Why I'm Writing This Instead of Filming It

I make videos. That's what I do. I've got 66,000 people following Bob Lov's Tech on TikTok and about 1,700 on YouTube, and usually when something interesting lands on my desk, I hit record and talk into a camera.

But the ZimaCube made me want to write instead.

This little box arrived because I'm part of the Zima Pioneer Programme. Ice Whale sent it to me free. This isn't new for me — they've reached out before, sent me the ZimaBoard 2 (which I thought was fantastic) and the Zima Blade. So yeah, I have history with them. I like what they make. You should know that going in. Read the full disclosure →

Because I got this for free, I kept thinking about the best way to share it. One video? A series? I kept coming back to the same problem: people watching a 60-second TikTok or a 10-minute YouTube video aren't going to remember the details when they're actually sitting there trying to set up their own cloud. They need something they can reference. Something they can search.

So I built this repo.

It's part journal, part setup guide, part "should you actually buy this?" The ZimaCube is genuinely one of my favorite pieces of hardware to come across my desk in a while, and that opinion isn't sponsored — it's just true. The thing is built beautifully, and I want to help people get the most out of it. But I'm also going to tell you when something annoys me, when a setup step makes no sense, and when I think you might want to look elsewhere.

If you're here because you're considering buying one, I want you to leave with enough honest information to make that decision confidently. If you're here because you already bought one and you're stuck on something basic, I want this to get you unstuck.

I'm going to cover everything from first boot to whatever weird experiment I try next. Right now I'm running Windows Server 2025 on it bare metal, which is probably overkill and definitely weird. I'll explain why later.

That's the deal. No ads, no affiliate links, just a guy with a free NAS box and a lot of opinions about it.

Welcome to the project.

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