ZimaCube 2 Pro Review An Unexpected 10GbE NAS with Thunderbolt and PCIe Slots

ZimaCube 2 Pro OS: ZimaOS Plus

On the software side of matters, the ZimaCube 2 series comes pre-loaded with IceWhale’s own home-grown Linux distribution, ZimaOS. A successor to CasaOS (itself derived from Debian), ZimaOS is IceWhale’s closed-source Linux distro that is designed for ease of setup and installation. In short, it aims to be an even more user-friendly OS than typical options like TrueNAS.

Though the system comes pre-loaded with ZimaOS Plus (IceWhale’s paid, full-featured version of the OS), the underlying hardware is little more than an x86 Intel system. So the ZimaCube 2 Pro can also be loaded up with TrueNAS, Windows, Unraid, Ubuntu, Proxmox VE, or virtually any other OS.

As for ZimaOS Plus itself, since it is pre-installed, it comes ready for configuration and use right out of the box.

An introduction tutorial kicks things off, briefly outlining what the OS can do and giving the owner a few options.

The heart of the OS is the dashboard, which offers a readout on the system status, as well as access to system and storage settings, as well as the various applications installed on the system.

ZimaOS comes with its own App Store (drawing heavily on Apple’s UI), which offers a slew of applications that can be installed, including Plex, Jellyfin, Home Assistant, and Tailscale.

Under the hood, ZimaOS’s app store is built on Docker containers, so each application is a Dockerized version that runs within a container.

Meanwhile, the settings system offers access to all of the usual options, including networking and storage settings.

Under storage settings is where the bulk of the NAS’s power lies. Since this is built on top of Linux, multiple RAID configurations are available, including RAID 5 and RAID 6. All of which is configured through a simple, straightforward UI.

ZimaOS utilizes BTRFS by default. ZFS is supported by the OS, but it is effectively hidden by default and is not supported by the OS’s GUI tools. As a result, ZFS needs to be set up via the command line.

All of this management functionality, in turn, can be accessed either directly from the system or remotely. IceWhale offers its own client as well, ZimaClient, which can detect a new system and connect to it. Alternatively, there is a web UI accessible as well via a web browser.

Next up, let us take a look at the performance of the system.