Super well covered man. Thank you for doing this. Also, to the HL15 team, this straightforward pro/con review was really helpful and has me even more interested in the product. Keep sending him gear as you round out the homelab line. Looking forward to it!
I really appreciate how you approach homelab costs. Setting up homelabs can get out of hand pretty quickly, so to have someone really hammer home that you *do not need* to buy the latest greatest shiny new thing to have a homelab is fantastic. Thank you!
I'm not really a homelabber, but do reuse hardware, and do have a need for 15 drive bays in a home server, and in the spirit of reusing hardware, do want a case that supports 15 drives and will basically be the home server case that I use for at least the next 10-15 years (or more) as I basically upgrade the guts of it every 3-5 years. I've found other cases to leave me.... wanting... So, yes, I guess I'm the target market for a case like this, and yes, it's expensive, but... it should last me at least 10-15 years if not 20 years, which I can't say for other cases, so if you're looking at the long game, this case is actually a bargain. Just under a thousand dollars and you're basically set for life. I've spent at least that much on other cases over the last 20 or so years I've had a home server. Home server cases should be a lot like an electrical panel. Purpose built, and ruggedly enough built that you don't need to replace it any time soon. It gets installed in place, and you might update the guts of it over time, but the base of it stays the same.
You covered every aspect nicely. I do think that it is an investment and should be looked at that way but it is just getting over the initial sticker shock lol. Maybe I will have one one day but it is a really nice piece of hardware that should last a long time.
honestly i really appreciate your honest despite being sent this, and i do agree with you my homelab is basically just a pile of old computers but like you said not every homelaber is going that route
Small business owner here. Generally I have recycled my old chips(e..g 2700x, 3900x, 5950x) I used for development into servers with asrockrack boards. This looks ideal for a storage project that I have upcoming, the price is pretty silmar to synology so it’s looking like a strong option. P.s while this channel is aimed at home labers, it also is pretty applicable to small businesses and the content is great.
looks incredible, been excited for this ever since the youtube coverage of the conference they held at their HQ. for me personally, in my homelab... don't think I'd ever be able to justify the cost though. hoping there's a lower-cost version in the works. at half the cost, think they'd see enough increase in adoption / sales, it'd be totally worth.
Its a lot of money but I’m feeling this is better that a proprietary ex datacenter unit, and keep it for a long time. Its sort of aspirational for me. That said, i’d like to see modular case accessories like plug in fan units, dual psu or dual psu board, perhaps even some wild looking industrial style water cooling kit.
Wendell mentioned a dual power supply that might fit in this case in the level1techs review. Also in the other direction you can lightly modify some supermicro 4u cases to use regular ATX PSUs if you're desperate for a budget option.
As for margin/loss on the machine: the free overnight shipping from the NY distribution center, no tax, and no customs definitely sweetened the price a lot.
Hi @Raid Owl, yes everybody is discussing price and how this is too much for a homelab. But in my book the HL15 competes with products like the Synology DS3622xs+. I feel there is scope for a video to 'put the price into perspective'. Great video as always, thank you!
@@cdnron75 For 15 drives there are very few options, there is the Rosewill at $220 and storage oriented cases that generally start at about $500ish (not counting second hand stuff). It is expensive for what it is for homelab use but the Sliger (which is an awesome case but it's also not 'cheap' at $400 without rails) holds 11. There is a case available in the Europe that would fit the bill for 400 euro's but you can't get that one in the states. So definitely niche and overpriced but 45 drives is the first company to actually pay attention to homelabbers so being one of those dumb niche guys I'm going to support them in the hopes they come out with a less expensive version in the future that is more accessible to everyone.
I have gone the exact route of using the Rosewill chassis and adding 12 drives of backplanes added another $300... so all said and done it was closer to $600 for everything. Next time around I'm buying the HL15, I don't get why people think its a ripoff, I'm pretty excited to pick one up. I want to be able to build my own systems and not worry about maintaining proprietary hardware. My main use case is for NAS + Plex and dropping in a Intel CPU with Quick Sync is what I need anyway, not a Xeon.
I honestly want one for my lab and production company. Would be nice to finance as a business expense. I might look at the DIY way. Im also waiting on my Zimablade so we will see.
