[HN Gopher] ASRock Industrial NUCS Box-1360P/D4 Review: Raptor L...
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       ASRock Industrial NUCS Box-1360P/D4 Review: Raptor Lake-P Plus
       Surprise ECC
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2023-01-29 16:31 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.anandtech.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.anandtech.com)
        
       | dpedu wrote:
       | Was there nothing mentioned about noise under load or did I miss
       | it? I bought an 8 core Miniforum AMD-based nuc to use as a home
       | server and it's too noisy even under slight load.
        
         | axytol wrote:
         | I had some good experience with Asus MiniPC P50 - also 8 cores,
         | Ryzen. I noticed it was barely audible while running with a VM
         | active.
        
       | walrus01 wrote:
       | Truly "industrial" small x86-64 PCs will have direct wiring
       | terminals for 12VDC power, or -48VDC, not a consumer grade
       | 110-240VAC to DC-something power brick with it.
        
       | jcrawfordor wrote:
       | Just a quick caution, I had a frustrating series of issues with
       | an Asrock Industrial NUC that I ordered from Newegg. Asrock
       | Industrial support was fairly helpful and responsive and it
       | definitely looked like my unit specifically had a faulty
       | motherboard which, well, these things happen. The caution is that
       | arranging an RMA turned into a real pain between Asrock and
       | Newegg. I don't think Newegg is exactly selling them gray market,
       | but they are _not_ one of Asrock Industrial 's distributors,
       | which seemed to be the pain point (Newegg was not actually set up
       | to handle RMAs). I think it might be a better idea to buy through
       | https://mitxpc.com/ which both sells direct to consumer _and_ is
       | a listed Asrock Industrial distributor.
       | 
       | To their credit Newegg did take it back and send me a replacement
       | but I think it had to be escalated to management and they ate the
       | cost. It took a few days and a few back-and-forths with their
       | CSAs.
        
         | KennyBlanken wrote:
         | Newegg is a shitshow and has been for a long, long time.
         | 
         | So many people have been burned by them, and the writing was on
         | the wall as long as a decade and a half ago when they would
         | purposefully not process orders for 2-3 days to get you to pay
         | extra to have an order process in their warehouse in a
         | reasonable period of time.
         | 
         | It doesn't matter whether Newegg was "set up to handle RMAs"
         | for Asrock. They sold you something defective. They shouldn't
         | get credit for "taking it back and sending a
         | replacement"...that's _required_ of them.
        
           | jcrawfordor wrote:
           | It's important to understand here that the product was well
           | outside of Newegg's return period and this all occurred over
           | the manufacturer's warranty. The problem is that most B2B
           | manufacturers expect their distributors to handle warranty
           | claims. Based on my interactions with Newegg I think they had
           | gotten into this situation somewhat accidentally and may not
           | have realized that the NUC was from Asrock Industrial, a
           | distinct sales channel from Asrock's consumer products. Of
           | course this doesn't speak positively of their internal
           | processes.
           | 
           | With this kind of product you can often find lower prices
           | from distributors other than authorized ones, at the cost
           | that _the warranty is not serviceable._ It 's usually
           | referred to as gray-market sales. I think Newegg was
           | effectively a gray-market seller here but unknowingly, as
           | they were advertising Asrock Industrial's warranty even
           | though they weren't authorized to service it.
        
         | mewse-hn wrote:
         | GamersNexus on youtube had an incredibly messed up experience
         | returning an open box motherboard to newegg and made a whole
         | video series about it. They actually got an interview with
         | newegg execs, some of whom had only been there a few months and
         | have already left the company.
        
           | thedaly wrote:
           | And this is why I buy exclusively from Microcenter. My
           | sympathies to those without local access to one.
        
           | inetknght wrote:
           | [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fnXsmXzphI
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-eB_Bv5Ik
           | 
           | [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1R4wbuXFII
           | 
           | I didn't hear that the Newegg Execs he talked to have already
           | left the company though. Where's that info?
        
       | Scene_Cast2 wrote:
       | From what I understand, these boxes are sold by ASRock as B2B.
       | Does anyone have experience ordering them as a consumer (non-
       | business)?
        
         | laweijfmvo wrote:
         | Newegg carries the previous generations
        
       | intrasight wrote:
       | That would be a great home server machine. But would like to know
       | the price, and to better understand this "pseudo-ECC"
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | The price is $700 (bare-bones) to $1050 (the configuration as
         | discussed in the article without OS).
        
         | wil421 wrote:
         | In-band ECC is likely a lot more marketing speak and a lot less
         | ECC. The way I look at ECC is like this, no extra die no ECC.
         | 
         | In band "ECC" DIMMS store the ECC bits on the same memory chips
         | using the same lanes as the data. Side band ECC uses dedicate
         | lanes and a dedicated memory chip. If you don't have 9 chips on
         | your RAM sticks you have some marketing version of ECC
         | (cheaper).
        
           | wmf wrote:
           | In-band ECC isn't as strong as chipkill but it will correct
           | errors. It's not fake.
        
             | csdvrx wrote:
             | Not ECC to me. I want to see the reports with EDAC or
             | something else.
        
               | wmf wrote:
               | Like this? https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-
               | edac/patch/202011...
        
             | wil421 wrote:
             | I didn't call it fake but I am hesitant to adopt something
             | that doesn't have a need. Is it better and more reliable or
             | is it cheaper for the manufacturer to produce?
             | 
             | My money is on it being cheaper to produce and with no
             | benefit to the consumer. The anandtech author even states
             | in band deserves more investigation.
             | 
             | ZFS stores the error correcting bits on the same physical
             | drive as the data. It's not unheard of to do it that way.
        
