Unraid fueled MS-01 Homelab Server

This summer I've been building a new piece of hardware which now is the heart of my homelab. The Minisforum MS-01 Work Station runs Unraid and is hosting various applications while leaving enough headroom for all kinds of experiments. The system has come a long way from its original form, increasing overall performance and capability.

Considering its size, the specs of this small computer are pretty insane:

• Intel Core i9-13900H
• 96 GB Ram (2x48 GB Crucial)
• 2x 1TB NVMe (one used for Parity)
• Nvidia RTX 2000 Ada GPU (16 GB VRAM)
• 4 Networking Interfaces
  • 2x 10 Gbit SFP+
  • 1x 2.5 Gbit RJ45 with vPro / KVM
  • 1x 2.5 Gbit RJ45
• 2x USB4 (Thunderbolt Support)

This bold package led to various stability and thermal issues that I had to solve along the way until the system would run stable at decent temperature. This post summarizes those hurdles and their solutions to serve as a guide for others who want to build such system.

Applications and Services

The system runs all sorts of different docker containers that serve my digital stuff (photos, documents, media) via various applications. Its about learning and increasing my personal responsibility for hosting all sorts of open source services that I'd otherwise use from the cloud. This system is for tinkering, exploration and personal development.

Btw: I don't have any hard drives in this machine. Most data is stored on the QNAP TS-664 which runs 6 HDDs in RAID6. My 3-2-1 backup strategy exists around that NAS.

Bios Update + Case Mods + Optimizations

As I already mentioned it took some time until everything was running properly. During the first weeks I've experienced constant crashed but I was not alone. Many other MS-01 owners who went with the Intel Core i9-13900H had similar issues.

Over many weeks we've tried all sorts of things, many of which massively improved overall thermals across the system while not solving crashes. In the end it was the pre-released BIOS update v1.24 introducing the ability to set lower DDR5 clocks which finally solved any crashes for me. The community is now waiting for another update by Minisforum allowing us to increase the clock speeds back to normal without having to sacrifice stability.

Besides that I'd love to share other approvements and mods that I did so far:

• Vertical orientation via 3D printed stand (easy)
• Adjust bios fan curve for more throughput (easy)
• 140mm fan mod. Use fan with USB adapter (easy)
• Repasting CPU with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (advanced)

Single-Slot GPU Mod by n3rdware

One of the main purposes for this server is to constantly serve a small LLM to explore AI tooling and interfaces. The PCIe slot fits low profile single slot cards. By adding such GPU with enough VRAM and compute, the server enables not only the AI experiments but also allows for transcoding in Plex and machine learning tasks in Immich etc.

The RTX 2000 Ada is a 2 slots low profile graphics card that is driven entirely via the pcie port and doesn't need additional energy supply. It can be modded to fit into the case by using the single slot cooler by n3rdware which is crafted in top quality. I've obtained the cooler and modded my card according to the official guide which is well written.

The card doesn't pull more than 6 watts in idle while holding LLM and embedding in the VRAM. At full load the card pulls 70 watts which isn't too bad as it enables inference with smaller models fitting into 16 GB or splitting more capable models like Hermes3-70b across 96GB RAM for lower but higher quality replies.

Being transformed into single-slot the gpu fits perfectly into the case and doesn't prevent the case from closing anymore. I didn't notice any downside when it comes to temps. Can recommend this mod to anyone who wants to put a dedicated gpu into their MS-01.

Your Questions and Comments

Just drop them into this reddit post and I'll try to reply asap. Thanks for reading!