Best Mini PC for Proxmox in 2026

Buy the configured MINISFORUM MS-01 i9 with 32GB and a 1TB SSD at $1,179 if you do not already own DDR5. It has two 10GbE SFP+ ports, two 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and three M.2 slots. The barebone is $669, and that looks cheaper until you price memory. A 64GB DDR5 SODIMM kit was $760 to $1,200 on September 21, 2026. The barebone wins only when the RAM is already on your shelf.

Quick picks

Mini PC	Price (Sep 21, 2026)	CPU	RAM in the box	Network	Buy it for
MS-01 i9 32GB / 1TB	$1,179	i9-13900H, 14C/20T	32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD	2x 10GbE SFP+, 2x 2.5GbE	The default if you have to buy RAM too.
MS-01 i9 barebone	$669	i9-13900H, 14C/20T	None. Up to 96GB DDR5	Same	You already own DDR5 SODIMMs.
MS-01 i9 64GB / 1TB	$1,559	i9-13900H, 14C/20T	64GB DDR5, 1TB SSD	Same	You already know 32GB will not last.
MS-01 i5 barebone	$439	i5-12600H, 12C/16T	None. Up to 96GB DDR5	Same	Containers, and you already own the RAM.
Beelink EQ14	$369	N150, 4C/4T	16GB DDR4, 500GB SSD	2x 2.5GbE	A second node for containers, not a pile of VMs.
MS-A2 barebone	$799	Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16C/32T	None. Up to 96GB DDR5	2x 10GbE SFP+, 2x 2.5GbE, PCIe x16	Core count. DDR5 on top of the $799.

The home server mini PC guide is the wider list, including the N150 boxes that are fine for Docker and wrong for a handful of Windows VMs. This page is the Proxmox cut.

What Proxmox wants from the box

Three things, in this order.

RAM you can add. Proxmox itself is small. The guests are not. A Linux container is happy in 1GB. A Windows VM, a GitLab VM, and a Postgres VM are not sharing 16GB politely. 32GB runs a modest lab. 64GB is where I stop thinking about it. Soldered 16GB is a container node.

A second NIC, preferably one that is not 2.5GbE RJ45. One port faces the LAN. The other faces storage, or a VLAN, or the NAS. SFP+ on the MS-01 and MS-A2 lets you use a DAC or fiber and skip the 2.5GbE chipset lottery below.

A disk layout you can snapshot. One NVMe with ZFS (a single-disk pool is fine) gives you zfs snapshot before you upgrade a guest. The second M.2 can be a backup target, or the disk you pass to a VM. Proxmox’s installer will do the ZFS setup. Take it.

Idle power matters if the host is on all year. The N150 in the EQ14 is a 6W TDP part, and similar boxes in the home server guide idle around 5 to 8W at the wall. The i9-13900H and the 9955HX do not. They are still far under a full desktop, and they are the wrong choice if the only guest is Pi-hole.

How many guests that RAM survives

Reserve 4 to 8GB for Proxmox and the ZFS ARC before you assign anything. These are planning numbers, not a benchmark of these boards:

Guest	RAM to assign	Fits in the $1,179 32GB unit, after the reserve
One LXC (DNS, a reverse proxy, Home Assistant)	1 to 2GB	Several
A Linux VM	2 to 4GB	Four or five light ones
A VM that runs a Docker stack	4 to 8GB	One, plus a few LXCs
Windows 11	8GB to boot, 16GB to use	One, and the rest of the lab gets small
A second Windows VM	8 to 16GB	Buy 64GB first

32GB is a real lab if the guests are Linux. It is one Windows VM plus leftovers. That is why I still like 64GB, and why I will not pretend the barebone is the cheap way to get there.

Out the door on September 21:

Order	What you pay for the PC	Memory on top	Rough total before a DAC
MS-01 i9, 32GB / 1TB	$1,179, RAM and SSD included	$0	$1,179
i9 barebone + a 32GB kit	$669	Crucial 32GB (2x16) at $569.98, then an SSD	$1,239 plus the SSD
i9 barebone + a 64GB kit	$669	G.SKILL 64GB (2x32) DDR5-5600 at $1,199.99, then an SSD	$1,869 plus the SSD
MS-01 i9, 64GB / 1TB	$1,559, RAM and SSD included	$0	$1,559
i5 barebone, you own the RAM	$439	$0	$439 plus an SSD
EQ14	$369, 16GB and 500GB included	$0	$369

The 32GB Crucial kit plus the barebone costs more than the configured 32GB machine, which already has a 1TB SSD. The 64GB math is worse: the barebone plus the G.SKILL kit lands at $1,869 before the SSD, while the configured 64GB / 1TB unit is $1,559. Buy the barebone when the DIMMs are already in a drawer. The variation picker also holds S139K SKUs, a 32GB / 1TB at $1,119 and a barebone at $599.99, and I cannot tell from the listing what the K revision changes, so read the variation names before you order. Other 64GB SODIMM kits that day ran from about $760 with no ratings up to $1,200. Read the speed and the seller. The MS-A2 listing says DDR5-5600. The MS-01 listing says DDR5 up to 96GB and does not print a megatransfer number, so a 5600 kit may clock down. That is fine. A kit that will not boot is not.

