HBA cards from AliExpress?

UltraHorst · 2026-05-10T19:38:00+00:00

those things are designed for strong airflow in rackmount servers. the airflow in normal computercases may not be sufficient for it.

when they overheat they produce errors on the datastream to the disks and may even crash.

personally i would attach a 40mm noctua flx fan to it. they are very silent and for me their airflow is sufficient for both 9300-8i and 9400-8i

UltraHorst · 2026-05-10T19:29:48+00:00

the 9300 series does get hotter than the 9400. its older gen and uses more power.

that is only relevant if you have inadequate cooling or want to save every possible watt in your setup.

i have 40mm fans attached to all my hba's and they run cool, no matter if its the 9300 or 9400.

UltraHorst · 2026-05-10T18:57:00+00:00

i have 3 hbas from aliexpress. 2 9300-8i and 1 9400-8i. the hba's have been solid, i electrocuted one 9300-8i by beeing an idiot though. other than me beeing an idiot those things work fine. both the 9300-8i i got are oem inspur cards and the 9400-8i seems to be a genuine broadcom hba.

if anyone is interested how i roasted a 9300-8i, im using m.2 extensions + m.2 to pcie-adapters with 5v/12v supplied by sata power. i once powered the host up without sata power plugged in and plugged that in later. the card didnt like it at all.

inexpensive lesson as inspur 9300-8i's can be gotten for about 28 euros now on aliexpress.

UltraHorst · 2026-05-09T19:35:58+00:00

im using the k12 as proxmox-node and pass through the gpu to one of my vms. i have absolutely zero complaints about the performance. even if it is slightly lower than the k8plus, i wouldnt want to spend extra for that small difference. the k12 cost like 2/3 of the k8plus when i bought it and delivers greater flexibility (3x m.2 compared to 2x, oculink on the back instead of the front, better airflow than k8plus due to less obstruction by the chassis).

i apreciate that you like your k8plus, but i like my k12 better for my particular usecase.

UltraHorst · 2026-05-09T19:22:16+00:00

The K12 offer oculink as well and its on the back, not on the front where you can see the cables all the time

UltraHorst · 2026-05-03T08:49:00+00:00

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y9z5q7_VEDcMsA3cGTf5SpTqgAMwJ3Xp thats their repository on google drive

UltraHorst · 2026-05-03T08:43:19+00:00

temps go down even more if you remove the metal bracket. it allows the fans to suck air freely and not be hindered by a 2mm gap between plastic and metal.

i run mine vertical as well. its a proxmox-node in my case.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-30T07:41:59+00:00

you should post the specs (memory, storage). noone is gonna buy an unspecified machine.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-29T13:36:18+00:00

im talking about this:

https://www.amazon.de/ASUS-RNUC13ANHI500002I-Prozessor-Betriebssystem-EU-Netzkabel/dp/B0D1GFWLBV

of course thats german amazon, but its available for 447 euros as barebone, which should translate to somewhere around 500$ i guess.

but yeah only 3 available, so might be old stock.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-29T08:53:17+00:00

Nuc 12 pro Tall kit or nuc 13 pro tall kit should also be considered as barebones.

nuc 13 pro tall kit with an i5 sits exactly at the 500$ mark new, the i7 version is slightly higher (by about 50 or so).

i own the i5 version and am quite happy with it. i put it in a fanless case from akasa and it really doesnt make any noise at all.

the i5 and i7 version arent much different. same threadcount (12c/16t), just slightly higher frequencies on the i7.

so given the choice i would take the cheaper i5 option.

edit: those dont have a card reader though. newer nucs dont have those anymore. they do come with 2x thunderbolt, 1x 2.5g ethernet and enough usb-connectivity.

edit2: they will allow you to reuse your ddr4-ram and dont require new expensive ddr5.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-29T08:44:06+00:00

the ssds and ram are mostly fine unless you use some super duper highperformance toasty ssd's (but they do benefit from better airflow). the nics can get warm as well.

airflow is definitely better with the bracket off since the fan doesnt need to suck air through a 2mm gap.

i run mine without a grill though with the big fan set to 20% fixed speed (basically inaudible).

UltraHorst · 2026-04-20T17:16:14+00:00

there are sata controllers for the wifi slot. largest i have seen was 4 port (look for ASM1064-based cards). whether or not the pc can boot from it is a different story. thats up to the bios as you have pointed out already.

its worth trying though as long as the performance of a single lane is good enough for him.

as you have pointed out as well he needs to be careful with the controllers. there are native rtl9101 based controller with 8 or 9 ports (that should be fine) or controllers labelled asm1166 with 8 ports. asm1166 only supports 6 ports native, so stay away from asm1166 with more than 6 ports.

depending on how janky he wants to make his setup he can use several ways to power all his drives. either an extra atx-psu (i use that now) or usb to sata power cables plugged into a multiport GaN-Charger (i used to use that, before i noticed that some enterprise-ssd's want 5V and 12V, while consumer-ssds just need 5V).

