GMKtek Nucbox M5: Perfect Mid-tier Home Server in 2024?
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- Check out my video review of the GMKtec M5. It is a great little mini PC with highly compatible and efficient hardware. You can install VMware ESXi, Proxmox, XCP-ng, and other Linux hypervisors on top of the uniform Ryzen 7 5700U processor and Intel 2.5 GbE network adapters.
Check out the VHT forums to get your questions answered: www.virtualizationhowto.com/c...
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Introduction - 0:00
Specs of the GMKtec Nucbox M5 - 0:32
Comes with Windows 11 Pro - 1:22
Physical walkthrough of the M5 - 2:21
Showing how you can remove the top plate and inner plate - 2:45
Detailing the Ryzen 7 5700U processor in more detail - 3:38
Discussing uniform processors compared to hybrid "big little" processors - 4:48
Talking about the (2) Intel 2.5 GbE network adapters - 5:45
Lgged into the ESXi host client looking at hardware in VMware - 7:00
Talking about the power efficiency of the GMKtec M5 - 8:29
Talking about capturing some of the power consumption readings - 8:58
Final analysis - Pros and Cons - 10:00
Read the written review of the GMKtec Nucbox M5:
www.virtualizationhowto.com/2...
Read the review of the Minisforum MS-01:
www.virtualizationhowto.com/2...
Read the review of the Beelink SEi12:
www.virtualizationhowto.com/2... - Jak na to + styl
My dream, a 2 node 1u 'mini pc', if you wanted to get really fancy you could even potentially power it all off 1 PSU. Intel 2.5gb NICs, relatively low TDP with good cooling and potential for a bunch of storage. Well maybe 2U for the storage and make 2 versions of it.
Just to throw it in there Proxmox apparently works pretty well with Intel hybrid CPU's, one more thing to think about in terms of what hypervisor one might want to use in their home lab.
Nice video Brandon! One day ill pick up 4 units like this and make a little cluster..
Thank you Jason! Much appreciated!
Great video! I just picked up one of these for a great price on Aliexpress and Proxmox runs very well. I was thinking about a NAS with this but has been reading about all the negatives with a external USB HDD enclosure. What do you think? Maybe a good content for your next video.
very interesting just a couple of questions:
1) when you installed ESXi did you install it on a usb disk?
2) did you ever installed home assistant on esxi with Zigbee usb-stick as pass-through? did it work? was it stable.... can you make a video on it?
thx
@g.s.3389 thank you for the comment. Would you mind to create a new topic on the forums here so we can talk about it in more detail? www.virtualizationhowto.com/community
GMKtec M5 have been replaced by GMKtec M5 pro but still named GMKtec M5. They replaced the Intel 2.5 GbE NIC with Realtek NIC, however they added an extra nvme slot and a fan to cool them. The old GMKtec M5 with Intel 2.5 GbE NIC are discontinued.
This is correct. I ordered a NucBox M5 and on the same day a friend of mine did as well. We used the same URL. Mine has the Intel NICS and a single NVME slot, but his has Realtek NICs and the extra NVME slot. Mine will run ESXi 8.0 with no mods or flings but his will not. GMKTEC needs to make this clear in the hardware specs on their site. Currently they do not.
Edit: my entire comment applies to the "performance" mode; (TDP 35W)
I ordered one and just received it a few days ago - not happy with their cooling *at all* . Their site promises "cooper heat pipes" and 'copper cooling' in more than one place and the actual heatsink - which is cooled by a nuc-style fan on the bottom- is 100% aluminum. And it's painted (DLC coated? not sure tbh) as well. The machining work on the heatsink is *ridiculously* sloppy - genuinely unforgivably so. There's no lapped or polished contact surface for the chip. It's just *black*. And it wasn't very flat either! I had thermal problems OOTB and so I tore it down and saw how bad the contact between the chip and heatsink actually was. I flattened it some, polished it a bit, reapplied good thermal paste and was able to get much better performance from it, but I shouldn't have had to do that, and most importantly - I should have gotten copper!
I wanted to like this a lot - it still performs reasonably well - but the [main] fan is LOUD and they basically designed it to have intake on the *bottom*. I'm swapping the top fan with a Noctua (40x40x10mm 5v PWM) and might dremel/file some better airflow in the top plate. I can see why they added it; the M.2 SSDs get toasty when I run it with the chassis open. It functions well but I'm trying to quiet and cool this thing down even better.
@@mainebears711 Damn! I purchased a few "new" M5s earlier this week for a cluster. I knew about the additional M2 but not the change to a Realtek NIC 😐. They do need to make things clear on their product pages!
@@gerardsamuel1649 Run them upside down lol.
Dose this have AVX support?
The gmktec upgraded is missing EFI Files from the current bios and is incompatible with Linux installations as of now.
i've been there - just set NX mode to enabled in BIOS and you should be good :)
@@fajnyferi I actually only just ordered it. I saw some people had the error. some didnt, a guy did the nx mode and didnt work. but the workaround for the guys with the error was also to install proxmox on another pc and move the ssd. May I ask if you used ventoy or something else for the iso?
@@SaruwatariMasahirowhat I did is I updated the bios to the newest (it's 1.03 as I recall) and then enabled the NX mode. Not sure if it would work with older bios and NX mode. And yeah - I used ventoy.
@@fajnyferi thank you!
@@fajnyferi - curious why enabling NX, which is generally on by default anyhow, would do anything to *fix* issues with EFI puking on usb bootdrives. Generally turning NX *off* is the suggested magic workaround for mystery problems the vendor refuses to acknowledge.
Do you know if I can put 64 (32x2) Gb of RAM there? CPU spec tells me I can.
Does it support wake-on-lan?
Well, I just got mine and now I have to return it. Even though the Amazon description said it was the M5 with 1 M.2 slot. I got the M5 pro with 2 M.2 slots and a realtek NIC card. What a poorly ran company. Spent over $400 and now I have to wait up to a month to get that money back. AND I have to spend about 1.5 hours driving through Dallas traffic to get it to the Whole Foods location where I have to drop it off...
@jasonjennings8465 I really wish I would have known about the difference in the models as well. GMKtec sent over the review unit and didn't note there was a newer model with different NIC. Check out the forum post here about this issue: www.virtualizationhowto.com/community/home-lab-forum/warning-on-the-gmktec-m5-pro-for-esxi
@@VirtualizationHowto I just got the M5 Pro today and i love it. The reason i don't have an issue with it is because i am using it to stream my 4K movies from Windows. I won't be gaming on it since i also own an Xbox Series X.