ZimaCube 2 First Look — The Value Is Insane for a 6-Bay NAS

I have been running a two-bay Ugreen NAS with TrueNAS for a while now. It works. It is fine. But when I started pricing out what a six-bay device with this feature set should cost, I kept coming back to a number that was at least double what IceWhale is asking.

The ZimaCube 2 Standard Edition costs around $800. Six hot-swap SATA bays. Four M.2 NVMe slots in the 7th Bay. Dual 2.5GbE. Thunderbolt 4. DDR5 RAM. An Intel i3-1215U that is a genuine step up from the N100-class chips in most consumer NAS boxes.

I was one of ten people selected as a Pioneer Program reviewer. Here is my first look — the hardware, the build, the software, and why I think the value proposition here is genuinely hard to beat.

The Unboxing: Someone Cared About This

The first thing I noticed: the unboxing feels premium. Apple-vibes. You slide the outer sleeve off from the top, and inside is the device in a protective wrap — no wrestling with foam inserts, no cutting zip ties. Compared to previous hardware I have bought or reviewed, IceWhale stepped this up significantly.

The Standard Edition I received is silver — a lighter finish than the darker gray on the Pro and Creator Pack models. I personally prefer the darker look, but I understand why they separated the colorways to differentiate the product tiers. The silver still looks clean.

In the box: the ZimaCube 2 unit, a CAT6 patch cable, the IceWhale custom magnetic screwdriver (genuinely useful for drive installation), NVMe heat sinks for the 7th Bay, and the power supply. The PSU is a 19V 13A brick — 247W — properly specced for six spinning drives and the i3.

Hardware Walkthrough

Front I/O

The front panel has a magnetic mesh cover — plastic with a metal-look coating, rubber feet, and magnets. It pulls off easily for drive access. Behind it: six tool-less 3.5"/2.5" SATA drive trays, cleanly arranged in two columns of three.
Below the drive bays: 2× USB-A 3.0, 1× USB-C 3.0, a 3.5mm audio jack, and the power button. Having USB-C on the front is practical — quick drive attachments, phone backups, no reaching around the back.

Rear I/O

This is where the Standard Edition differentiates itself from the Pro:

The dual 2.5GbE on the Standard model is still strong — link aggregation gives you 5 Gbps total, which is more than most home networks can saturate. And both Thunderbolt 4 ports are present regardless of tier, which means direct Mac or PC connections for video editing workflows are available even on the base $800 model.

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Inside the Chassis

Opening the top panel reveals a clean internal layout. The motherboard is accessible without removing drive cages. What you see:

• CPU: Intel i3-1215U (6 cores, up to 4.40 GHz). Not an N100. This matters — the N100 has 9 PCIe lanes to feed everything. The i3 brings more lanes and meaningfully better single-threaded performance.
• RAM: 8GB DDR5 SODIMM (Standard), upgradeable to 64GB. Two slots, user-accessible.
• Storage: 256GB onboard NVMe for the OS, plus the 7th Bay module with 4× M.2 NVMe slots accessible from the side.
• PCIe: x16 Gen 4.0 + x8 Gen 3.0 slots. This is not something you see on an $800 NAS.
• Cooling: Two 80mm rear exhaust fans plus passive side ventilation. The CPU/PCIe zone is thermally separated from the drive bays.

The Price Comparison That Changed My Mind

Before making this video, I ran the numbers. Here is what I found:

If you are shopping for a six-bay NAS with this I/O, you are typically looking at $1,200–1,600 from established brands — and those devices rarely include Thunderbolt or PCIe slots. The ZimaCube 2 is not competing on price with two-bay devices. It is undercutting six-bay devices by 30–50% while offering features they do not have.

ZimaOS: A Quick Tour

I had not touched CasaOS (the foundation ZimaOS is built on) in about a year and a half. Coming back to it on the ZimaCube 2 was a pleasant surprise.