               | wmf wrote:
               | _My money is on it being cheaper to produce and with no
               | benefit to the consumer._
               | 
               | This is completely wrong. You're just making up theories.
               | 
               |  _ZFS stores the error correcting bits on the same
               | physical drive as the data._
               | 
               | This isn't right either.
        
       | ndneighbor wrote:
       | Kinda a stupid comment from me but I am wondering why Framework
       | doesn't get into the NUC business. The ASRock NUCs usually retail
       | from $750-$650 and that's around the cost of an upgrade kit from
       | Framework. Considering that most industrial compute is mostly
       | dealing with long lived deployments of edge hardware, it seems
       | like the sort of stuff that their emphasis on ecosystem can help
       | here.
       | 
       | Anyways, I should stop my homelab hobby even though I find this
       | stuff fun. I might pick this up regardless.
       | 
       | https://frame.work/products/12-gen-intel-upgrade-kit?v=FRUPG...
       | https://mitxpc.com/collections/ultra-small-form-factor/nuc-1...
        
       | newman314 wrote:
       | Still waiting for a NUC with built in 10G that can run ESXi. It's
       | strange that this isn't a yet a thing.
        
         | lizknope wrote:
         | There are some small form factor machines here with 10G but
         | they aren't cheap
         | 
         | https://mitxpc.com/collections/mini-server
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | I used to want 10ge on my NUC then I bridged it via Thunderbolt
         | to a machine that does have 10ge and that has been
         | satisfactory.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | Does Ethernet over TB only pretend to be 10GbE but is
           | actually faster or does it only use 10 Gibbons of the
           | available bandwidth?
        
             | wmf wrote:
             | People have gotten 17 Gbps so it's not limited to 10.
        
               | jeffbee wrote:
               | Yeah I actually expected it to be 20 but it's just short
               | of that. Not complaining.
        
       | z3t4 wrote:
       | Why not add a fan and heatsink to it?
        
       | ianai wrote:
       | I don't see ECC mentioned in any actual specs linked/listed
       | (could have missed it). Hope this isn't taken out after this
       | first run.
        
       | skazazes wrote:
       | These small boxes make for great homelab servers. I use a Topton
       | box from AliExpress[1] as a router/VM/container host and love it.
       | It has an iGPU in case SHTF, and 4 individual 2.5GB Ethernet
       | ports. The only thing it really lacks is out of band management.
       | 
       | Run pfsense/opn in a VM, plug in WAN/AP/NAS/Desktop and you have
       | a lightning fast network/development lab (by home use standards
       | at least).
       | 
       | Even if you were not planning on using it as a lab, one of these
       | kinds of boxes and a strong AP beats out even the high-end
       | consumer focused routers all in ones without breaking a sweat at
       | ~50W
       | 
       | A long time ago I ran a rack-mount Dell R710 with an external
       | disk shelf. It drew ~600W from what I remember and had a fraction
       | of the power
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804669109631.html?spm=a2g...
        
         | sschueller wrote:
         | Even if you want to do 25gbit + you are still better off
         | building a custom pc [1] than buying any dedicated routing hw.
         | At least right now they are still very loud and cost way more.
         | Plus as you said you can use it as a vm host for all kinds of
         | stuff.
         | 
         | [1] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/wiring-a-home-with-
         | fiber/...
        
           | wil421 wrote:
           | I use an i3 on an x11 Supermicro board with ecc memory.
           | Upgrading to 10gbit was easy. Once hardware costs comes down
           | I may go to 25 or 100.
        
         | csdvrx wrote:
         | Is ECC an option?
        
         | 404mm wrote:
         | ... but you are comparing a reasonably priced Chinese box with
         | multiple LAN (ideal for router) with a $1000 single Ethernet
         | box. Kinda not the same thing.
         | 
         | I like used enterprise level small factor PCs for home server.
         | Lots of cheap parts on eBay, decent performance and low TDP.
         | For example, HP EliteDesk 800 series.
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | I'd love it if someone produced a reasonably priced mini-pc
         | with a pci-e slot
         | 
         | (of course it wouldn't be so mini...)
         | 
         | more or less like servethehome's tinyminymicro project (but not
         | relying on used equipment from 3 years ago)
        
           | AlbertoGP wrote:
           | Do you know about the Minisforum B550?
           | 
           | It has an external PCI-E 16x male port that goes into a small
           | dock/riser where you can plug a graphics card for instance.
           | 
           | https://droix.co.uk/blogs/minisforum-b550-review/
           | 
           | A second review with a different conclusion:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihcGnBjUAm4
           | 
           | Not so reasonably priced, so it maybe does not fit your
           | criteria.
        
           | Lammy wrote:
           | You can get flexible risers to turn the m.2 slot into a PCI-e
           | 4x
        
       | 1MachineElf wrote:
       | ECC would be significant since the vast majority of these kinds
       | of devices lack it.
        
       | KennyBlanken wrote:
       | The thing is not remotely "industrial", but I guess that label is
       | an attempt to justify the outrageous pricetag. It's firmly
       | office, maybe light commercial at best.
       | 
       | The review itself mentions that the design is based off a
       | consumer product and they only altered the cooling vent location
       | to accommodate a new motherboard layout.
       | 
       | This is aimed at customers like the previously-on-HN JesusChicken
       | chain which is placing NUCs at every store. Even then: I'd expect
       | better sealing.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-31 23:00 UTC)