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EVERYTHING You Should Know About the HL15
EVERYTHING You Should Know About the HL15
#HL15
“Techno Tim”
The HL15 from 45Drives is here. It brings a lot of unique features and was built and designed with the HomeLab community in mind. In this in-depth review we’ll cover everything you want to know about this new storage server.
Thank you to 45Drives for sending this unit!
You can get yours at:…
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This is really nice. I bought a used SuperMicro chassis (4U 36-drive), and have run Ubuntu Server with ZFS "bare metal" for three years, and it takes a bit of tinkering to get set up the first time. But now I know how to do it (documentation is king), and I'm not so afraid of doing it again.
Really dissappointed. 45drives own research thread 2 years ago to the homelab community on reddit uncovered a strong need for non server storage solutions to extend storage for existing server with external SAS ports. The need is a cost effective but quality build enclosure with not insanely noise enterprise cooling fans, efficient power for 12-24 drives. Instead of solving these problems they put out a product for what seems like a smaller niche include enterprise noise level extremely high price in the $1000+ range. Again VERY dissappointed they can't listen to the community.
No need to bash rivets. They are solid performers and easy to replace.
I wonder how this compared pricewise to running TrueNAS in a Fractal Define XL case, which is where mine is now. I’ll have to go back through my receipts for a total.
It did take buying mounts and some ingenuity to get 14 drives mounted in that case, though Linus Tech Tips got 20 drives installed!
Nice video. I works like to see a NAS appliance that supported zfs pools natively.I don’t know of any exist, though.
For me, the price is a real showstoper
@9:12 You could just shout at your JBOD and tell it to behave (like Brendan Gregg…)
About rivets, get a pop rivet gun. You will need a drill the size of them and the rivets come in different sizes. Do a search for pop rivets and pop rivet guns. Harbor Freight (of all places) probably sells them and the rivets but search around and see what you can find. I would not use rivets either. They were most likely cheaper than screws and that is why many cases have them. Just make sure not to leave any metal left over from any drilling in the case. That of course could cause a short and damage things. It would also be the start of an unhappy day for you when you realize all of those expensive parts may have been ruined.
If you're going the bare metal CLI route, you can always install the Remote SSH extension in VS Code, then SSH-connect to your server via VS Code. That makes managing config files much more convenient.
This'll be nice 2 generations from now when it's $50-$250 on ebay or your favorite reseller
While i think this thing is super cool it for sure missed the price point like crazy. I signed up for updates and was very excited but $800 is way to much. I could see why they did it. To manage invetory and to get the whales. Servercase as more bays and hot swap for half the price.
Like every other IT releated channel that 45Drive was buying off with free staorage systems along with hugely positive (paid) reviews, video not watched all way through and channel blocked….
Very expensive platform that is easy to reproduce with enterprise gear and I don't care for the counter arguments.
I'm glad some people are finding this appealing, but personally I'm not seeing it. For the cost there seems to have been a significant amount of corner-cutting and compromises. For $2000 I'm pretty confident I could put together a setup that suits my needs significantly better than this would. It really kind of seems like the customer base they're looking for might not exist in high numbers; they'd want to target people who want to host a homelab and have the knowledge to do it, aren't price sensitive, and simultaneously don't have enough knowledge/gumption to put together their own setup but are able to deal with the software issues. idk man.
There’s an HL15 in my future. It would be an instant purchase if I didn’t already have a heavily modded Silverstone RM400 including two Icy Dock FlexCages, and loaded with Noctua fans.
I have a Sliger CX4712 that I bought right before this wan announced. It’s about half the price but that backplane would have been really nice! The CX is just passthrough and talk about a cabling mess!
I'm curious how Gentle Typhoon fans would do noise-wise in this chassis. I currently use Dell R530 8 bay servers for my TrueNAS storage back end and they're pretty quiet. Noise would be my biggest concern with this chassis. 120mm fans are a very good start though! Congrats on 45 drives bringing a reasonably priced chassis in here and giving us the option of barebones for those who might want to customize this! This is a wonderful looking start! Going to see how other people do with quieting it down before I jump at this point though.
Thank you for posting this video 🎉. You have a new subscriber. Keep up the great 👍 work..
I have to agree with a lot of the comments. A little pricey for me, but it’s a nice little chassis and a good offering for someone who wants to spend the money.
For me, used enterprise gear fits my budget just fine.
Too pricey for homelab…
If it has homelab in the name, you got Tim's attention
Nice in-depth video about the HL15 Tim, I do however have some questions about the connections on the backplane. How is it connected to the PSU? What connectors is used? What connections is used for the SATA/SAS Connections? Could I buy an LSi 16i, or two LSi 8i's and use this backplane?
I'm not sure I see the value proposition here. For the sake of comparison, a new Supermicro CSE-846A-R900B chassis is about $1200. That gives 24 bays rather than 15 in the same 4U footprint, still with the same sort of direct-attached backplane (no SAS expanders here). Dual 900-watt PSUs, which are also hot-swappable. Nearly double the weight means the SM unit will be a pain to move around, but also suggests it will be much more sturdy. For 30% more money (new, to keep the comparison fair), 60% more drives, and more than double the power, in the same 4U space.
And, of course, Supermicro gear is widely available used at a considerable discount, their chassis are readily serviceable, parts and accessories are available if needed. So while this is a nice-looking chassis, I guess I just don't see the the benefit. Too few drives, too much space, too much money.
thanks Techno Tim (no-hat version 2), a great breakdown and I'm still on the fence as well after your presentation. Is it all extra$$$ for naming rights???
Waaaaaaaaay to highly priced. The audacity.
since unraid has a max of 30 drives I was hoping they would release a 30 drive version. I know they make a 30 drive case but something cheaper would be nice
Where's the HL60??
Unraid can do most if not all of what you want. It even has ZFS now.
In regards to IPMI key: "No easy way around it." Do a google search folks.
799USD i think ill pass and stick with my 450NZD case.
The thing is that most homelabbers like to build stuff anyway so I'm not sure if this is going to be a fruitful market for 45 drives.
However there might be some rich dudes or small businesses that might consider this product appropriate.
This chassis is on my radar for future purchase. Going to wait for version 2 with more options.
Ah yes, the 45HomeLab Half Life 15
I'm hoping that this convinces other manufacturers to create cases that are more home lab focused. Like Gearboxworks says i'd probably be down for a smaller case that supported 6 or 8 drives ad about half the price. being in over $900 for a case, backplane, PSU and cables is a bit much. Especially when the case is basically just a rackmount case turned on its side. I've got a 12-bay Dell R510 behind me across the room that's so quiet I can't even hear it running at the moment. And when you compare the initial costs for the HL-15 against what you can get a fully kitted out piece of second hand enterprise gear for it just makes very little sense. There are just so many more cost efficient options out there. The server I just build with second hand parts in a Fractal Node 304, has twice the physical cores, higher clock, hyper threading, 4x the amount of ram that thing arrived with, and 6x 10tb drives, 850watt PSU and I'm in under $1000 including drives. Granted I can't physically fit any more drives in but if I did all i'd need is a disk shelf and a HBA. I just don't know. I guess i'm must too value conscious to see any value in the HL15.