I really wish I could justify the price of this right now. It does look like a really well built product. I'm at the transition point where I am trying to move from external SSD's while editing to a rack mount solution.
Great points on the HL15. I just really wish it was a front loader vs top, and while I have no idea on their mark up if any, home building one for less that does the same/more 16 drives vs 15, makes this a really hard sell for me. And yeah I still want one.
It is a bit disappointing regarding some of the component choices, but this makes a lot of sense for someone who just wants an “Apple” home server. If you don’t want to fret about anything and have it just work, this is a solid choice. The problem is that tends not to be the home server crowd. But that’s okay. At these prices, they don’t need massive quantities
What did u use to cool the Xeon 4214.. looking to do the same upgrade on mine.. I know they are backordered pretty far so as far as demand goes, they are overshooting their estimates. 4 and 8 bays are in the works and probably fit ur use case better.. Definity a premium but u can easily look at it from the other direction and say it's a steep discount on 45drive enterprise gear..
I stuck with their passive cooler as there is a decent amount of airflow over it and the 4214 doesn't seem to draw tooooo much power. If I notice any overheating I'll prob slap an active cooler on there.
Once you step into some of QNAP's/Synology's premiere 10+ bay offerings, you might find the fully equipped HL15's $2k price a little more palatable...(I almost wish I needed that much capacity with 15 bays, but , I'm only now just 'upgrading' to a 6 bay unit (Asustor 6706T), and even then, only stuffing it with a pair of 10 TB drives...)
I don't really even *need* 10 TB mirrored, as I have a 3TB Toshiba external that's barely half full, but, just thinking ahead for next several years....; wife and kids' Iphone photos/videos start to add up! :)@@Jimmy_Jones
I recently built a similar setup but older slower weaker and with only 10G DAC...I ran proxmox on it and a few other servers and was able to install a Windows 10 VM on the HDD storage pool (ZRAID2 w/6 used 6TB disks) which I run off of one of the other servers and it runs fine...it can be laggy on occasion and you won't be using it for anything video, but the fact that I can boot up and run a VM from a hypervisor on one machine which is connected to its virtual hard drive over SMB says a lot in my opinion and offers a lot...pretty sure I could do high availability Windows OS installs which is just effin cool imo....anyways you make great content - now go build a NAS with an old Chromebook already wouldya???
I think one of the biggest things going against it besides the price is that it is for 3.5" drives. I feel that is the part of this thing that will age the least well. SSDs are dropping fast to the point where you can get the cheaper ones for about 4c/GB. Sure that is like 3x the 1.3c/GB you can get for HDD based storage but it may get to the point where that difference is negligible. HDDs have a lot of fixed costs like the motor, PCB, Spindle, Arms and so the best way for them to increase their GB/$ is to increase capacity. This is what they have been doing for years now. Unfortunately you get to a point where that capacity becomes a liability at current read and write speeds. time to read a drive is already measured in hours but pretty soon that sata connection will be the major bottleneck and we will be talking about how many days it takes to read a drive. It is still okay for some operations but again with NVME SSDs dropping in price that may be the better option before much longer.
The stock CPU sips power, I haven't run one in that exact board but stressing those CPU's they pull like 30w and they can pretty easily be passively cooled (in a rack with decent airflow). Probably part of the reason they went with that config, by default it's pretty low power but you can throw in a ton of other Xeons that are pretty easy to get second hand.
I don't think that this case is really that ''premium'' beyond the paint job, definitely not worth 800 bucks, imo. It's literally just folded metal with a backplane and shitty fans. You don't even get drive sleds or expansion slot covers.
The chassis alone is a bit expensive, and yes you can get something like that rosewill for ~$220 (or a second hand super micro or what have you) but I've worked in a lot of 'low end' cases and while it's not worth $500 to most people it is nice to not slice your hands up when working in a case. I'm personally going to grab one in the hopes that they sell enough for it to be worth it for them to keep working on it and come out with a cheaper version in the future but the full build version is competitive with similar offerings. So right now kind of a niche product (home labbers with the money to spend) but I'm hoping V2 comes in at a lower price with upgraded internals. I'm probably going to throw a 2nd gen Epyc mobo/CPU in mine when I get around to rebuilding my NAS next year. Just a warning I don't think Houston plays that well with the HL15 yet, some people on the forums have tried it and the general consensus was it's not ready yet.
