MINISFORUM MS-01 Workstation Core i9-13900H Mini PC Barebone Version Without RAM, SSD and OS, 2xUSB4 1xHDMI Display, 2x2.5G LAN Port, 3X SSD Slot, 2x10G SFP+ Port, Support Discrete Graphics Cards

I sent an email request for drivers after searching everywhere I could think of. I see there are some hacks on forums, but I feel I deserve something safe from the manufacturer that sells this system with Windows 11. (which I was planning on trying first) With no network drivers discovered in the Windows install drivers I feel up-the-creek. I emailed the manufacturer 4 days ago .... no dice! (no reply) I've never purchased a motherboard that didn't come with drivers, and this seems like a silly waste of my time.

My personal laptop died in late November of 2024 so I decided to replace it with the MS-01. I ordered the Core i9-13900H (32+1T) but in reflection should have ordered the Core i9-13900H (0+0) because I used the 1T NVMe from my dead laptop and ordered the 96GB upgrade kit ( Crucial RAM 96GB Kit (2x48GB) DDR5 5600MHz (or 5200MHz or 4800MHz) Laptop Memory CT2K48G56C46S5) which will arrive after this review. To begin the packaging this comes in is very nice and the padding is almost 2 inches thick making it very ship worthy. Access to the BIOS which is very clean and easy to use is accessed by hitting the DEL key when the Minis Forum logo appears. This unit recognized and booted effortlessly from the NVMe that was in my laptop. I examined the boot drive that came with my MS-01 and all drivers were loaded but downloading the Windows 11 drivers from the Minis Forums sites is a bit challenging but once you find the drivers they are all in one RAR file. The MS-01 is very quiet, sleeps well and wakes up easily. Under heavy load the fan is noticeable but not to the point of being obnoxious. I purchased this primarily for the dual NIC cards and the (3) NVMe slots as well as the (2) Type C ports and once the drivers are installed, they work flawlessly. The build in GPU is running a pair of LG Ultrawide monitors at 2560x1080 each and while the resolution is not quite as crisp as I hoped, it is still very clear and I suspect higher quality type C cables may help this. Screwless entry to open the case is great but there is one design flaw that I have found. One cannot access the button that opens the case with the CAT5e cables in place and one cannot access the locking clips that hold the CAT5e cables in place due to the case design. To remove the CAT5e cables one must use a tiny screwdriver to press down on the locking clips. I spent a few hours researching GPU’s that would fit in this case and the options are few, especially of you are not comfortable tearing down a GPU and installing a custom GPU Cooler. Overall I am very impressed with the unit.

I bought this to replace my old Dell Precision T7600 dual Xeon/64GB lab pc that was running Proxmox. It's about 1/10th the size of that PC and uses much less power. It is expensive, and getting more expensive due to the RAM shortage. I connected this to my Ubiquiti DMSE with a 10Gb SFP cable without any trouble. I was able to easily add 2 more 1TB NVME drives by removing the fan. This thing is really fast and easy to setup for a lab build. If you are sitting near it, you will hear the fans come on when it is under a load

Installed proxmox on bare metal and have had no issues spinning up VMs or containers and its still very quiet.

Great PC, working well for 2 weeks now as my opnsense router, no worries at all