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Asus VivoMini VC65 modular PC supports up to 4x 2.5-inch drives

by Mark Tyson on 1 February 2016, 10:31

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

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ASUS has announced the VivoMini VC65 and VC65R mini-PCs. These are compact, sub 2-litre, mini PCs which are trumpeted as the world's smallest mini PCs that can accommodate up to four 2.5-inch SSD or HDD storage devices. Powering the Zen-design inspired VivoMini VC65 and VC65R is your choice of up to the latest "desktop grade" 2.8GHz 6th-generation Intel Core T Series processor. ASUS says these PC systems would be ideal for all sorts of situations thanks to their compact nature, embedded power supply, VESA-mountability, storage capacities and multi-display support.

Three configuration options of the ASUS VivoMini VC65 and VC65R mini-PCs will be sold straight from the factory. There will be ASUS VivoMini VC65 PCs with a single storage module, supporting 2x 2.5-inch drives and another with two storage modules supporting 4x 2.5-inch drives in total. Storage options don't end there, as there is also an ODD module available. Furthermore the higher spec VC65R mini-PC will feature RAID support.

ASUS says that the VivoMini VC65 is ideal as a compact PC for a wide range of computing tasks for the home or office and all offer multi-display support. These Mini-PCs can also drive up to 4K UHD visuals and could be perfect for a home theatre setup. The VC65R could be an ideal NAS system or "a mini media server for professional media production", suggests ASUS. Having the PSU built-in offers a tidier system and as mentioned above these are small PCs that can be tucked away, VESA mounted if the user wishes.

These compact systems are said to offer incredible energy efficiency, drawing as little as 15W at idle. "They are remarkably silent as well, generating as little as 21dB of noise at idle, and 35dB at full load," says ASUS. Connectivity and ports are as follows:

  • 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth V4.0, 10/100/1000/Gigabit LAN
  • HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA
  • COM ports
  • SD card reader
  • 2x audio ports
  • VC65 model features four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports
  • VC65R model features six USB 3.0 ports (VC65R back panel pictured below)

HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Posted by lumireleon - Mon 01 Feb 2016 15:15
inbuilt power supply is not a good idea. If it dies what next?
Posted by DanceswithUnix - Mon 01 Feb 2016 16:40
lumireleon
inbuilt power supply is not a good idea. If it dies what next?

These look aimed at companies who will either:

1/ Run machines with a warranty agreement
2/ Be prepared once out of warranty to just throw it away.
Posted by crossy - Mon 01 Feb 2016 19:31
lumireleon
inbuilt power supply is not a good idea. If it dies what next?
The fact it's got a COM port (RS-232 to the rest of us) screams “business only” to me. In which case there'll be a nice warranty package protecting it. Plus, and maybe I'm being easy on Asus but, maybe that power component will be modular and hence easy to replace? I suspect that the inbuilt PSU was to keep the overall thing looking clean.

Now if you want to pick fault with them, I'd look at:
“They are remarkably silent as well, generating as little as 21dB of noise at idle, and 35dB at full load,” says ASUS.
How can something be “remarkably silent” - either it's silent or it's not. Now if they said “remarkably quiet” or even “near silent” then I'd agree.

As to the unit itself, if it'd be able to RAID those drives and boot from an SD card then I'm thinking that it's got real potential as a back-of-the-TV media center.
Posted by whatif - Mon 01 Feb 2016 21:54
QUOTE DanceswithUnix

These look aimed at companies who will either:

1/ Run machines with a warranty agreement
2/ Be prepared once out of warranty to just throw it away. QUOTE

After some horrible personal experience as well as reading many other similar reports, I would have to agree totally with your second point. After my second product problem - I had to wait over a year to finally get a warranty replacement of a motherboard - I find that their empathy towards customers with a problem is non-existent. My first product problem also went through a difficult and unnecessarily extended RMA process (example - I would contact Asus and not receive a reply for weeks and weeks). So you may as well throw it away at the first sign of a problem.
Such a pity to as they produce some products with nice features, just hope never to have a problem.
Maybe they will offer businesses a better form of warranty than general consumers.
Posted by EndlessWaves - Mon 01 Feb 2016 22:56
lumireleon
inbuilt power supply is not a good idea. If it dies what next?

Same as you would on any normal desktop, whip it out and put a new one in.

Of course, they may be using a proprietary power supply instead of FlexATX but the PS/2 power supply started out as a proprietary one too. Give it a couple of years and there'll be a standard form factor for small internal power supplies.