The setup flow is straightforward: boot the device, find the IP, and open the web UI. The dashboard gives you a clean overview of storage, apps, and system status. Creating a RAID array is handled through the Storage Manager — select your drives, choose your RAID level, confirm, and wait for the array to build. It is simpler than TrueNAS and significantly more approachable than a raw mdadm command line.

The App Store is where ZimaOS differentiates itself from traditional NAS operating systems. Installing Immich, Plex, or Nextcloud is a one-click process — the docker-compose configuration is handled for you. For more advanced users, you can still drop into Docker directly and use docker-compose files for custom stacks.

As a quick test, I installed Crafty Controller from the App Store and spun up a Minecraft server. The whole process — install, configure, launch — took under ten minutes. On TrueNAS, the same setup would have involved manual jail configuration, permission wrangling, and significantly more terminal time.

Future videos will dig deeper — TrueNAS installation, ZFS pool testing, Proxmox integration, and PCIe GPU experiments. This was a first look at the hardware and the out-of-the-box experience.

What the ZimaCube 2 Gets Right

1. The bay-to-price ratio is unmatched. Six hot-swap bays plus four NVMe slots for $800. The closest competitors are either significantly more expensive or significantly less capable.
2. The i3-1215U is the right choice for the base model. Not an underpowered N100. Not an overpowered i7 that would push the price past $1,000. The i3 has enough headroom for Docker, ZFS, Plex transcoding, and light VM workloads while keeping thermals and cost reasonable.
3. PCIe expansion at this price is rare. Most sub-$1,000 NAS devices are sealed appliances. The ZimaCube 2 gives you two PCIe slots and says "grow into it."
4. ZimaOS is approachable without being limiting. One-click Docker apps for beginners, full Docker Compose for power users, ZFS support in the storage manager. No false choice between "easy" and "capable."
5. The presentation matters. Apple-style packaging, custom screwdriver, included NVMe heat sinks, and thoughtful internal layout. These details signal that IceWhale cares about the product beyond the spec sheet.

The one criticism: the front and rear mesh grilles are plastic with a coating, not metal like the side panels. It is a minor material inconsistency on an otherwise well-built device. I would love to see metal grilles on a future revision.

See the ZimaCube 2 value for yourself →

Want more ZimaCube 2 reviews? Read our ZimaCube 2 Pro Unboxing, our Docker & CI/CD deep dive, and our Homelab Evolution story.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does the ZimaCube 2 Standard Edition cost?

The ZimaCube 2 Standard Edition is priced at approximately $800 USD. For comparison, a two-bay Ugreen NAS with a lower-spec CPU costs $400–450, and six-bay devices from established brands with comparable I/O typically run $1,200–1,600.

What is the difference between the ZimaCube 2 Standard and Pro?

The Standard uses an i3-1215U with 8GB DDR5 and dual 2.5GbE. The Pro upgrades to an i5-1235U with 16GB DDR5, adds 10GbE alongside the dual 2.5GbE, and comes in a darker gray finish. Both share the same chassis, 6 SATA bays, 4 M.2 slots, Thunderbolt 4, and PCIe expansion.

Can the ZimaCube 2 run TrueNAS instead of ZimaOS?

Yes. The ZimaCube 2 is an x86 platform — you can install TrueNAS, Unraid, Proxmox, Ubuntu Server, or any other OS that supports the hardware. The ZimaOS App Store provides one-click Docker apps for convenience, but you are not locked into using it.

Does the ZimaCube 2 Standard support 10GbE?

No. The Standard Edition has dual 2.5GbE (Intel i226). For 10GbE, you will need the Pro model, which adds a Marvell AQC113 10GbE port. However, the Standard dual 2.5GbE supports link aggregation for up to 5 Gbps total throughput if your switch supports it.

What is the 7th Bay?

The 7th Bay is a dedicated module with 4× M.2 NVMe slots, separate from the six SATA3 drive bays. It is designed for fast cache drives, dedicated Docker/VM storage, or a high-speed working pool alongside your bulk HDD storage. The included NVMe heat sinks are specifically for drives installed here.