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ZimaCube 2: 30-second evaluate
The unique ZimaCube was a Kickstarter marketing campaign by IceWhale that delivered a workable NAS with an affordable specification. Having confirmed the idea, the ZimaCube 2 Private Cloud NAS is a direct-to-retail launch that addresses a number of shortcomings of the unique.
At $799, it ships with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD pre-installed, together with ZimaOS already loaded, which will be upgraded to ZimaOS+ for a small payment. Six SATA bays are prepared for drives, and 4 M.2 slots sit within the growth part for NVMe storage.
That places it in direct competitors with the UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Professional, which prices north of $1,000, although that machine does include an i5-class CPU.
The place the ZimaCube 2 stands out is its pair of free PCIe slots, which make it easy so as to add 10GbE LAN, a discrete GPU, or extra M.2 capability. It additionally accepts as much as 32GB of DDR5 reminiscence.
That flexibility extends to software program as effectively. The interior 256GB NVMe drive runs ZimaOS, a Linux-derived NAS platform, however IceWhale additionally helps TrueNAS for many who want it.
On the entire, the ZimaCube 2 addresses lots of the complaints levelled on the N100-powered authentic, whereas protecting the minimalist styling intact. However with reminiscence and storage costs what they’re, is it providing sufficient efficiency for consumers trying to run native AI workloads?
This may not be top-of-the-line NAS gadgets for residence and small enterprise customers, however the spectacular performance and construct high quality make it an attention-grabbing different.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
ZimaCube 2: Worth and availability
- How a lot does it price? From $799
- When is it out? On pre-order
- The place are you able to get it? Direct from IceWhale
The ZimaCube 2 is simply obtainable direct from IceWhale for $799.
At that value, this Private Cloud NAS sits above the mainstream six-bay choices from Synology and QNAP however beneath their higher-end items with comparable processing energy. The QNAP TS-664 in the identical bracket makes use of a Celeron N5105. Neither affords Thunderbolt 4 nor any of the open-platform flexibility.
The Synology DS1825+ is an eight-bay machine that additionally ships with out 10GbE as commonplace, makes use of the identical AMD Ryzen V1500B with 4 cores, and comes with 8GB of DDR ECC. Synology asks $1,149.99 for the privilege.
The DS1621+ is now end-of-line and has not been changed. The one six-bay DS sequence NAS Synology presently affords is the ageing DS620slim, constructed for two.5-inch drives.
Nearer in value is the five-bay DS1525+, at $799.99. That will get you a similar AMD Ryzen V1500B, the identical 8GB of DDR4 ECC, two M.2 slots, USB-C (not Thunderbolt), and a single proprietary PCIe growth slot with Gen3 x2 lanes. Networking is twin 2.5GbE, although you possibly can add greater speeds by way of the PCIe slot with a $109.99 E10G22-T1-Mini card.
It’s price noting that since Synology started limiting suitable drives to its own-brand vary, you possibly can not use third-party M.2 SSDs in these machines. Synology’s personal SSDs arrive in remarkably small capacities and at eye-watering costs. The SNV5420-400G Enterprise Collection M.2 NVMe SSD, a 400GB drive with a 650MB/s write velocity, prices $484.99. If Synology continues to be positioning itself as a prosumer and small-business NAS vendor, its pricing makes that argument troublesome to maintain.
Asustor has the Lockerstor 6 Gen3 AS6806T, a six-bay machine with a Quad-Core AMD Ryzen Embedded V3C14, 2.5GbE LAN ports, the choice so as to add 10GbE by way of PCIe, and 4 M.2 slots. It lacks Thunderbolt however does help USB4. Asustor desires $1,539.99 for that, which places it on par with the ZimaCube 2 Professional.
A extra balanced comparability is with Ugreen, which launched its iDX sequence at CES 2026 with Intel Core Extremely 7 processors, twin 10GbE, and Thunderbolt 4 at aggressive costs. These items are getting into the market similtaneously the ZimaCube 2, and their specs intently overlap with these of the ZimaCube 2 Professional.
