An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review – Sour Coffee Labs An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review Written by Neel Chauhan in Uncategorized I’ve always wanted an ARM server in my homelab. But earlier, I either had to use an underpowered ARM system, or use Asahi which not only requires expensive Mac hardware but also slowed down in the past few years. Then Minisforum introduced the MS-R1 Mini PC. Two MS-01s were already incumbent in my homelab when they replaced power-hungry HPE towers, but the MS-R1 gave me what I wanted: a reasonably powerful ARM machine which doesn’t have bank-breaking Mac pricing. Assembly I got the MS-R1 barebones and had a 1TB SSD sitting around. First, we have the box: I opened the box and got this: I installed my SSD, and attempted to install Rocky Linux. Rocky Linux Installation So here it is, Rocky Linux booted. There’s one issue: the onboard NICs weren’t detected: I installed it anyways, and tried to sideload the Realtek r8127 drivers. While they did install and load, keeping the driver upon kernel updates wasn’t elegant and very hacky. I could keep trying, but decided to just use Fedora instead: Fedora Installation Yes, while I use Fedora on my laptop, I also know Fedora is generally not a good option for a server. But it had the NIC drivers as the RTL8127 is newer than RHEL 10’s freeze but not Fedora 43’s. So that’s what I used. Homelab Picture Here’s my obligatory homelab picture: MS-R1 on the top, then two MS-01s, MikroTik CCR2004-16G-2S+PC, CRS309-1G-8S+IN and CSS610-8P-2S+IN. The Upsides First, it’s a powerful-enough ARM system which doesn’t break the bank. I wanted this for so long. I’d say it’s quieter than the MS-01s but then Intel doesn’t exactly have the most efficient silicon. Yet even as an efficiency for performance freak I have a 285K instead of a 9950X. While Minisforum recommends their Debian image, Rocky Linux worked for everything but the NICs, and Fedora works for everything I need. I haven’t tested the integrated GPU since I plan to use this headless. I also own a Mac as my ARM (but not main) laptop. Say what you want about UEFI and ACPI, but it does make hardware support easier. Heck, not just Macs with UTM, but Huawei ARM laptops in China can run Windows VMs, despite crippling US sanctions. I do hope a future CentOS/RHEL/Rocky 10 adds the Realtek 8127 so I won’t have to wait until 2028 for Rocky 11. And no I won’t use Debian. The Downsides By no means is the MS-R1 perfect. For instance, there are two M.2 slots but one is used by the Wi-Fi and even if I remove it, cannot use it for a M.2 SSD, only U.2. I’d still prefer to have RAID if not for the shortage. The MS-01 and A2 have multiple M.2 SSD slots. Also, Marvell AQC107 NICs wasn’t detected by the UEFI, so they couldn’t be used as far as I tried: Unless the NIC died or my UEFI configuration is wrong, it’s simply not usable. One nit: if I select “power on after outage,” it didn’t do it when I unplugged and replugged the ser

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