Over the past few months, I have been documenting my journey in running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 in a lab environment, deploying a minimal setup while unlocking the full capabilities of the VCF Platform from fleet management, enabling modern workloads to running my own private AI Agents to just name a few!
Like many others, I had to review my physical hardware capabilities across compute, storage, and networking, which ultimately meant a new investment because my 10-year old Supermicro E200-8D could no longer keep up. 😅
For those interested in my VCF 9.0 build-of-materials (BOM), please refer to HERE and HERE for more information.
About a month back, I came across this YouTube video showcasing a super cool build fitting several Minisforums MS-01 (not the latest AMD MS-A2) into a mini-rack (10") form factor from DeskPi.
I really wish I had not seen this video 🤣... but since then, I have been researching and acquiring various parts to build my very own mini-rack for my VCF 9 setup!
Note: The power consumption is ~245w based on my workload usage/deployment.
Here is the complete Build-of-Materials (BOM) and the prices (before taxes) that I had paid for each component at the time of purchase.
| Component | Quantity | Price |
|---|---|---|
| DeskPi RackMate T2 (12U) | 1 | $159.99 |
| DeskPi 7.84 inch LCD Touch Screen (2U) | 1 | $89.99 |
| DeskPi Server 2-Pack Rack Shelf (0.5U) | 1 | $32.39 |
| DeskPi Server Rack Shelf (1U) | 2 | $51.98 |
| DeskPi Server Rack Blank Panel (2U) | 1 | $14.99 |
| DeskPi 12-port Patch Panel (0.5U) | 1 | $18.39 |
| DeskPi 12-Port Blank Patch Panel (0.5U) | 1 | $10.39 |
| Blazin3D 12-port PDU (1U) | 1 | $49.99 |
| 1.5 Inch EMA 5-15P Extension Power Cord | 3 | $20.97 |
| Monoprice SlimRun 5-pack 2 feet Cat6 Cable | 1 | $9.02 |
| Monoprice SlimRun 5-pack 6 inch Cat6 Cable | 1 | $9.02 |
| Dual 120MM USB Fan | 1 | $21.99 |
| D-Ring Cable Management Hooks 5-pack | 1 | $13.79 |
| 18" zip ties 100-pack | 1 | $9.99 |
| Total | $512.89 |
The fully assemble T2 RackMate comes in at a height of 629mm (24.76 inches), length 281mm (11.06) and depth of 260mm (10.23 inches), the pictures do not do it justice but it is super compact for what I was able to fit inside of the chassis. Below are the specific details on how I racked up my system in case you want to setup something simliar or get an idea on some of the considerations as I certainly had to move things around a few times to get it to fit as nicely as you see from the top.
Here is the back of the system, while it might look a bit messy, it is definitely as cleaned up as I could make it given the room and cables that I needed to manage.
Below are the detailed notes regarding my setup starting from the top and working my way to the bottom.
The first 2U is taken up by the 7" LCD display which is powered by USB (USB-A/USB-C) and I used the included 1 (short) rack shelf to mount one of the USB fans. You need to remove the bottom fan bumper to be able to mount it flush against the shelf rack, as I did not want things moving around. To save rack space, I was able to connect the 0.5U shelf to the bottom of the LCD display, so it is hidden in the front. One important thing to note, ensure the HDMI and power cable slot on the right side when looking from the back.
As you can see from the picture below, it is on the left which means the screen orientation is backwards ... how do I know this 😂
Power for the LCD can be provided by the MS-A2 and while I could have gotten more fancy using a multi-KVM switch or the popular JetKVM, I opted for a more manual approach where I would manually connect the HDMI to the desired MS-A2 for troubleshooting or debugging purposes. One downside of the 7" LCD is that the resolution is 1280x400 and the text is a bit squished and may not be super clear. I think for basic DCUI usage its probably okay but might not be as useful due to compressed text. I have not found a way to force a different screen resolution within ESX, so for folks who may want something more usable, you may need to look at a larger LCD screen that can be placed on the top of the chassis, which I know some folks have done but is not as clean.
UPDATE (10/23/25) - See this blog post in how to scale down the resolution so the ESX DCUI and Console is fully legible and usable.
Lastly, to power the fan, the cable will go down to the very bottom which will connect via USB to the PDU and we can control the fan speed (light, medium and high), including turning them off using the built-in controller. Noise is probably something many of you are interested in and while the stock MS-A2 were pretty loud (see video here), after applying this BIOS tweak, the thermals have gone down quite significantly which means the stock fans have also reduced in noise. Since I am stacking these systems on top of each other, the USB fans is simply directing the hot air upwards to ensure the system can run as cool as possible and has minimal to no noise depending on the fan settings.
The 3 x 1U rack shelf is used to hold the MS-A2 and on third one, I have the secondary USB fan mounted on the underside of the shelf to both cool the MikroTik router above it but also to pull air towards the top of the chassis. Both the 6 inch network cable and the power is routed along the side of the chassis which I will cover a bit later.