One more fork that changes the CPU. Jellyfin and Plex hardware transcode is a solved problem on the MS-01 and the EQ14, because both are Intel and expose QuickSync. The MS-A2 is a Radeon. VAAPI can work and it is a different afternoon. If this host is also the media server, buy the Intel box. If the job is “as many Linux VMs as possible,” the 9955HX’s 16 cores are the point and the iGPU is a side issue.

None of these has a dedicated management port. A bad bridge config means a monitor and a keyboard, not a webpage. The MS-01 listing mentions vPro. I would not count on that as remote KVM until you have tested it on the machine you received. Keep an HDMI cable in the drawer.

The 2.5GbE caveat, before you cable the rack

Intel’s i226-V has a long, boring history of links that drop from 2.5GbE to 100Mb under traffic. It is not theoretical. A November 2025 Proxmox forum thread documents an i226-V rev 4 on an AOOSTAR board flapping between 2.5GbE and 100Mb, stable only when idle (Proxmox forum). Realtek’s 8125 has its own out-of-tree driver history. Neither brand gets a free pass.

MINISFORUM’s MS-01 listing says the two RJ45 ports are an I226-LM and an I226-V. The LM is the server-SKU sibling. I would still test both ports under load on day one, and I would use the SFP+ ports for anything I care about. A 10Gtek 1m passive DAC was $14.99, with 4.7 stars from 314 ratings. That is the cable between the MS-01 and a 10GbE switch in the same rack. Passive DACs are a same-rack part. If the run leaves the room, you want fiber and modules, not a 15 meter copper twinax.

After install:

dmesg -T | grep -E 'igc|r8169'
ethtool enp1s0 | grep -E 'Speed|Duplex|Link'
iperf3 -s   # on the other machine
iperf3 -c 192.168.1.10 -t 20

You want a stable 2.3 Gbit/s or so on a 2.5GbE link, or about 9.4 Gbit/s on 10GbE. A flat 940 Mbit/s means something negotiated down to 1GbE. If the i226 flaps, turn Energy Efficient Ethernet off. Proxmox uses ifupdown, so the persistent form is a post-up on that interface in /etc/network/interfaces:

post-up /usr/sbin/ethtool --set-eee enp1s0 eee off

Replace enp1s0 with the name ip -br link prints. Then run iperf3 again for twenty minutes, not twenty seconds.

Two things owners keep repeating, and both belong in the buying notes.

The 2.5GbE pair is not two copies of the same port. On r/Proxmox, people running the MS-01 point out that the I226-LM is the port Intel AMT uses (one writeup of a working node). If you pass that NIC into a VM, or you bridge it and then lock yourself out, you have also thrown away the out-of-band console. Leave the LM port on the host. Put the SFP+ ports on the bridge you care about. Owners running OPNsense on top of Proxmox say those SFP+ links are the ones that stay up (r/PFSENSE).

The other recurring line is the BIOS. Late 2024 threads are full of MS-01 boards that were unstable on Proxmox until Minisforum’s firmware update (the late-2024 status thread). Update the BIOS from a USB stick before you install, while you still have a monitor plugged in. A unit that has sat in a warehouse can still be on the launch firmware.

If a listing called MS-03 shows up next to the MS-01, read the PCIe line before you assume it is a better version of this machine. A writeup of the Panther Lake successor said the slot drops from eight lanes to four (@grazymen). Four lanes is still a NIC. It is not the same slot.

Passthrough has a separate check. Before you buy a GPU for a VM:

find /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/ -type l

If the PCIe slot sits in a group by itself, you can pass it through. If it shares a group with the NIC or the NVMe controller, you are in for ACS overrides and a worse day. Look this up on the machine you bought. Do not trust a Reddit comment about “Intel H-series groups” as a substitute for the sysfs listing on your board.

1. MINISFORUM MS-01 i9 barebone

$669 barebone, in stock · the configured 32GB / 1TB unit is $1,179 with 14 left · 4.4 stars from 165 ratings on the family

i9-13900H, 14 cores and 20 threads, up to 5.4GHz, vPro on the listing. Dual-channel DDR5 to 96GB. Two 10GbE SFP+ ports, two 2.5GbE RJ45, two USB4, HDMI, a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and three M.2 sockets including U.2. MINISFORUM says the PCIe slot can take a low-profile GPU up to the class of an RTX A2000 Mobile, which is a power and thickness constraint, not an invitation to drop in a full-size card.

