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45Drives just launched their HomeLab e-store. Crazy prices and nonsensical parts (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by msalad@alien.top to c/homelab@selfhosted.forum

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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?

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[–] v3c7r0n@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Personally, I don't think they're really targeting home labbers, they're really targeting home / small business (meaning <10-15 employees up to maybe 20 or so) who need the capacity, but also can't swing the true business prices.

Since someone else mentioned Jeff from Craft Computing, I'll use him as an example:

It's a lot easier to drop money on a server (storage or otherwise) when the server itself and it's recurring costs (the power usage and the extra HVAC costs) can all be written off as business expenses.
45D's prices are still far cheaper than true "enterprise storage" and the headaches they come with (like the relentless sales reps you have to deal with to buy one) with most of the features they'd have (IE - Nimble or any other SAN provider in this case) minus the warranty SLA - obligatory "F@#$ you very much CDW, Dell EMC, and HP"
On that previous point, yes, you can source parts and build it cheaper. Like any other OEM, what you really pay for is the warranty. Instead of having to deal directly with LSI, Intel or whoever because [component] failed, you call up 45D, given them the unit serial number, and go from there - as my boss likes to say "it's one throat to choke" - If that storage is vital to your business, downtime costs money squared. Again using Jeff as an example: If he's screwing with the server off camera, that's time he probably should have been on camera recording something else. If he is making a video about the issue, then it's going to take him 3 times longer than it otherwise would have to just fix it (many YouTubers have been vocal about everything taking 3 times longer for the camera than it does to just do it) and at that point, the video is being made as a piece of revenue generating content to try to help offset the cost of the downtime.