From Ugreen, and presently on supply, $679.99 will get you the four-bay NASync DXP4800 Professional, which makes use of the i3-1315U, comes with 8GB of DDR5 RAM, 10GbE and a couple of.5GbE LAN, and twin M.2 slots operating at Gen 4×4. It lacks Thunderbolt and has two fewer bays, however the processor is thirteenth Gen reasonably than twelfth.
Six bays from Ugreen means stepping as much as the NASync DXP5800 Professional, which makes use of the i5-1235U discovered within the ZimaCube 2 Professional. It comes with twin 10GbE LAN, 8GB of RAM, twin PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 slots, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a single PCIe x4 slot. The asking value is $1,027.99. The ZimaCube 2 Professional prices $1,299 and comes with 16GB of reminiscence.
Circling again to the ZimaCube 2, the pricing is cheap for what you get, significantly when in comparison with Asustor or Synology.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
ZimaCube 2: Specs
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Mannequin:
ZimaCube 2 Private Cloud NAS
CPU:
Intel i3-1215U, 6 Cores, 8 Threads
GPU:
Intel UHD Graphics (64 EUs), Intel Alder Lake-UP3 GT1
NPU:
N/A
RAM:
1x 8GB LPDDR5 (upgradeable to 32GB)
Inside Storage:
256GB SSD for ZimaOS
SATA Storage:
6 bays (3.5 or 2.5 inch)
M.2 Storage:
4 slots M.2 2280/2242/2230 NVMe PCIe 4.0
Ports:
2x Thunderbolt (USB-C) 40Gbps, 4x USB 3.0 USB-A, 1x USB 3.0 USB-C, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x PCIe 4.0 slot (x16 bodily, x4 lanes), 1x PCIe 3.0 (x4 bodily, x2 lanes)
Networking:
2x RJ45 2.5GbE LAN
OS:
ZimaOS 1.61
Max Capability:
6x 32TB SATA (192TB) + 4x 8TB M.2 (32TB)
RAID Modes:
JBOD / Primary / RAID 0 / RAID 1 / RAID 5 / RAID 6 / RAID 10
PSU:
Exterior 19V 11.58A 220W
Dimensions:
240 x 221 x 220mm (LxWxH)
Weight:
7.4kg (together with the PSU)
ZimaCube 2: Design
- All-metal development
- Bays will not be lockable
- Simple inner entry
From the surface, the ZimaCube 2 seems remarkably much like the unique. It’s the similar dimension, the identical aluminium field, with storage beneath and the system above, which is smart from a warmth administration perspective.
The six front-loading SATA bays sit behind a plastic grille held in place by magnets, however there isn’t any apparent option to take away it. The designer left no tab to drag it or get a fingernail beneath. Having eliminated it a few instances, I’d be extra more likely to go away the grille within the field than take care of it repeatedly.
With the grille off, there are six vertically mounted drive trays and a seventh for the 4 M.2 drives. The trays have been a disappointment on a number of counts.
They don’t seem to be lockable and require screws, no matter whether or not you might be becoming 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives. Nearly each branded NAS maker now affords tool-less 3.5-inch trays, and putting in 24 screws for a full construct is a tedious option to spend a day.
Extracting the M.2 bay means unscrewing a retained thumbscrew, however that alone just isn’t sufficient to drag it free. Getting it out required me to take away bay six first, simply to seek out one thing to grip. These are the type of points that ought to have been caught on the prototype stage.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
One other carry-over from the unique is the location of the ports 14cm up the dice. Three USB 3.0 ports sit on the entrance (two USB-A, one USB-C), alongside an audio jack and the facility button. Across the again are the facility inlet and reset gap, twin 2.5GbE LAN ports, twin Thunderbolt 4, twin USB 3.0 Sort-A, DisplayPort 1.4, and HDMI 2.0 video outputs.