Been waiting for an HL30. 45D wants something like $2000 or 2200 for their 30 drive chassis/backplane/psu. At that point I'd probably do a HL15+disc shelf.
Powdercoatings bother me because of ground/shielding issues - with a plain zinc/aluminum/stainless steel case you always have a solid ground connection no matter where
My issue with this is that they only kinda listened to the community's comments. I bought an **open box** Supermicro CSE-847 for $700 several years ago. That's SAS3 backplanes, dual redundant Super Quiet power supplies. Granted I watched and waited for many months but these days you can get used in the $600 range.
It seems like it's a very nice system but it's too expensive for what it is. I don't think they are pricing it for giant margins. The made in North America cost is a problem for competitive pricing. I think if they can make just the case and backplane $600 that would be more palletable for a lot more people.
I'm not seeing the value proposition in the other direction--spend a little more and get a new Supermicro 4U, 24-bay chassis. Integrated redundant power, hot-swap drive bays (and 60% more of them), chassis sensors into IPMI (intrusion detection, power consumption, fan speed), and just a much more solid device. Spend a little more (buying new), get a lot more. Or, of course, buy used and get much more capability for less money.
I've got one, and no it's not worth it. I only got it because of it's compact size compared to most 4U cases with hotswap/backplanes. The drive cage and PCI slots are very thin, bend super quickly if not careful. Tons of QC issues like PSUs not properly fitting, PCI cards not being able to fit, power buttons not being wired correctly or missing parts altogether. It's not a bad case at all. But you can get a 4U case with hotswap and a SAS backplane for like €450-500 from Inter-Tech for example (with more drive bays)
I love your content. My problem is that I know nothing about TruNas. I have been looking at 45Drives HL15 and have decided that is my platform of choice. My plans is to host my Massive Plex server storage. I also need a dedicated storage server for my other devices and have a dedicated storage server for my Windows 2022 server needs. Honest opinion needed. Is TruNas going to meet these needs?
Power consumption isn't as nutty as I thought it would be though, as you alluded to, the typical 'Homelabber' probably won't be using that platform as a starting point. Hopefully they'll do something similar based around SSDs that's a bit smaller...or the same size that actually allows you to put 45 SATA SSDs in lol.
My one point of criticism is noise. Not every homelabber can afford to stash loud stuff down to a basement. The price doesn't bother me as much because most people would use this thing for many years like a typicaly NAS (I used my previous Synology DS1512+ for 12 years before I felt the need to upgrade), and so even "fully loaded" price is not outrageous for someone who needs a reliable storage solution.
$800 with no reapl hardware support is not a good deal. What happens when one of their custom made SAS expander boards dies and you need a replacement unit?
What custom made HBA? They don't sell any. Their default configuration uses a standard Supermicro motherboard... or you can use your own with standard LSI SAS 3008 HBAs
Is it an expander or a passthrough? Either way they are an established company with a reputation for good customer support they will likely sell you a replacement part if they don't just give you one (warranty replacement).
@@RaidOwl the motherboard they bundle looks to be $600 from what I can tell. +200ish for the processor, heat sink, and memory gets closer to ok for the entire bundle.
Luxury but .. only 15 not 16 drives in a 4U height. No SAS expander backplane. No drive sleds for hotswapping. It's priced very poorly for what it offers which is just a steel case with a passthrough backplane.. just my opinion. Kind of weird having the power button on the back too.
@@RaidOwl I did see them reply to a lot of comments on the Level 1 Techs review of the same case. The case designer said in those comments it's meant to be a centrepiece of someone's home lab. I found that wordage little confusing haha but I suppose design is in the eye of the beholder.
45Drives goal has been to have 1-1 system level access to drives with their direct-wired architecture which provides full line speed for any drive. There is no drive sleds by design as they are not required for hot swap capabilities and are just annoying. They also follow the top loading form factor which can only fit 15 drives across.
@@RedstoneGamez Sounds like a lot of compromises when I have a 24 bay in 4U.. only 10cm deeper too and uh cheaper with 500MB/s to each drive bay, not much of a compromise..
