I’m just curious to get other people’s thoughts on this since 45Drives just recently released their 15-bay rackmount case that’s supposed to be aimed toward the homelab community.

Some of the items being sold in the e-store don’t make sense to purchase, specifically the LSI 9600-16i HBA and the x540 10Gbe NIC.

Why would the top of the line LSI 9600-16i be offered (for $1.1k)? Wouldn’t the more reasonably priced 9400 series card make more sense? I guess this would be if you’re running NVME drives (which the 9400 can also do)? It just seems strange to offer the top of the line and not anything else. Especially when the HL15 is aimed at the homelab community.

Also, the intel x540 network adapter. We go from the most recent, top of the line LSI 9600-16i HBA to a network adapter that was released in 2012 (for which they’re still asking $400 for). Wouldn’t it make more sense to offer the x550, or better yet, the x710-T2L?

I also understand that companies need to make money but the profit margin on these add-ons and accessories seems extreme. For example, the Intel XL710-QDA2 40 gig NIC is being sold for $818 while at FS.com it’s being sold for $520. That’s a 57% markup for an already marked-up item.

Is the HL15 and accessories really geared toward homelabbers?

  • No-Command9510@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    To be fair , they design and manufacture the case in canada … so it makes sense that it’ll be a little more expensive than when you get the labor done in china

    And yeah when you compare it to synology , i guess you still get more bang for the buck … but YMMV

  • InvaderOfTech@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    Man, I saw 800 for the case and thought it was not bad, honestly, with the backplane. This is not from China. It’s from Canada and made in country. I’m not sure what people here expected. 400 dollars? 200 dollars? 800 for the Case, and the backplane is reasonable due to where it has been manufactured. Sure, you can get another case for 200 or 300 dollars or DIY your own, then do that. China is cheap. If I hadn’t built another NAS already for a truenas server, I would pull the trigger on this.

    Downvote away.

    • favorited@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Completely agree. I’m not sure why people expected the price to be competitive with retired enterprise gear from eBay. It’s a premium product, made by a small company in Canada, for an extremely niche audience.

      Personally, while I haven’t ordered one myself, I’m glad there are more options available that aren’t made out of riveted sheet metal and flimsy plastic.

      • electromage@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I’m not sure if those are related - couldn’t a Ceph node use two SAS controllers? I haven’t set it up so I’m not aware of caveats.

        • maomaocake@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          they can but ceph is more targeted to run with commodity hardware. usually u want more ceph nodes with cheap hardware than better hardware with less nodes

  • bagofwisdom@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Seriously, they call it a homelab store and are easily charging 40% more than just going to other resellers. Like $90 for a Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2. You can buy them on Amazon for $55 all day long. It’s a dumb card, you have to enable bifurcation on the slot you install it in.

    I certainly didn’t build myself a homelab to pay double for everything.

    Sorry Marcus, I don’t feel that overburdened by money.

  • wwbubba0069@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I was mainly interested in the chassis, and put my gear in it. When I seen the price, I was less excited.

    • HTTP_404_NotFound@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I don’t think homelabs were ever the intended audience. There are MUCH more price effective, reliable, and performant options over their cases + expanders.

  • spyboy70@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m assuming it’s because they are in Canada, and prices tend to be higher there.

    They need to find a US warehouse to ship to US customers.

    I always buy used NICs and HBAs off eBay, way cheaper even if I had to replace it on my dime.

  • _realpaul@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The most common reason ppl buy rackmount gear for the homelab is for training on enterprise equipment and because they find it dirt cheap on ebay. That is despite the noise and running costs.

    They said they wanted to build a pickup truck. They ended up with an industrial excavator 😅.

    Regular homelabbers dont buy racks and use 15 bays. In the day of 18Tb shucked drives who needs that many bays??

    This whole thing is weird especially since people like geerlingguy and the self hosted people promoting it. I mean those guys use raspberry pi 4s for most of their own stuff?!

    • bagofwisdom@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Maybe 45 drives wouldn’t need to jack up their prices if they’d stop donking all their cash giving it to tech influencers.

      • _realpaul@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I dont think thats making a dent in their marketing budget. Also judging by the replies they do actually reach their target audience.

        So far it seems they know where to find their target audience just not what they actually want.

    • Lotronex@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Regular homelabbers dont buy racks and use 15 bays. In the day of 18Tb shucked drives who needs that many bays??

      You have been banned from /r/DataHoarder

  • bloodguard@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks their prices are insane (and not in a good way). At first I thought maybe they were showing Canadian prices so I added something to my cart and checked. Nope. USD.

    I recently bought a metric crapton of Seagate Exos 20TBs and it looks like they’re overpricing that drive by about $130.

    • spanky34@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I think it was during the self hosted podcast last episode or the one before, they had 45 drives on. They basically said the drives that you can buy from their store will be marked up and they completely expect you to buy them elsewhere.