The issue with routing USB and Thunderbolt cables from mid-height is that the majority exterior drives ship with cables that aren’t lengthy sufficient to achieve a desk with out some awkward draping. Putting the ports on prime wouldn’t be a lot better. For this reason most NAS designs put the mainboard, and its related ports, on the base.
The upside of IceWhale’s strategy is that the system is genuinely simple to entry. Take away 4 screws, elevate the highest, and every part is uncovered: the DDR5 SODIMMs, the 2 PCIe slots, the CPU cooler, and an unoccupied M.2 slot on the motherboard.
What I discovered barely odd is that there aren’t any followers pushing or pulling air by means of this space, solely small perforations within the sides and rear. Heat air will naturally rise and acquire the place the system lives, however there isn’t any lively mechanism to extract it. The CPU cooler on this mannequin is noticeably bigger than the one within the authentic ZimaCube, which helps, however as soon as the warmth leaves the chip, it nonetheless has nowhere apparent to go.
Protecting the identical enclosure little question diminished the price of bringing the ZimaCube 2 to market. However the truth that virtually not one of the bodily design issues have been addressed is difficult to miss.
ZimaCube 2: Options
- Intel i3-1215U
- 20 PCIe lanes
- Not an AI platform
Greater than anything, the N100 processor is what broken the unique ZimaCube. Intel gave that chip simply 9 PCIe lanes, which was merely not sufficient to service six laborious drives, USB ports, and twin 2.5GbE LAN concurrently.
The ZimaCube 2 swaps that for the Intel i3-1215U, a CPU with six cores, eight threads, and, critically, 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Since these lanes are PCIe 4.0 reasonably than PCIe 3.0, the whole obtainable bandwidth is greater than 4 instances what the N100 may supply.
The structure splits these six cores into two efficiency cores with hyperthreading and 4 effectivity cores, giving eight simultaneous threads in complete. That’s not as succesful because the ZimaCube 2 Professional, which makes use of the i5-1235U with ten cores, however it’s greater than adequate for the standard NAS workload combine.
In follow, the ZimaCube 2 can deal with Docker containers, media transcoding, RAID rebuilds, and light-weight virtualisation operating concurrently, with out the processor changing into the apparent throttle.
That stated, the 20 lanes should stretch throughout quite a lot of {hardware}. The bandwidth shoppers embrace two M.2 slots on the mainboard, 4 M.2 slots on the bay-seven riser, two PCIe slots, six SATA drives, all of the USB ports, twin 2.5GbE LAN, and the 2 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 connections. That’s the reason there isn’t any 10GbE LAN port included on the usual mannequin.
The 4 M.2 slots within the growth bay additionally deserve some readability. Every runs at PCIe Gen 3 x1, which supplies a person bandwidth ceiling of round 800MB/s per slot. That’s satisfactory for tiering or caching, however it isn’t the full-speed NVMe efficiency the slot rely would possibly recommend. Customers anticipating PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds will likely be upset. These planning to make use of them as high-capacity supplementary storage on prime of a SATA array will discover them completely serviceable.
The plain reply to each the lacking 10GbE port and the sluggish M.2 slots is the PCIe growth slot, however what these slots seem to supply and what they really ship is price clarifying.
The bigger x16 slot seems as if it may take a low-profile video card, however electrically it is just PCIe 4.0 x4. Every lane delivers 2GB/s, so there’s sufficient bandwidth for a single PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe drive or two 10GbE LAN ports.
The second PCIe slot is bodily x4 however electrically solely two lanes of PCIe 3.0. IceWhale sells an adjunct card for this slot, with two M.2 2280/2242/2230 positions, although it was designed for PCIe 4.0 and would carry out higher within the x16 slot. With two PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives on that card, every would get round 4GB/s.
