Beelink ME Mini 6-slot NAS mini PC overview

Introduction and unboxing

That is our second run-in with Beelink’s mini PCs, and the formulation hasn’t modified – Beelink makes transportable and handsome mini PCs with nice specs for an inexpensive value.

Immediately we’re wanting on the Beelink ME Mini, a mini PC that is equally fitted to each day workplace duties, in addition to being your house (or work) Community Connected Storage (NAS) system for these valuable recollections (or essential work knowledge). It could actually even be used as a localized server resolution.

Made in collaboration with Essential, the ME mini pairs the favored Intel N150 processor with 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM with an non-compulsory dual-storage resolution – you will have a built-in 64 GB eMMC and 6 M.2 SSD slots (with one crammed by a 2 TB Essential P3 Plus). This lets you run a light-weight NAS system, comparable to FNOS, NRAID, or TrueNAS, on the eMMC and make the most of the sooner SSDs for knowledge storage, for instance.

The Beelink ME mini is offered in Midnight Grey, Peacock Blue, and Pearl White. The mini PC ships in a field with a 100cm HDMI cable and an AC cable.

The ME Mini begins from $209 with a 64 GB eMMC and 12 GB of RAM and goes as much as $329 in the event you add the two TB Essential SSD (costs from Beelink’s web site, nevertheless it’s additionally obtainable on Amazon US). There may even be an possibility with a 4TB Essential SSD within the close to future.

Design and ports

The Beelink ME mini is a sq. mini PC that measures 99 mm on all sides and weighs simply 750g.

It has an fascinating design with Beelink’s brand on the prime, surrounded by a dot sample air vent with the phrases “Archive your moments” inscribed on the facet in six totally different languages. There are six rubber toes on the underside, alongside one other air vent, and there are additionally vents on the left and proper sides of the PC.

There is a built-in fan on the prime of the machine that sucks cool air from the highest (and backside) and expels the nice and cozy air from the perimeters. Beelink says it emits simply 33dB when working at its common 1500 rpm pace.

There are many ports on the ME Mini. Upfront is a ten Gbps USB-C and one other 10 Gbps USB-A 3.2. Across the again is the AC Energy port (100- 240V), a USB-A 2.0 (with All the time-On help), two LAN 2.5G (with an Intel i226-v controller) ports, and an HDMI-A port (with 4K @ 60Hz help).

Ports – USB-C, USB-A on the entrance, AC, USB-A, two LAN, and an HDMI out again

To open the Beelink ME Mini and acquire entry to its six M.2 SSD slots, you must first take away the 4 rubber toes and the underside and unscrew the 4 screws. You then elevate off the plastic outer cowl upwards, and also you’re in.

Inside, you will see the top-mounted fan, the built-in 45W energy provide, and the six M.2 SSD slots, labeled and with thermal pads put in. 5 of the six are PCIe 3.0 X1, however slot quantity 4 is a sooner X2 (that is the place the built-in Essential SSD is).

The ME mini helps as much as 4 TB SSDs per drive for a complete of 24 TB of information. You’ll be able to select between 2230/2242/2280 M.2 kind SSDs. The Intel N150 relies on the Intel Twin Lake structure, which is extra of a tweak of the outdated Alder Lake than a brand new setup. It is based mostly on Intel’s 7 lithography, which means this can be a 10nm processor.

Being bodily similar to the N100, the N150 has 4 Effectivity-focused cores and 4 threads. The utmost Turbo clock pace is 3.6 GHz – up from 3.4 GHz – whereas the cache is identical 6 MB. On the GPU facet, you get the identical Intel Graphics with 24 compute items, however the peak clock has gone up from 750 MHz to 1000 MHz.

The N150 has a peak TDP of 25W (the standard TDP is 6W). We ran a myriad of checks on the machine, however the N150 is a well known commodity within the business at this level. Apparently, regardless of utilizing the identical N150 because the Beelink EQ14 we examined late final 12 months, the ME mini scored barely decrease in some checks. This might be all the way down to the distinction in RAM (the EQ14 has 16GB, the ME mini has 12GB).

As an illustration, in Geekbench 6, the Me mini scored 16% worse within the single-core and 40% worse within the multi-core check. It was the identical within the Geekbench AI check. Passmark’s CPU analysis of the N150 contained in the ME mini was 14% worse than within the EQ14, whereas reminiscence was predictably worse too, at 45% worse.

Efficiency and fan noise

The Beelink ME Mini makes use of Intel’s widespread N150 processor. It is the successor to the N100 and is a higher-clocked variant of that processor.

Nevertheless, because the EQ14 got here with a SATA III SSD, the ME mini’s PCIe 3.0 Essential P3 Plus ran circles round it – it is 70% higher in Passmark. And certainly, whereas the 512GB unit contained in the EQ14 supplied a learn pace of round 530 MB/s and write of round 525 MB/s, the Essential P3 Plus within the ME mini provides 1,740 MB/s and 1,687 MB/s, respectively.

And that is the primary thought of the ME mini: it is best fitted to use as a house server or a NAS.

We ran a three-hour stress check on the ME mini. The processor shortly dropped its peak 3.6 GHz in favor of round 2.5 GHz. It seldom dipped all the way down to round 500 MHz and again as much as 2.2-2.5 GHz. The processor confirmed a studying of 65°, and the outside of the PC was heat to the contact.

Nevertheless, we won’t say we ever heard the fan spinning, even at arm’s size. We measured under 30 dB. This mini PC would not be a trouble in most workplace or family environments.

Conclusion

As configured, the Beelink ME mini (12GB of RAM, 64GB eMMC, 2TB Essential SSD) is $329 on Beelink’s web site and $409 on Amazon US. Nevertheless, Amazon US provides a $80 coupon, successfully matching Beelink’s personal value.

Contemplating you get Home windows 11 as a part of the deal, we would say the ME mini is a stable first step in direction of your individual dwelling server to maintain your cherished recollections secure and inside arm’s attain. The non-compulsory as much as 24 TB of storage is greater than sufficient area for storing your images and movies for years on finish.

We’ll be utilizing the ME mini as our new workplace server, to drive issues like our cameras, and most of the instruments we want on daily basis to make our articles and opinions.

For anyone questioning precisely what our workplace server setup seems like, with out going into an excessive amount of element, we have now an FTP server, Apache and MySQL for 3 or so inside instruments like battery log and audio pattern evaluation, a digicam monitoring and recording utility and a few knowledge supply for testing instruments. It’s nothing too intensive, however on the similar time, we do have just a few screens with statistics always hitting the server and digicam processing for movement detection isn’t too gentle both. Positive, the Intel N150 isn’t a powerhouse by any means, however it’s doing simply positive for our use case, which is frankly form of spectacular.

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