I would order the $1,179 configured machine unless the DIMMs are already paid for. The home server guide has the context on why DDR5 kits got expensive. 32GB runs LXC and a handful of Linux VMs. It gets tight the week you add Windows. Going to 64GB later means replacing the sticks, and those sticks are the expensive part, so if you know you want 64GB, buy the 64GB configuration at $1,559 rather than planning an upgrade.

The i5-12600H barebone is the same chassis at $439, in stock, 12 cores and 16 threads, boost to 4.5GHz, same SFP+ ports, same 96GB ceiling. The 4.4 stars from 165 ratings are the shared family reviews, not a separate lab report. Buy the i5 when the guests are containers and you already have RAM. Buy the i9 when you are building real VMs. The $230 gap is small next to a 64GB kit and large next to a machine you already have memory for.

2. Beelink EQ14: the small second node

$369 · 4.5 stars from 103 ratings · N150 · 16GB DDR4 · 500GB SSD · two 2.5GbE ports

Beelink’s listing is an Intel N150, 4 cores, 16GB of DDR4, a 500GB SSD, two M.2 slots, and two 2.5Gbps LAN ports. It ships with Windows 11, which you will wipe. The second NIC is why it is on this page. One port on the LAN, one straight to the NAS or a storage VLAN.

Sixteen gigabytes and four cores means containers. Home Assistant, a reverse proxy, DNS, a small Postgres, maybe a Docker host inside one VM if you insist. It does not mean a Windows VM plus a build VM plus Frigate. People keep buying N150 boxes for that job and then wondering why the host is swapping.

I would not plan a RAM upgrade unless you have opened the machine. “16GB SO-DIMM” on a mini PC listing sometimes means one socket and sometimes means soldered. The dual 2.5GbE is the feature you can see from the photos.

Use two or three of these as extra cluster nodes only if you already understand quorum. Two Proxmox nodes do not have quorum. Three nodes do, or two nodes plus a QDevice. A single EQ14 next to an MS-01 is a nice split: heavy guests on the MS-01, boring always-on services on the small box, so a kernel update on one does not take down the other.

Check EQ14 price

3. MINISFORUM MS-A2: when the i9 is not enough cores

$799 barebone · 4.4 stars from 129 ratings · only 1 left in stock on September 21 · Ryzen 9 9955HX

16 cores, 32 threads, Zen 5, boost to 5.4GHz. DDR5 SO-DIMM up to 96GB at 5600 MT/s. Three M.2 slots, U.2 support, dual SFP+ 10GbE, dual 2.5GbE, and a PCIe x16 slot that MINISFORUM says can be split into two x4. Wi-Fi 6E. No RAM, no SSD, no OS.

This is the Proxmox host I would pick over the MS-01 when the workload is many Linux VMs and the i9’s 14 cores feel like a compromise. You pay for that in the RAM market. $799 plus a 64GB kit is a different budget from $799. One unit left is also a bad sign for “I will buy a second one next month.” If the listing is gone, the MS-01 is the easier machine to replace.

Fanless four-port and six-port N305 boxes (CWWK, Topton, Qotom, and a dozen unlabeled brands) show up all over Amazon between about $280 and $550. A Qotom i3-N305 with six 2.5GbE ports was $435 barebone in search, with no ratings on that hit. I am not putting a buy button on a firewall appliance with a review count you can count on one hand. They can be good OPNsense routers. They are a gamble as your only Proxmox host.

Day-one checklist

1. Install Proxmox VE from USB. Choose ZFS on the NVMe if you have one disk. Name the host something you will still understand in a year.
2. Run the iperf3 test above on every NIC, for twenty minutes.
3. Update, reboot, and confirm the bridge still comes up. A host that only has networking inside the installer is a host you have not finished.
4. Put the UPS USB cable on this machine and install NUT before you create the guests. A clean shutdown of five VMs is the point of the battery.
5. Snapshot before the first apt dist-upgrade.

Can I cluster two of these?

Two nodes do not have quorum. Either add a third node (an EQ14 is enough for that role) or run a QDevice on something that is already up, like a Raspberry Pi or another always-on box. Do not learn this during a power cut.

Is the MS-01 i9 worth it over the i5?

For containers, no. The i5 barebone at $439 has the same SFP+ ports. For several real VMs, the i9’s extra cores and threads are the difference you will feel, and $669 against $439 is a small gap next to the RAM you are about to buy.

Should the NAS and Proxmox be the same machine?

Sometimes, and the MS-A2 or MS-01 can do it. I still prefer a separate NAS when the disks are spinning rust. A kernel panic should not take the backups with it. The NAS guide covers the other half of that choice.

What I would buy

The configured MS-01 i9 at $1,179, a 1m DAC, and an EQ14 beside it for DNS and the reverse proxy, so a reboot of the heavy host does not take name resolution with it. I would add the $1,559 64GB machine instead if I already knew 32GB would be gone in a month, and the barebone only if I already owned the DIMMs. The MS-A2 if the VM count is the constraint, the listing is in stock, and I am not also asking that box to transcode video.