There’s additionally a PCIe to 2.5GbE Ethernet adapter obtainable, providing a comparatively cheap means so as to add community bandwidth in case your infrastructure helps channel bonding. Alternatively, Thunderbolt adapters can ship 5GbE and even 10GbE in case you want it.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
It’s laborious to overstate how a lot of an enchancment the i3 represents over the N100. The bandwidth improve alone unlocks prospects that merely weren’t obtainable earlier than. Even so, that is twelfth Gen Intel silicon constructed on Intel’s 10nm Enhanced SuperFin course of, a substantial distance behind the Collection 100, 200, and 300 silicon Intel presently ships.
There aren’t any AI accelerator elements right here in anyway. Ugreen’s iDX sequence has moved to the Intel Core Extremely 7 255H, rated at 96 TOPS. Neither the ZimaCube 2 nor the Professional mannequin can compete with that, so if operating a neighborhood LLM in your NAS is the aim, this isn’t the correct machine.
One final level price flagging is the reminiscence configuration. The machine ships with a single 8GB DDR5 module. There’s a free slot, so attending to 16GB is simple, however a single module means the NAS just isn’t operating in dual-channel mode. DDR5 4800MT/s is inherently dual-channel in specification, however most programs solely allow it with two modules fitted. Including an identical module would noticeably enhance reminiscence bandwidth.
IceWhale states the system accepts two 32GB modules for a most of 64GB, which is 4 instances the whole within the N100. At present RAM costs, most consumers are unlikely to go that far, however there’s headroom if wanted.
The ZimaCube 2 platform is a big step ahead from the unique. The issue is that the NAS market has moved ahead, and a number of the competitors is now forward of the place this machine has landed.
ZimaCube 2: Software program
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
- ZimaOS Plus
- Paid licensing tier
- TrueNAS authorised
ZimaOS arrives pre-installed and boots straight to a browser-based dashboard, with no keyboard or monitor required throughout setup, offered the machine finds a community connection.
The interface has matured significantly for the reason that early CasaOS days. Drive administration, RAID configuration, Docker container deployment, and an app retailer masking Plex, Jellyfin, Immich, Photoprism, House Assistant, and a number of other hundred extra are all accessible from the identical internet UI, with no command line wanted.
In comparison with the comparatively restricted app choice that Ugreen presently affords, ZimaOS seems well-stocked. Plex, House Assistant, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Syncthing, Pi-hole, Portainer, Tailscale, and WordPress are all there.
It’s price noting, although, that the majority of those apps will not be native ZimaOS purposes. Once you launch them, they open as web-based purposes with their very own port numbers reasonably than showing inside the principle system interface. That implies the App Supervisor is basically managing pre-configured Docker installations behind the scenes.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
There’s a affordable argument that with instruments like Portainer now extensively obtainable, the idea of native purposes issues lower than it as soon as did. That was beforehand one of many strongest promoting factors for Synology. What ZimaOS does is make Docker installs really feel as seamless as native apps whereas nonetheless delivering the performance customers truly need.
What customers are not looking for is an surprising invoice.
The introduction of a paid ZimaOS Plus tier, priced at $29 for all times, has generated debate locally. IceWhale frames it as a contribution to sustainable growth reasonably than a subscription, and states {that a} third of licence income is distributed again to group contributors.
Core performance for many residence customers is offered with out the Plus licence. The paid tier unlocks limitless disk help, limitless customers, and sure superior options. Whether or not that feels truthful is determined by how a lot of the Plus tier a given person truly wants. Given the general price of the machine, asking for a licence on prime looks like a second chunk of the cherry.
Should you don’t pay the additional $29, you get a model of ZimaOS that may help a most of 4 disks and three customers. And, though primary RAID is offered within the free model, Plus allows superior configurations for higher redundancy and information safety, together with enhanced help for ZFS and bigger storage arrays. There are additionally enhancements in distant entry, backup/sync and precedence help.
It’s price noting that the license is ‘lifetime’, however it applies solely to that particular {hardware}, to not every other ZimaOS gadgets.
