I examined an early variant of the ZimaCube NAS on the finish of 2023, and whereas I famous on the time that it had loads of potential, there have been too many points — each {hardware} and software program — to advocate it broadly. Fortunately, IceWhale (the model behind ZimaCube) has been fairly busy over the course of the final 12 months, ironing out plenty of the preliminary points and doing a greater job with the software program.
The result’s that the ZimaCube Professional is a really totally different beast to the common mannequin I examined 15 months in the past. The NAS has extra highly effective {hardware}, and it contains 10GbE connectivity along with the twin 2.5GbE ports. It’s extremely extensible, and there is even Thunderbolt 4. With the flexibility to fit 10 drives in whole, the ZimaCube Professional handles heavy storage wants with relative ease.
There hasn’t been a greater time to choose up a NAS system, with new entrants like UGREEN delivering thrilling fashions with terrific {hardware} and the flexibility to run TrueNAS. Whereas the ZimaCube Professional is on the dearer finish of the size, the caliber of the {hardware} makes it an excellent selection if you need a strong dwelling server to stream content material wherever.
IceWhale debuted the ZimaCube and ZimaCube on the finish of 2023, and each fashions at the moment are accessible globally. The ZimaCube Professional prices $1,099 on the model’s web site, and also you get a NAS that is powered by the twelfth Gen Intel Core i5-1235U, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD put in as customary, Thunderbolt 4, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI connectivity.
The usual ZimaCube can also be accessible, and you’ll choose it up for $519 as of writing. You do not get 10GbE connectivity, the NAS is powered by the N100 and 8GB of RAM, and you do not get as a lot bandwidth for the M/2 SSDs. Outdoors of that, it’s equivalent to the Professional mannequin, and if you wish to avoid wasting money, I would recommend getting the common variant.
The ZimaCube Professional appears to be like equivalent to the usual mannequin, so I am not going to speak an excessive amount of in regards to the design. The metallic development is clearly constructed to final, and I did not have any points with the NAS after two months of testing. The common ZimaCube can also be going robust after 15 months of use, so the construct high quality is not one thing that is worrisome.
The NAS has a mesh door that is magnetically hooked up to the entrance, and the drive bays are housed behind it. It continues to be annoying to fit in drives as you do not get a tool-less design, however they’re securely housed, and also you get 4 M.2 slots along with the six common drive bays. The extensibility provides the ZimaCube Professional a bonus, and you’ll add a complete of ten drives within the NAS as customary.
Whereas I just like the design, it does not have a lot in the best way of air flow. Most manufacturers have vented sides that permit air contained in the chassis, however that is not the case on the ZimaCube Professional. One other draw back is that the built-in fan is the loudest of any NAS I examined; though IceWhale is utilizing a brand new cooling resolution, the fan will get loud even when the NAS is not beneath loud, and it has an audible whine more often than not. Actually, I would recommend switching out the built-in fan should you’re on this NAS.
Switching over to the {hardware}, the ZimaCube Professional makes use of a twelfth Gen 10-core Intel Core i5-1235U, and it’s terrific. It comes with 16GB of RAM put in — as two 8GB modules — and also you even get a 256GB SSD. The actual star of the present is the connectivity; with twin 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports and a ten Gigabit port, the ZimaCube Professional is designed for multi-Gigabit networks.
There’s additionally twin Thunderbolt 4 ports on the again alongside two USB-A and USB-C ports, and HDMI. Clearly, the primary purpose to choose up the ZimaCube Professional is the strong connectivity, and it wins out in opposition to its instant rivals on this regard. That mentioned, the software program is not fairly as polished, and establishing the NAS is a bit convoluted.
I slotted in HDDs I examined on one other NAS, and it simply booted up that OS — which was simply weird. ZimaOS does not embrace the flexibility to format drives whereas putting in, so you will have to manually erase information on HDDs earlier than slotting them contained in the NAS. It’s annoying as each different NAS I examined till now has an choice to erase information throughout preliminary configuration, and that is an oversight by IceWhale.
The Zima OS software program itself is usable; it provides you entry to Docker containerization, a good set of utilities within the retailer, and system monitoring dashboards. Whereas it is gotten higher over the past 12 months and a half, it simply does not have the identical stage of polish as different NAS manufacturers. I did not see any points with transferring information to and from the NAS, however you miss out on a number of extras which are customary on mainstream fashions, reminiscent of backing up photographs and movies routinely.
Nevertheless, you may simply set up any OS of your selecting, and that in itself is a giant attract — the perfect use case for the NAS is to arrange an occasion of TrueNAS Scale. When you do not thoughts tinkering to arrange another OS, the ZimaCube Professional is a good selection; it has among the finest total {hardware} packages on this class. However should you want one thing that is able to exit of the field, I would recommend having a look on the UGREEN DXP6800 Professional as a substitute.