Beelink Me Mini - Proxmox on MMCblk mini howto

[wendell]

about device

This is the Beelink ME mini

Checking Out The Beelink ME mini!

It’s an Intel N150 + 6x NVMe slot mini PC. It’s base price is about $209 or about $329 as configured in the video.

It has 64gb of onboard eMMC which is great to install a hypervisor, and dual Intel 226v 2.5gb nics.

I tested Windows 11, OpenWRT, Ubuntu 25.04 and Proxmox 8.

Of course Windows 11 and Ubuntu 25.04 made great “direct attach” VMs.

4 cores of the N150 isn’t great in terms of performance, but at the same time, it was a surprisingly capable little machine. I hope that Beelink is able to do something similar with the i5 1240P or something with a bit more ‘oomph.’

mmc bad mmkay

The conventional wisdom is that eMMC is bad because it doesn’t wear level properly (usually) and doesn’t have high endurance. This was once true, but is less true in 2025. I think it makes a fine boot volume and Proxmox can be configured to write logs to the data volume anyway.

proxmox install bugs out for mmc

The problem is the proxmox installer crashes if you try to install to an mmc type device.

Fixing this is not too hard – boot the installer, drop to a terminal (CTRL+ALT+F1) and press CTRL+C to abort the installer. That’ll dump you at a prompt. You can use vi or another editor to edit /usr/share/perl5/Proxmox/Sys/Block/pm – search for nvme and add the two lines below as I have.

starting value of my file

what I edited it to be. This is the fix. That last elsif with the /dev/mmcblk conditional is what should have been in here since 2018, but I digress…

Also, launch gdisk and to create initial partition because another bug elsewhere that will still crash the installer if no partitions exist at all on this storage device when we start.

Once you have written out the new partition table, run lsblk and confirm you see mmcblk0p1.

From there, run proxmox-tui-installer and proxmox should install normally when selecting the 64gb mmc drive as the primary drive.

Note: I recommend removing all nvme storage until proxmox is setup.

Whoa There, Slow Down

Remember, this platform has 4 cores. What I found to work reasonably okay was oversubscribing up to about 16 cores:

• 3 core / 4gb forbidden router (VM)
• jellyfin media server (lxc)
• pi hole (lxc)
• 3 core / 4gb homeassistant (VM)

… and that’s about the limit of this platform. If you don’t run a forbidden rotuer type VM, it is faster and less overhead using smb mulitchannel with both nics into the same switch. This lets one copy files to/from the nvme at about 500 megabytes/sec.

Passthrough iGPU

Once you’ve verifired you can ssh into the machine over the network, if you want to pass through the iGPU to a virtual machine, it is possible on this platform. Refer to the video for the bios settings to make sure you’ve got the iGPU set properly and SR-IOV turned on.

We’re going to use this:

GitHub - strongtz/i915-sriov-dkms: dkms module of Linux i915 driver with...

… and this is also an excellent resource:

Proxmox VE 8.3: Windows 11 vGPU (VT-d) Passthrough with Intel Alder Lake -

and while we aren’t going to use Windows, the sr-iov gpu devices DO passthrough just fine to the VM you want to run Jellyfin or Plex on!

Important Passthrough Notes

• Be sure not to forget to set nomodeset on your kernel line
• Sometimes the Beelink gets into a werid state and you just have to pull power to it for a minute. Sometimes if you plug in hdmi it appears frozen with just a black cursor somewhere on the display. This appears to be a bug with iGPU firwmare or a bios bug, but is overcome by pulling power and letting the machine sit for a while.
• It was important to run as new of a kernel as possible

[Exard3k]

@wendell

proxmox install bugs out for mmc

I moved away from USB stick cheapskate NAND for TrueNAS and Proxmox. Not sure if writes just tank at some point (“trash flash” write throttle) or there is something different causing this. SATA SSD or M.2 NVMe best for boot drive.

@wendell

about device

Certainly a special one, keep on typing

[JackTL]

Based on the lack of detail on the website, am I correct in assuming that the 12 GB of memory is soldered on and not upgradable?

[wendell]

Not upgradable, which, tbh doesn’t bother me since… N150.