I may have to contact 45Drives to see if I can buy the chassis with backplane only so I can source my own motherboard, power supply and other parts. I do know they would sell you a blank chassis with backplane only on their higher tiered products.
i thought "needing cheaper version" was referencing to the homelab chassis, way overpriced even for empty chassis, the only way i would buy the empty version for that much, would be with a dual socket xeon 2698R v4 already installed
Honestly, the ZimaCube at $700 sounds like a much better deal for homelab use, and even that has some flaws (2.5 gbe, doesn't seem expandable). But at least it's just add disks and go.
Still a little steep on price and like you said, I can buy the same thing for half the price. I've actually already done it so I'll be giving this one a pass even though I am looking at expanding my NAS. I will be keeping an eye on any new products they release in the future though. If something with a bit more reasonable price tag pops up, I'll take a look.
The price really doesn't make much sense considering server prices are dropping sharply right now. Things are almost at the point where you can get a 14th gen Dell r740 XD for the same price with better specs.
@@jonathan.sullivan I mean I'd trust a used Dell server to be more reliable than the new 45 drives hardware any day. The build standards are on a whole different level.
Im looking at this case for my AI homer server. I have been looking for a case like this because having a motherboard laying around doing nothing is no fun. I will be looking at changing the fans to Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans. I found out these fan push 60 CFM per fan. I do love how modular this case really is. I eventually want to have a personal minecraft server on this as well as some storage. Im glad i have a motherboard and cpu ready with 256gb of ram and 2 ai gpus
Fun fact on the IPMI - the username ADMIN must be in caps! Took me way to long to figure that out today. Also I'm sad that my unit came in with a bit of damage.
I am that guy who has been very loud with all the buy-off's and flog-tubers who drank their coolade after getting bribed with free units and solutions for positive reviews. Not saying 45D is a bad product, what is is the very, VERY expensive price tags for a product that could/can easily be smashed (price/performance) by other products. All the big-named YT channels sucked on the 45Doodle and I and others quickly dropped them. Just for the record, I have a -media server packing 60+ drives for less coins that box.
Lol dude I said it was expensive, and well built. I even said it’s not for everyone. It’s also their first product into their consumer line. Did you even watch the video or see “HL15” in the title and immediately spring into nerd rage?
@@RaidOwl The title did trigger, here is another bribed YT'er but no, I watched to see what your review was and for the whole, what it was supposed to be. I have been watching your channel for a bit hence why didn't just drop your channel feed. I prefer people who take the time and pride to build their servers rather than buying expensive lazy-boxes or worse, get freebies and then claim to be unbiased.
@@bentheguru4986 So when 45 Drives asks to send me an HL15 to look at I should say no? Would you prefer me be unbiased and say "this is expensive and not for everyone"...oh wait, I did. There are plenty of people with the budget to spend on nice things, so don't be a cringey gate keeper and just let people enjoy things.
$800 for a storage chassie and the drives not even easy to swap without take the lid of sounds really expensive. The pre-built system is weak for the money I think
i thought "needing cheaper version" was referencing to the homelab chassis, way overpriced even for empty chassis, the only way i would buy it for 800$, would be with a xeon 2698R v4 already installed and at least 128gb ram, platinum psu too, "built with quality materials" won't explain the 800$, neither will the quality materials help the performance
It made me laugh when he put that 40gbps nic in the server and I was like BRO do you think those HDDs can and those SSDs can do that throughput??? 10gbps was good enough!!! that was extremely funny
Hello, just started building my TrueNAS server it will have 8 spinning disk in a raidz2. I want that to be my main storage for plex media. I want to have faster storage for everything else (family photos/videos, documents, etc). I also want to buy a Flex 10 GbE for the TrueNAS, TrueNAS backup, and my computer. My question is do I go with four 2TB SSDs in a raid10 or two 4TB NVME drives in a mirror? If the is a waste do I save some more and do four 4TB NVMEs in a raid10?
Honestly it seems like a lot of your needs are larger files that’s aren’t being read and written too often so hard drives may be your best bet. I’d stick with the the 8 spinning disks and add more ram for ZFS caching. You can speed up that spinning drive array with a metadata cache SSD vdev as well. You can certainly go with an SSD pool if you want but I think your money would be better spent elsewhere. You def don’t need nvme.
