Everything Homelab Node Goes 1U Rackmount Qotom Review - Page 2 of 4

Inside the 1U, there is a lot of space, and airflow is not tremendous on the top side, with the CPU cooler being on the bottom of the motherboard. Even though this system has one fan we would still suggest using lower-power components inside. Cooling was not an issue for us, but we also used low-power components after seeing this.

While we usually start with the motherboard, this time, the big feature is the power supply. Instead of a questionable unit from a no-name brand, we get a Mean Well LRS-50-12 power supply. Mean Well is a fairly well-known brand, and it is one of the power supply vendors that folks use to replace internal and external power supplies in some of these low-cost systems when they want an upgrade. These are not expensive power supplies, but it was great to see it here.

In the center, there are mounting holes for a 2.5″ drive and then a SATA data and power connector to connect the drive. Since we had two units, we had a second cable and used that to connect a second drive using Velcro inside the chassis, and it worked.

Here is the motherboard stripped of components.

This is the same motherboard that we saw in the fanless units with a few smaller manufacturing changes like the QR codes versus the barcodes for MAC address stickers. Since we got the 1U systems later, we also have things like the C3758R and Intel i226 NICs in here.

Here is the backside of what one of these motherboards looks like.

For memory, we get two DDR4 SODIMM slots. If you ask, there are a few ECC options available from Qotom at a price premium.

Something that is worth noting is that if you add 64GB of memory, the boot time on the first boot takes several minutes. If you then subsequently boot it, the boot process will take around a minute. If you instead use something like 2x 8GB for 16GB, the boot time may take half the time. In a firewall, that can be a big deal, so we suggest right-sizing the memory and not just installing 64GB because you can. We also tested and this is working in dual channel mode.

Next to that, there are two M.2 2280 (80mm) slots for NVMe storage. The slots are only PCIe Gen3 x2, so our advice is that if you purchase something like a barebones version of this, get a low-power PCIe Gen3 drive like the SK Hynix Gold P31 or something with even less power instead of the fastest drive you can find.

There is another M.2 B-key slot for a M.2 3042 or 3052 WWAN card. If you remember the SIM card slot on the exterior, this is why that feature exists.

There is also an ASPEED AST2400 BMC chip onboard. That is an older chip (we are currently on the AST2600 version) that is used for VGA and console output. The GPU IP in this is ancient, so think of something to allow for a management display, but not much else beyond that.

Here is the topology of the system:

Next, let us get to the performance.