BeeLink SER 6 Pro Home Lab Review
Lately, I’ve been looking into various home lab options and the idea of using a mini PC seems pretty appealing. I have a relatively small home office and I like the idea of a small and quiet computer that can easily be tucked away out of sight or mounted behind my monitor. I stumbled across BeeLink while looking at various options and they were nice enough to send me one of their SER 6 PRO PCs to review.
Specs:
First, let’s start with the hardware specs:
- Processor – 8 Core AMD Ryzen 7 680M
- Memory – 32Gb (2x 16Gb Crucial DDR-5 4800 SODIMM)
- Storage – AZW 512Gb M.2 NVMe
- Lan Network – Realtek 2.5G R8125
- WIFI Network – Intel Wifi 6/Bluetooth 5.2
- Ports – 2x HDMI, 3x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB-C
- OS – Windows 11
- Size – 4.5″ x 5″ x 2″
Overall the specs are pretty impressive for such a small form factor and I was a little surprised to see Crucial branded memory included. The case is made from mostly metal and has a good deal of ventilation on the sides, back, and top. There is also an additional expansion area for more SSD storage that includes a cooling fan.
Home Lab Builds:
I focused on 2 configurations for this article. My goal was to see how it would handle running a type 2 hypervisor on the included Windows 11 and a type 1 hypervisor on bare metal. For this use case I decided on VMware Workstation 17 Pro and VMware ESXi. Virtual Box and Proxmox were considered, but decided to go with VMware since this will most likely mimic what I’m looking for in a home lab geared toward certification exam prep. I’m hoping to create more content around home labs in the future and I may circle back to other configurations at a later time.
VMware Workstation:
The first setup I tried was VMware Workstation 17 Pro on the included Windows 11 OS. As expected this worked very well. Virtualization was enabled by default in the BIOS for the CPU and the installation was extremely straightforward as expected. Once VMware Workstation was installed I set off to spin up some VMs. Since I was limited on ram I spun up 3 ESXi 8.0 hosts with 2 vCPU and 4GB of ram and an 8.0 vCenter VCSA with the Tiny deployment default specs of 2 vCPU and 14Gb of ram.
While running in this configuration my power draw fluctuated between 55w-60w and the CPU temp never topped 75°C. Overall the PC is whisper quiet (Avg. 26dB) when idle or running minor workloads. Once the CPU was stressed the fan kicks on and it jumps to a still quiet, but noticeable 39dB. This setup worked great for a proof of concept and for low-intensity configuration testing, but unfortunately, the 32Gb of ram was a little bit of a limiting factor for most advanced feature testing or using nested VMs running on the cluster. I do think it would work well if you upgrade the memory to 64 GB.
Type 2 Hypervisor verdict?
Would I say a BeeLink SER 6 Pro Home Lab with VMware Workstation is a good option? Yes, it performed very well. The Windows OS and VMware Workstation VMs booted quickly and the PC was quiet and small enough that I could sit next to it all day without noticing it was there.
Bare Metal ESXI Install:
Can I run ESXi natively out of the box on this? Well, I’m happy to say YES… but with some caveats. First, you’re not going to be able to run the latest and greatest ESXi version. (8.0 at the time this was written) This PC has a Realtek NIC and unfortunately starting with ESXi 7.0 VMware depreciated the VMKlinux driver stack so they no longer work. So with that said, the highest version you can run out of the box is ESXi 6.7U3.
It’s worth mentioning that finding a VIB with the Realtek r8125 drivers proved to be more challenging than I had imagined it would be. I created a custom ISO with the VIB loaded and I shared it in the link below for anyone interested in giving it a try.
If you are looking to load ESXi 7.0 or 8.0 and you don’t mind using a USB Adapter I picked up this Cable Matters Plug & Play USB to Ethernet Adapter from Amazon since the VMware Community drivers work with it.
Like with the VMware Workstation the memory quickly became the bottleneck when running a nested ESXi environment, but I think maxing this out to 64Gb would make this work a lot better. The power draw was comparable to the type 2 build, it fluctuated between 53w-58w. The CPU was a little cooler at 72°C and the running noise was the same Avg, 26dB idle and 39dB when stressed.
Type 1 Hypervisor verdict?
Is a BeeLink SER 6 Pro Home Lab running bare metal ESXi a good option? For me… realistically probably not. The 32Gb included and 64Gb max memory limitation makes setting this up as a stand-alone dedicated lab machine unlikely. However, If you are interested in buying 2-3 units, upgrading the memory, and adding an additional SSD…. this could make for an interesting setup that would draw much less power than some used servers off eBay.
Final Thoughts:
Did I like the BeeLink SER 6 Pro Home Lab? Yes, I think it worked great and has enough power to run most VMs workloads you would need to practice for certification prep. I would however recommend upgrading the ram and adding SSD storage, especially if you’re looking to test software functionality. The small form factor, quiet operation, and low power usage make it a great option for anyone looking to get a single PC that can be a daily use workstation and a lab when you need it.
If you’re interested in giving this PC a try for your self I’ve provided links where you can purchase the PC below as well as compatible upgrade hardware.
BeeLink SER 6 Pro – Amazon Link
Cable Matters Plug & Play USB to Ethernet Adapter – Amazon Link
Crucial RAM 64GB Kit (2x32GB) DDR5 – Amazon Link
I’ve been looking at these Beelinks for a while, particularly the one with the dual 2.5 Gbe NICs, but ultimately went for the tried and tested Intel NUC way – primarily because of what you mentioned here about the Realtek nic situation.
It’s a shame they don’t come with Intel nucs, I would have purchased 3 in a heartbeat for my homelab.
Thanks for testing this out Greg, I believe yours is the only blog post out there in regards to Beelinks+ESXi.