[MetalizeYourBrain]

It’s a really interesting product and I can’t wait for you to review it.
Especially because, so far, every low end CPU, SSD based NAS has been either too expensive or badly engineered.

Would you trust the internal eMMC to install TrueNAS? I’m seriously considering it because SATA SSD prices are weirdly high right now.

P.S. I’m even wondering if it would make sense hooking up an ASM1166 to one or two slots and have seriously massive storage and NVME space too.

[Exard3k]

@MetalizeYourBrain

Especially because, so far, every low end CPU, SSD based NAS has been either too expensive or badly engineered.

They usually let the drives run on a single lane or two. That’s just cost. Lanes cost a lot. And with 9 lanes total on the N150+ and 6x M.2, doesn’t take a genius to see how they do things.

But then it is 2.5G networking…so doesn’t really matter. People here push higher bandwidth with HDDs, but this is a 200€ product where you put 2000€ of M.2 into to get the advertised 24TB.

It is certainly the better AsusStor Flash NAS in my books. Fraction of the cost, smaller form factor…better CPU (this runs ZFS with compression, don’t expect much from ARC though), easy and quick upgrade via M.2.

@MetalizeYourBrain

I’m seriously considering it because SATA SSD prices are weirdly high right now.

All NAND prices are higher atm. SATA costs the same as NVMe these days.

[MetalizeYourBrain]

@Exard3k

They usually let the drives run on a single lane or two. That’s just cost. Lanes cost a lot. And with 9 lanes total on the N150+ and 6x M.2, doesn’t take a genius to see how they do things.

I was thinking about the Asustor all flash devices that cost double and have the same tech on board.

@Exard3k

But then it is 2.5G networking…so doesn’t really matter. People here push higher bandwidth with HDDs, but this is a 200€ product where you put 2000€ of M.2 into to get the advertised 24TB.

Well storage is storage and with how fast flash is you’d need networking cards as expensive as the base system you choose to get all the speed out of it.
I already have one 6x4TB SATA SSD NAS and I’d need a stupid machine with 40Gbit networking to make use of all the speed these drives offer. I’d say 25Gbit at the lower end considering RAIDZ2 and other overheads. No thanks.

@Exard3k

All NAND prices are higher atm. SATA costs the same as NVMe these days.

I saw that, makes no sense to me.
Still thanking myself for having bought all my SSDs in 2023 and getting 24TB of SATA SSDs for 1200$.

[Exard3k]

@MetalizeYourBrain

I was thinking about the Asustor all flash devices that cost double and have the same tech on board.

Was editing my posting as you wrote this. Yes, I do think this is just the way better deal compared to the AsusStor. Lack of 10Gbit option is really the only thing I value on the AsusStor. But we’re talking 200€ at the end of the day. bonded 2.5G ports aren’t THAT bad, especially for the target audience , probably plugging it into their 1Gbit ISP router port.

Nice chrismas gift for family. And you might even get a replication target for your own ZFS pool that way

I do think that cheaping out on the hardware and then get 10x the cost in storage hardware is a bit too cheap hardware in my opinion. But I’m not the audience for it.

@MetalizeYourBrain

I saw that, makes no sense to me.

NAND costs the same and that’s most of the production. And why sell cheaper stuff when you can produce/sell NVMe at the same cost? And SATA SSDs are legacy hardware basically…you only sell them if you get equal or higher margins. That’s why there weren’t any new SATA SSDs besides Samsung QVO for years. It’s on life support.

@MetalizeYourBrain

Still thanking myself for having bought all my SSDs in 2023 and getting 24TB of SATA SSDs for 1200$.

Buying NAND in 2023 was a great time to buy stuff. I should have bought my enterprise drives back then @75€/TB, now the same models are flatlining at ~120-140€/TB. Production cartels are the worst.

Good call in 2023 on your side!

edit: P.S.: Don’t forget to buy Crucial M.2 SSDs as the Beelink comes “Equipped with reliable Crucial® SSDs for enhanced durability and reduced risk of data loss.”. And that’s your target audience right there

[MetalizeYourBrain]

@Exard3k

Was editing my posting as you wrote this. Yes, I do think this is just the way better deal compared to the AsusStor. Lack of 10Gbit option is really the only thing I value on the AsusStor. But we’re talking 200€ at the end of the day. bonded 2.5G ports aren’t THAT bad, especially for the target audience , probably plugging it into their 1Gbit ISP router port.