@@RaidOwl Thanks for the help. So I have my old gaming computer i9 9900k with 64GB. Is that enough or should I get a 7302p with 128GB RAM? Also are you saying that the spinning disk alone on raidz2 can get me 10gbps when transferring files or a metadata cache SSD vdev is needed also?
I don’t think you’ll get 10Gbps but you’ll get really good speeds. If you’re looking to max out that 10Gbps then SSDs should get you there. And the 9900k is plenty fast, just not many pcie lanes for expansion.
@@RaidOwl I just watched your video on using 4 NVMe drives on a single card. You used Log and not metadata for cache. Just curious why did you go with that over metadata?
Seems to me that the value-added aspect of this case is the build quality and backplane, but there is no guarantee that the backplane connectivity/circuitry will be relevant in 5 years. People talk about this case as a 10-15 year investment. Calling bullshit on that. Also presumably there is a non-trivial shipping fee from Canada so the price is more than $800 delivered.
You know if the backplane had u.2/NVME capabilities I could justify the price (sort of). But it doesn't. How are they going to sell a product when it can't stand out to the rest? I'd rather push people off to supermicro cases and build it. Far cheaper and more powerful. For 2k I can throw in a CSE-826, EPYC rome, 128GB ram and still have almost 1k left over.
I appreciate their want to join the home-lab group, but unfortunately, they are out of touch with the pricing. Four hundred dollars would be a more acceptable price to swallow.
I'd love it if 45 drives would just donate a machine and drives to me, a youtube-consumer-only chap. I'd love to review it for my own personal use. {smirk}
This case emits to much NOISE…….It lacks sound damping solutions. It’s just a BIG Empty Sheet Metal box that amplifies the noise hard drives make. And I think it’s too BIG for a home lab storage solution.
I mean to be fair thats most 4u chassis. Honestly, I didn't think it was any louder than expected especially with 6 fans. Maybe ill try some DIY sound dampening though.
I have 3 big 4u steel boxes in my lab (2 supermicro 1 random consumer grade) and the noctua fans are the loudest part. Unless you're running truely ancient drives there shouldn't be much noise. The supermicro trays are just solid plastic and metal that go into bare metal slots.
after revving again, yeah, this is a STEEL. The price is right on POINT.. you would be an idiot to ignore this. Again , I think you were way too critical of this product @@RaidOwl
Not worth it imo. If you've got $800 USD to drop on new hardware, you've got Gucci homelab money. Half of the learning experience that comes with building a home lab from retired enterprise hardware is learning how to get old jenky stuff to work properly together. This directly translates to when you're placed in a position of getting jenky hardware to work together for a really cheap employer who doesn't see the value in IT. And we all know there are many of those employers. But if you got the money, then go for it. They're your freedom bucks so spend em how you want ;)
UA-camr “review”: This 2019 MoBo/CPU is dated, but it’s awesome! It’s made of steel (bent sheet metal) and powder coated so it’s totally premium, high-quality, and high-end if you “have the cash”. Did I mention you get a lot premium-ness for $800!? Community: What’s special (sorry, “premium”) about steel, a few cheap fans, and a proprietary backplane with no (or hidden) part(s) availability? UA-camr: Bro it’s powder coated, strong AF and totally premium. But I completely understand if you don’t “have the cash” for this Gucci-level product.
I said the motherboard and cpu are dated so you prob shouldn’t buy the full build. Did you even watch the video or did you just get a hate boner from seeing “HL15” in the title?
Super well covered man. Thank you for doing this. Also, to the HL15 team, this straightforward pro/con review was really helpful and has me even more interested in the product. Keep sending him gear as you round out the homelab line. Looking forward to it!
I really appreciate how you approach homelab costs. Setting up homelabs can get out of hand pretty quickly, so to have someone really hammer home that you *do not need* to buy the latest greatest shiny new thing to have a homelab is fantastic. Thank you!
I'm not really a homelabber, but do reuse hardware, and do have a need for 15 drive bays in a home server, and in the spirit of reusing hardware, do want a case that supports 15 drives and will basically be the home server case that I use for at least the next 10-15 years (or more) as I basically upgrade the guts of it every 3-5 years. I've found other cases to leave me.... wanting... So, yes, I guess I'm the target market for a case like this, and yes, it's expensive, but... it should last me at least 10-15 years if not 20 years, which I can't say for other cases, so if you're looking at the long game, this case is actually a bargain. Just under a thousand dollars and you're basically set for life. I've spent at least that much on other cases over the last 20 or so years I've had a home server. Home server cases should be a lot like an electrical panel. Purpose built, and ruggedly enough built that you don't need to replace it any time soon. It gets installed in place, and you might update the guts of it over time, but the base of it stays the same.
