ZOTAC intros ZBOX RI323 and ZBOX RI531 series mini PCs

[HEXUS]

The main feature of these mini PCs is their ability to fit two 2.5-inch storage devices.

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[cjs150]

I see they have fans. No use as an HTPC then. Given how much storage 2.5 HDD can have not sure haveing 2 is a real deal clincher. I would be more impressed with M2 capability

[BlackDwarf]

M-SATA, Dual SSDs, 16Gb RAM, Dual NIC... Seems like a nice low powered ESX host to me...

[Sim0n]

@Blackdwarf.
If you could get the Wireless working in ESXi, maybe as the management interface. Thats triple NICs

[BlackDwarf]

My initial thought was Dual NICS + Wireless = Amazing Pfsense box.

[DDY]

I'm impressed, many things I could use one for. Even as an HTPC, the fan might not need to spin very fast since its only got a 15W CPU to deal with.

The D-Sub at the front looks out of place, unless you're after that retro games console look

[crossy]

I see they have fans. No use as an HTPC then. Given how much storage 2.5 HDD can have not sure haveing 2 is a real deal clincher. I would be more impressed with M2 capability

2 x 2.5" + RAID1 = 4TB, which is surely a goodly amount for a HTPC unless you're into 4K rips? Wouldn't be too bothered by the fan either - aren't the CPU's both low powered ones, so maybe the fan won't have to spin up at all, or if it does maybe it'll be a slow-runner. Plus it'll maybe be possible to replace it with an after market one that's more efficient.

M2's fine, but mSata seems to be "where it's at" if you want larger storage options. Quick look seems to show that M2's currently limited to 500GB whereas you can get 1TB mSata's if your wallet's fat enough.

Hadn't paid much mind to Zotac, but see that they've actually got some pretty decent boxes - for those times when you want something a little more powerful and/or expandable than an RPi2. I could do with a low power Linux host for doing downloads etc, and these might fit the bill.

[cjs150]

Crossy: I moved all media on to a NAS once I got passed 1TB - I was uncomfortable with the idea that one disk failure meant having to re-rip all music and video. HDDs do not fail often - but they do fail.

Of course if you are comfortable with having all media on a HDD, the next obvious question with the Zotac box is why 2x 2.5 HDD? Currently limited to 2TB per HDD, whereas a 3.5 HDD (smaller than 2x2.5 HDD) goes up to 8TB currently

[crossy]

Crossy: I moved all media on to a NAS once I got passed 1TB - I was uncomfortable with the idea that one disk failure meant having to re-rip all music and video. HDDs do not fail often - but they do fail.

Of course if you are comfortable with having all media on a HDD, the next obvious question with the Zotac box is why 2x 2.5 HDD? Currently limited to 2TB per HDD, whereas a 3.5 HDD (smaller than 2x2.5 HDD) goes up to 8TB currently

Fair point, then again any storage media can fail - way back to ye tablets of stone - there's an old joke that there were originally 12 commandments, but Moses dropped one (and it broke) and God managed to crack the other in the process of carving.

Mirror/backup your RAID1 array to an external crate using that USB3 port?

I suspect that the 2.5" form choice is so that the unit's directly compatible with the SSD's that everyone seems to like. Although a RAID1 array of decent SSD's is