That stated, the fee and the controversy can each be sidestepped fully. The platform was designed with OS flexibility in thoughts, and TrueNAS, Unraid, Proxmox, and OpenMediaVault all run with out modification. pfSense and OPNsense are choices for anybody desirous to repurpose the {hardware} as a community equipment.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
ZimaCube 2: Efficiency
- Community choices
- Enlargement prospects
- Restricted M.2 efficiency
The case for purchasing the ZimaCube 2 Normal over its predecessor rests virtually fully on the Core i3-1215U. The unique ZimaCube’s N100 was a four-core, low-power processor with 9 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which proved wholly insufficient for a six-bay NAS operating twin 2.5GbE networking alongside M.2 storage and any lively workload.
The i3-1215U modifications issues basically. Six cores and eight threads with 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes means the bus rivalry that plagued the N100 is not a priority. Docker containers and media transcoding can now run on the similar time with out the processor struggling, and the system can deal with gentle virtualisation on prime of that.
Networking on the usual mannequin tops out at twin 2.5GbE, which in sensible phrases means a ceiling of round 280MB/s per port. For residence backup, media streaming to a number of gadgets, and basic file serving, that’s satisfactory. For workloads demanding greater throughput, the Thunderbolt 4 ports supply a direct-attach path at as much as 40Gbps, which is a significant different to 10GbE for single-machine workflows.
Anybody wanting everlasting 10GbE over the community will want the Professional mannequin, or might want to use the PCIe 4.0 slot for a 10GbE card. These will not be costly, and you aren’t restricted to IceWhale-approved choices.
From a efficiency standpoint, the weak hyperlink within the ZimaCube 2 is the M.2 growth part. Gen 3 x1 per slot doesn’t supply a dramatic enchancment over SATA SSD speeds. Should you plan to make use of the slots for laborious drive caching, one slot for reads and one for writes, the speeds are acceptable. For something extra demanding, the PCIe 4.0 slot is once more the route to raised efficiency.
And that’s the underlying rigidity. The PCIe 4.0 slot is the reply to the 10GbE query, the quicker M.2 query, and the GPU query. However there is just one of them. Giving this machine 4 instances the bandwidth of its predecessor turned out to not be fairly sufficient.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
ZimaCube 2: Remaining verdict
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
The ZimaCube 2 is a a lot better machine than the unique, however a number of issues have been carried straight over from the primary technology with out being fastened.
IceWhale appears dedicated to the dice kind issue, regardless that NAS consumers usually don’t care what form their {hardware} is. What’s telling is that the staff listened rigorously to criticism of the N100 processor and acted on it, but largely ignored suggestions concerning the lacking drive tray locks and the awkward port placement.
Maybe the third technology can repair what this one has not, whereas nonetheless protecting the distinctive form.
In different respects, the ZimaCube 2 is the machine the unique ought to have been. Swapping the N100 for the Core i3-1215U removes the architectural ceiling that undermined the primary technology, and Thunderbolt 4 offers the usual mannequin a high-speed entry path that partially offsets the two.5GbE networking limitation.
The M.2 growth part is slower than its slot rely implies, and 8GB of RAM is tight for a machine able to operating Docker containers alongside a six-bay RAID array. However each are easy to repair, and the open platform means the {hardware} just isn’t held again by the software program operating on it.
At $799, this can be a genuinely compelling possibility for anybody who desires a succesful, expandable, correctly hackable six-bay server with out paying Professional costs.
Must you purchase a ZimaCube 2?
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Worth
Plenty of options, a solidly constructed
4 / 5
Design
Repeat of the primary ZimaCube
3.5 / 5
Options
Six bays, six M.2 slots and PCIe growth
4 / 5
Software program
Workable OS after you have paid further for + possibility
4 / 5
Efficiency
Restricted by the two.5GbE LAN ports and Gen3x1 M.2 slots
3.5 / 5
Total
Loads of prospects in a single NAS
4 / 5
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
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IceWhale ZimaCube 2: Worth Comparability