You covered every aspect nicely. I do think that it is an investment and should be looked at that way but it is just getting over the initial sticker shock lol. Maybe I will have one one day but it is a really nice piece of hardware that should last a long time.
honestly i really appreciate your honest despite being sent this, and i do agree with you my homelab is basically just a pile of old computers but like you said not every homelaber is going that route
Small business owner here. Generally I have recycled my old chips(e..g 2700x, 3900x, 5950x) I used for development into servers with asrockrack boards. This looks ideal for a storage project that I have upcoming, the price is pretty silmar to synology so it’s looking like a strong option. P.s while this channel is aimed at home labers, it also is pretty applicable to small businesses and the content is great.
"Real" UA-camr??? You are the realest of real, Mr. Owl!
❤️❤️❤️
Thanks!
Thank you for the details. Merry Christmas 3000 for you as well! Trillion hugs.
looks incredible, been excited for this ever since the youtube coverage of the conference they held at their HQ. for me personally, in my homelab... don't think I'd ever be able to justify the cost though. hoping there's a lower-cost version in the works. at half the cost, think they'd see enough increase in adoption / sales, it'd be totally worth.
I’m holding out for an HL30. Super stoked about 45 Drives getting into homelabing.
Its a lot of money but I’m feeling this is better that a proprietary ex datacenter unit, and keep it for a long time. Its sort of aspirational for me. That said, i’d like to see modular case accessories like plug in fan units, dual psu or dual psu board, perhaps even some wild looking industrial style water cooling kit.
yeah I'm confident we will see various different models/upgrades from them in the future.
Wendell mentioned a dual power supply that might fit in this case in the level1techs review. Also in the other direction you can lightly modify some supermicro 4u cases to use regular ATX PSUs if you're desperate for a budget option.
The Synology RS2821RP is 2900 CHF ( around 3400 USD) here in Switzerland. So a 2000 CHF storage server does not seem that bad.
As for margin/loss on the machine: the free overnight shipping from the NY distribution center, no tax, and no customs definitely sweetened the price a lot.
I was just looking at this chassis. What a timing!👏🏼
Me too!
Hi @Raid Owl, yes everybody is discussing price and how this is too much for a homelab. But in my book the HL15 competes with products like the Synology DS3622xs+. I feel there is scope for a video to 'put the price into perspective'. Great video as always, thank you!
@@cdnron75 For 15 drives there are very few options, there is the Rosewill at $220 and storage oriented cases that generally start at about $500ish (not counting second hand stuff). It is expensive for what it is for homelab use but the Sliger (which is an awesome case but it's also not 'cheap' at $400 without rails) holds 11. There is a case available in the Europe that would fit the bill for 400 euro's but you can't get that one in the states. So definitely niche and overpriced but 45 drives is the first company to actually pay attention to homelabbers so being one of those dumb niche guys I'm going to support them in the hopes they come out with a less expensive version in the future that is more accessible to everyone.
I've been looking for a review for this one after the conference. Thanks
Would love to get one of these some day. We def be on my list when I move to a bigger place in the future
I wish they had two variants. One with SATA backplane and another with NVMe backplanes to support U.2/U.3 SSD's.
Jeeeeeezzzz if one could afford the nvme storage for that type of chassis, one could afford the actual chassis. Supermicro has a few.
@@trakkasure That's true. lol.
Yea when I first saw it I thought maybe a few were u.2 considering their price models. Nope... Missed opportunity.
I have gone the exact route of using the Rosewill chassis and adding 12 drives of backplanes added another $300... so all said and done it was closer to $600 for everything. Next time around I'm buying the HL15, I don't get why people think its a ripoff, I'm pretty excited to pick one up. I want to be able to build my own systems and not worry about maintaining proprietary hardware. My main use case is for NAS + Plex and dropping in a Intel CPU with Quick Sync is what I need anyway, not a Xeon.
