with all of the storage options we have we can actually go up to 36 terabytes of storage on the Zima board and that's pretty awesome I mean you can definitely set up a nice little server but one thing that I really like about this is that pcie slot so I've personally tested a GTX 1650 low profile and with this I did use a higher wattage power supply 12 volts 10 amps just to make sure I had enough to send everything over there and it does work it's pretty cool to see an SPC that will support a graphics card and if you're interested in seeing a dedicated video definitely let me know in the comments below okay so jumping right into it like I mentioned we've got Casa OS pre-installed out of the box it's on the emmc you can run from an external drive if you wanted to this is based on Debian and it's really Snappy personally love the way it looks obviously we're using the gnome interface here and if I run neofetch we can take a look at everything here Debian 11 kernel 5.10 resolution is set up for 1920x1080 right now gnome interface we've got that Intel Celeron 3450 four cores up 2.2 gigahertz and this is the 8 gigabyte board you can pick this up with either two four or eight I think this is the highest end model that they make right now but uh yeah I mean it's a lot quicker than I thought it would be to tell you the truth using that older uh Intel 3450 I was afraid that everything would be lag in but even with gnome here it's not bad they could go with a different desktop interface if you want to but personally I do like the way this looks and since I'm not running into any issues with it I'm going to kind of keep it just like this lots of great stuff already pre-installed here with this operating system a couple games that you can mess around with obviously we've got a sound recorder calculator Docker is pre-installed and we've also got the uh software center right here so if you don't feel like messing around with terminal and you just want to grab a quick app you can actually open this up everything's updated right now with the system that I'm running just went through all of the basics just to get everything updated and really I've been impressed with the performance here so obviously this is made to be kind of a home Cloud Server or a Home Server we can attach a bunch of storage to this device we can install different applications to control our in-home lights everything like that we've got Linux on an x86 platform so there's actually a lot that we can do here with this little board and first and foremost they're advertising this as a little Cloud Server that you could set up pretty easily in home but you could also get by using this as a simple desktop PC also it's not going to be the most powerful but you know we've got all the basics here you want to do some web browsing checking some emails some document editing even some light photo editing on the four or the eight gigabyte model would work on this little board we don't have the most powerful CPU and GPU but we can always add an external GPU not sure how well it will work and if there's a big interest let me know in the comments below I can do a separate video we'll install Steam and something like a g TX 1650 to see what this thing does but even with the 1650 we will be held back a bit by the CPU but you know overall not a bad little system pretty Snappy for what we have here now it's great and all to be able to run this directly from video out to a monitor but uh the way they've got this set up it's actually really easy to access remotely so I'm going to move over to another PC and we're going to connect to this over Network real quick so accessing the zema board with Casa OS installed from any other PC is actually really simple you're just going to open up a browser type in your IP as long as you're on the same network you'll be able to reach your zimmabort and if you set everything up correctly you can access this remotely I've just got it set up on my home network just makes it a lot easier to get into and right now I'm just connected from another PC really nice little interface gives us our RAM usage CPU usage it'll also show us the wattage and Celsius here widget settings we can go ahead and disable some of these if we don't want to see them and we can remotely install different applications directly from here going into our files we've got our downloads you can set up different directories if you need to basically we're just kind of jacked in to this over Network and if I've got anything on the Zima board be on the internal emmc an m.2 over that pcie slot or even SATA drives connected I can access it from here very easily really like the interface super easy to use we've got tons of different applications that we can install and use if we need to all the information we need is on screen at any given time this is actually really awesome they've set this up very nicely I'm actually starting to enjoy using Casa OS I did run a few speed tests on a couple different drives and for the built-in emmc storage read about 159 megabytes per second right 109 I also tested a 2.5 inch SSD using the six gig satapore on the bottom read 490 write 470 and an m.2 SSD using a pcie adapter read 1340 1700 so you using an m.2 SSD over that pcie really gives us the speeds we need and you can get an adapter to add a bunch of different drives that this unit here over that slot if you needed to the last thing I wanted to touch on in this initial video was total system power consumption so this is actually a very low powered system it does come with a 35 watt power supply but at idle this is only pulling four Watts from the wall and that's with two 2.5 inch drives connected and with two 2.5 inch drives connected over those six gig SATA ports at the bottom kind of at full boat across the board transferring data to both of them over Network I sold a maximum of 16 Watts but it dropped down to around 13 on average now of course we could get this thing to pull a lot more by connecting two 3.5 inch drives or even more than that plus a GPU connected over pcie but overall it is a very low wattage system for what we have here so yeah it's actually not a bad little board kind of wish we had a more powerful CPU but that pcie could definitely make up for it if we have the right combination here and I will make a video if everybody's interested so definitely let me know in the comments below it's not the most powerful single board computer on the market but that's not what they were going for they really wanted to make kind of an affordable little home Cloud Server and I think they've accomplished it we've got tons of storage options here with those two six gig SATA ports and pcie plus it's running an x86 CPU so we've got a lot of different operating systems that we can mess around with on this I definitely want to spend a few more days with the zema board but so far everything's been going really well with it but I'd like to know in the comments below what you want to see tested or what you want to see running on the zema board I definitely want to test the GPU over that pcie slot but if there's anything else just let me know down below and if you're interested in learning a little more I'll leave some links in the description to the official zema Board website I'll also leave some links to Casa OS and even Amazon because you can pick this up over on Amazon also but that's going to wrap it up for my first look video like always thanks for watching\n"