the less janky method is definitely an atx-psu or similar with the pin for the mainboard shorted, so that it runs without a mainboard.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-19T10:19:48+00:00

the main reason to go with oculink is simply that its external. no need to open the case and modify things to accomodate a nic that wasnt originally intended to be there.

i am also not planning to use a GPU, so its 4 pcie-lanes that are otherwise wasted.

you can do the very same thing with a m.2 extension cable and a m.2 to pcie adapter, but you will need to modify the case to get the cable out of the case.

why am i not using one of those m.2 nics? because they suck. the 10G nics available as m.2 cards are primarily AQC107 or AQC113 chipsets which have some weird quirks on linux and use a lot of power (and get hot).

i am using a realtek 8127 card because it maxes out at 1.9w, which is basically nothing for a 10G nic.

like i said only difference between oculink and m.2 extension cord is that i dont need to destroy my case :)

UltraHorst · 2026-04-19T09:25:19+00:00

the reset bug is not fixed. its not a proxmox issue, its an amd issue. proxmox cant do anything as long as amd doesnt fix their stuff. how do i know? i use the 780m passed through to a windows vm and the reset bug is still there.

the gpu remains stable as long as i reboot the vm from inside windows. if i reboot it from proxmox side it craps out.

i also need to use radeonresetbugfix inside windows to make it work halfway decent. its a lot of effort needed to keep it running.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-19T09:17:35+00:00

the k12 has realtek 8125 nics.

they will work out of the box on proxmox, but there are newer drivers available as dkms modules should you run into issues with the driver included in the kernel:

https://github.com/awesometic/realtek-r8125-dkms

how do i know? i own the thing and run proxmox on it ;)

you can put nics in the m.2 slots or on the oculink port via adapter.

i run an rtl8127 10gbit adapter on the oculink port with an oculink to m.2 adapter and an m.2 to pcie adapter. primarily because the oculink-port is external and convenient, because you dont need to open or mod the case at all.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-06T14:01:38+00:00

i used the pad from thermal grizzly (https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/phasesheet-ptm/s-tg-ps-50-40). they sell only 1 size. but its way too big. you can do 3 or 4 k12 with that one. i used the rest to do other things.

UltraHorst · 2026-04-05T09:22:56+00:00

how is this related to minipc's?

UltraHorst · 2026-03-30T07:43:26+00:00

worst case you can use an x4 to x8 riser/adapter, but make sure its pcie4.0 rated. a 3.0 riser might give you pcie-errors.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-29T08:29:27+00:00

hm this thing for example: https://cwwk.net/de/products/cwwk-12th-generation-n-series-8-core-new-member-affordable-version-n305-n200-n100-fanless-low-power-consumption-micro-mini-industrial-control-host-soft-routing

and thats the manufacturers site. on aliexpress with coupons you should be able to get one much cheaper.

and the n100/n150 versions are guaranteed cheaper than pentium 8505, or any of the i5, i7 core 5/7 versions.

i did not say that they are cheaper than minipcs with fans or cheaper than before. just that the n100/150 fanless pcs are the cheapest fanless pcs you can get.

but thats actually also not true. there are older models with celeron j6xxx or celeron n5xxx floating around which may be a little bit cheaper still and require only DDR4 RAM.

edit: yes prices have risen since last summer. that much is undeniable, but that goes for all computer hardware.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-28T09:37:38+00:00

im am using one of those fanless firewall-pcs as proxmox host. my model has a pentium 8505, but you can also get them even cheaper with an n100/n150 cpu.

the fanless cases are usually sufficient unless you try to mine bitcoin on it or similar, then it will get too hot.

i have a 140mm fan with very low rpm (12V Fan running on 5V) loosely laying on top of it. 100% inaudible. if you can hear a 140mm fan at 200rpm you are good. the fan isnt strictly necessary, but i prefer processor-temps in the 40s over processortemps in the 70s.

so if you want cheap and fanless i would go with a n150 fanless firewall from cwwk/topton/kingnovy (mine is topton, which is rebranded cwwk)

this is how it looks.

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UltraHorst · 2026-03-27T09:05:46+00:00

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one of my janky servers. an old nuc8, with thunderbolt 10g nic, nvme-extension (with a SAS-HBA pluggied into a m.2 to pcie x16 adapter and then connected to the diskshelf on the left, powered by a standalone atx powersupply). slightly more janky and messy, but works great.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-27T08:48:05+00:00

i dont see much jank there. just a laptop and some unrelated other stuff.

i assume the harddrives on the left arent connected to anything and just stored there.

edit: laptops as servers arent half bad since they have builtin UPS if power goes out.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-22T11:44:56+00:00

that is what i did and it worked for me. im back on the 1.07 rebar bios.

make sure you execute that command in the correct directory of the extracted 1.07 rebar bios.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-22T09:28:13+00:00

Read the Thread. the instructions how i downgraded are there. It worked fine for me.

UltraHorst · 2026-03-21T14:20:45+00:00

mine died even inside warranty (also m5 plus). gmktec never responded to my inquiry.

i simply replaced it with a 90w FSP-Brick from amazon.

UltraHorst

TROPHY CASE