I did look at the 1U rack shelf with ethernet and HDMI ports out the front, but the MS-A2 was just slightly too big for that to fit. I also looked at some of the 3D printed cases that were available online but they were a bit pricey, so I opted for the cheaper alternative and only downside is the MS-A2 are not fixed to chassis, I have not found an ideal solution to prevent them from sliding around in case I was moving the entire chassis. If you have any ideas, I was thinking some type of stopper that could be fixed to the shelf, but nothing came up online.
You can now see the second USB fan that is attached to the underside of the self rack holding the 3rd MS-A2. Immediately after that, I have MikroTik router that is using the included 0.5U self rack, again it would have been nice to have a custom printed chassis but this works perfectly fine. You will notice that I used a 1u blank plate on the front, which hides the fan quite nicely. The other benefit is the placement of the blank also prevents the router from falling out from the front, you need to insert the router from the back as there is not enough room in the front.
Right below the router, I have the 1U patch panel that connects the ethernet pots from MS-A2 to the router. On the back, I used the 1U blank patch panel to feed the cables from the from the front to the back, so that they would not be dangling. There are probably other creative ways to keep them afloat but I only realized that after putting together most of the chassis and this was the easiest solution without taking it apart again.
Finally, all the power connectivity is at the bottom. The last shelf is holds the three power supplies to the MS-A2, which are zip tied horizontally onto the shelf to prevent any movement. You will notice in the front, this is also where I use the 2U blank panel to hide the bricks, which just happened to work out perfectly based on my arrangement. The default power cords that ship with the MS-A2 are quite long, so this is where the 1.5 inch power cords that I bought came in super handy. I was able to connect them from the brick and have it go underneath the main PDU and is actually connected on front side, which gives me few power slots in the back for the router as an example. The power adapter in the middle connecting to the PDU is the power supply to the MikroTik.
While you will not be able to see it here, I have the USB fan power connected around the front using one of the USB ports on the PDU, which took a bit of finessing as there just was not much room. If I had to re-do this, I would connect up the USB power before adding the shelf with the MS-A2 power bricks, which was also a challenge because I have the 2U blank overlapping the shelf rack to optimize for spacing. I also used some double-side adhesive to mount the USB fan controller directly on the chassis, so I can easily adjust the speeds. I used a couple of the D-Rings towards the top and bottom to manage the HDMI/USB cable for the LCD monitor as well as the primary PDU power cord in case I needed to move the rack around without things dangling.
Overall, I really enjoyed this personal project, it brought back some fun memories of working inside the datacenter but I am definitely happy that I done for now as my wallet needs a break 😆
You are welcome Amazon Prime ...
Here are some builds from the community using the same/simliar BOM:
Here's another slick #VCF9 setup based on my BOM (https://t.co/IrACNBhezQ) that was just shared internally
There's fans in between all 4 MS-A2 to ensure proper cooling & these were 3D printed chassis (which you can find free online) pic.twitter.com/5CJVjff7hF
— William Lam (@lamw) October 27, 2025
@lamw my Mini rack baby picture
I’m going to want to 3D print brackets for the Trigkey’s. Someday. Will add another Ethernet switch tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/VTRZ5IepHZ
— Mike Foley (@mikefoley) October 29, 2025
Bottom line: What is the total cost of all the hardware in your rack; not just the rack cost. We are not confident with these Chinese Mini PCs as regards to long term reliability and temperature issues with the M.2 Nvme SSDs, CPUs and the GPUs.
I've already linked the components BOM in the blog post, please refer to that if you'd like the full picture.
Another choice to consider when building this out, depending on how much performance you might need... HP T740 or T755 can have up to 64GB of ram, and have 10g (or faster) network cards (low profile) installed. Storage might be your only issue then, but these computers offer a single m.2 SATA and a single m.2 NVME, so in theory you could make a vSan Express run on the NVME slots. I never got to test this on mine, my licenses ran out and it was just too hard to gather the info I needed to pass an exam. I only started a year ago with VMUG Advantage and then the November announcement came and pretty much killed off my chances of success.
But 3 of the T740, with above ram and x520 based 10g cards (suggest x710 for those building today) worked just fine into a Truenas over NFS and vSphere 8. VCSA was the only thing that took a little time to get going, not sure how a larger VCF stack might work here. Building out a different hypervisor right now since my VMUG licenses expired.
Happy to send pictures if there is a place to send them, but I went to a full rack due to the number of devices in that rack. A 10 inch would have needed to be like 32ru high, and that's just silly (and only contained the mini PCs).
All that said, I'm not confident enough to suggest the Minisforum stuff either, some have great luck, some not so much. The T740 can be had (if you are really lucky) for $30 each, then add in the ram, drives, card to build what you need. I managed to get 5 of the T740 in a bundle because the BIOS was locked, turned out to be a fairly simple fix with a hardware programmer (documented on Badcaps forum).
Greg
Apperciate the comment Greg. Its not even the performance but for those considering a VCF 9 setup, you need to meet the minimum resource requirement https://williamlam.com/2025/06/minimal-resources-for-deploying-vcf-9-0-in-a-lab.html and 64GB on a single host won't cut it and also the biggest limiting factor for most of what has been on the market (outside of server grade CPUs) is core/thread count. Again, this is outlined in the linked blog post as quick search online for the T740/755 are fairly low core count