If you consider the 6 bay Asustor that doesn’t have 10Gbit you’re not missing much.
Most likely gonna end up in a gigabit LAN, I agree.

@Exard3k

I do think that cheaping out on the hardware and then get 10x the cost in storage hardware is a bit too cheap hardware in my opinion. But I’m not the audience for it.

Well SSDs are fast, silent and low power so, in my case, it wasn’t a matter of “cheaping out” but matching the drives on low power and silence. This device exploits the same principle.

@Exard3k

NAND costs the same and that’s most of the production. And why sell cheaper stuff when you can produce/sell NVMe at the same cost? And SATA SSDs are legacy hardware basically…you only sell them if you get equal or higher margins. That’s why there weren’t any new SATA SSDs besides Samsung QVO for years. It’s on life support.

Yeah, I guess. But I also think good SATA SSDs are very underrated for these use cases. Cheaper controller on board, slower, more cost effective.

@Exard3k

Buying NAND in 2023 was a great time to buy stuff. I should have bought my enterprise drives back then @75€/TB, now the same models are flatlining at ~140€/TB. Production cartels are the worst.

The only prediction I ever landed successfully and I’ll flaunt it for the rest of my life hahaha.

@Exard3k

edit: P.S.: Don’t forget to buy Crucial M.2 SSDs as the Beelink comes “Equipped with reliable Crucial® SSDs for enhanced durability and reduced risk of data loss.”. And that’s your target audience right there

Everyone does that and I almost appreciate Beelink for pointing the average consumer to something that’s guaranteed to work with their product. Someone on the forum was pulling their hair out with the Asustor device for this exact reason, no QVL.

[Exard3k]

@MetalizeYourBrain

But I also think good SATA SSDs are very underrated for these use cases

I agree. And 2x8TB (TLC) SATA or 4 drives max could be fitted into the Beelink form factor (more or less). But on the one hand SATA is more or less yesteryear, while you will get cost-effective M.2 drives for at least a decade. You’re stuck on capacity with 4TB, but that’s M.2 life.

And on the other hand…my 6yr old niece can plug in an M.2 to upgrade her NAS. SATA power + cable is way more technical and complicated. SATA/SAS backplane + toolless (45drives-style) to “just slot it in” is too expensive for a 200€ product.

I do think M.2 is the best way to do it for the way the Beelink is designed to work and be used.

[rogervn]

This looks interesting, if it had 16GB and a 10G nic would be perfect.

Have you tried using an adapter for the a+e port to slide another nvme, potentially a 2230 one?

[wendell]

yeah didn’t detect a coral adapter so I think it’s cnvi only maybe

[aikiwoce]

I bought one of these two weeks ago. Messed around with it’s Windows 11 install, Proxmox, Unraid, and TrueNAS.

Ended up settling on TrueNAS with 5x4TB NVME drives in a Z1 pool and 1x Intel Optane 16GB M10 boot drive. The EMMC causes issues with nearly every OS installer. The Optane drives are also super cheap @ $2-4 each. I bought five for $15 delivered.

It’s not speedy by any measure. Though it’s a damn sight faster than reading and writing to my old NAS with gigabit ethernet and SMR drives. The size and power consumption are near unbeatable.

For apps, I’m running Tailscale(it’s my new endpoint), Pihole, Home Assistant, and Jellyfin.

[force]

to reduce some emmc wear, you can (link),
system->settings->logging->disable local log. then enable remote logging.
if you don’t need reboot-surviving logs,
system->settings->miscellaneous->enable /var/log ram disk
system->settings->miscellaneous->enable /tmp ram disk

[Adrian_1]

Did you try it with a single chip coral board?

I mention this due to a situation on a different system where I’m pretty sure I bricked a dual coral board by plugging it in to a Wi-Fi slot where I probably didn’t do my research correctly and it hooked up voltage where it didn’t belong.
When I noticed the dual unit didn’t show up in the OS I then shut the device down only to find the coal was absurdly, untouchably, hot.

When i put a single chip card in the same system/slot it worked perfectly, it just didn’t quite provide enough processing power for my use case on its own.