I honestly want one for my lab and production company. Would be nice to finance as a business expense. I might look at the DIY way. Im also waiting on my Zimablade so we will see.
I really wish I could justify the price of this right now. It does look like a really well built product. I'm at the transition point where I am trying to move from external SSD's while editing to a rack mount solution.
Great points on the HL15. I just really wish it was a front loader vs top, and while I have no idea on their mark up if any, home building one for less that does the same/more 16 drives vs 15, makes this a really hard sell for me.
And yeah I still want one.
I do love my HL15 :)
We need a full review from u2 Tom! (I know it's probably in the queue)...
Awesome Video buddy !!! Loved it !!
A well build case that will last longer than the hardware put inside with a good backplane is worth the money
It is a bit disappointing regarding some of the component choices, but this makes a lot of sense for someone who just wants an “Apple” home server. If you don’t want to fret about anything and have it just work, this is a solid choice.
The problem is that tends not to be the home server crowd. But that’s okay. At these prices, they don’t need massive quantities
What did u use to cool the Xeon 4214.. looking to do the same upgrade on mine.. I know they are backordered pretty far so as far as demand goes, they are overshooting their estimates. 4 and 8 bays are in the works and probably fit ur use case better.. Definity a premium but u can easily look at it from the other direction and say it's a steep discount on 45drive enterprise gear..
I stuck with their passive cooler as there is a decent amount of airflow over it and the 4214 doesn't seem to draw tooooo much power. If I notice any overheating I'll prob slap an active cooler on there.
Thanks for the info!@@RaidOwl
Once you step into some of QNAP's/Synology's premiere 10+ bay offerings, you might find the fully equipped HL15's $2k price a little more palatable...(I almost wish I needed that much capacity with 15 bays, but , I'm only now just 'upgrading' to a 6 bay unit (Asustor 6706T), and even then, only stuffing it with a pair of 10 TB drives...)
Only 10TB. I barely touch 1TB.
Your paying more for the software than hardware with QNAP/Synology. So in many eyes it makes it easier to justify the price point.
I don't really even *need* 10 TB mirrored, as I have a 3TB Toshiba external that's barely half full, but, just thinking ahead for next several years....; wife and kids' Iphone photos/videos start to add up! :)@@Jimmy_Jones
@@zacharylewis417oh lord. Their software is god awful. Give me truenas over that hot mess any day.
I recently built a similar setup but older slower weaker and with only 10G DAC...I ran proxmox on it and a few other servers and was able to install a Windows 10 VM on the HDD storage pool (ZRAID2 w/6 used 6TB disks) which I run off of one of the other servers and it runs fine...it can be laggy on occasion and you won't be using it for anything video, but the fact that I can boot up and run a VM from a hypervisor on one machine which is connected to its virtual hard drive over SMB says a lot in my opinion and offers a lot...pretty sure I could do high availability Windows OS installs which is just effin cool imo....anyways you make great content - now go build a NAS with an old Chromebook already wouldya???
FYI A 3-pin non-PWN fan can alter its speed by lowering the voltage. PWM fans are more precise when targeting a specific RPM.
Right…but there’s no built in voltage controller. Of course I could add one but I gotta review it as is.
I think one of the biggest things going against it besides the price is that it is for 3.5" drives. I feel that is the part of this thing that will age the least well. SSDs are dropping fast to the point where you can get the cheaper ones for about 4c/GB. Sure that is like 3x the 1.3c/GB you can get for HDD based storage but it may get to the point where that difference is negligible. HDDs have a lot of fixed costs like the motor, PCB, Spindle, Arms and so the best way for them to increase their GB/$ is to increase capacity. This is what they have been doing for years now. Unfortunately you get to a point where that capacity becomes a liability at current read and write speeds. time to read a drive is already measured in hours but pretty soon that sata connection will be the major bottleneck and we will be talking about how many days it takes to read a drive. It is still okay for some operations but again with NVME SSDs dropping in price that may be the better option before much longer.
They had a prototype of a SSD based server that a lot of people have showed interest in so maybe in the future.
The “I’m not that big of a UA-camr yet” with the subtle subscribe graphic was top tier 😂😂😂
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do
Seagate will be sending him that petabyte UA-camr care package in no time lmao
I wish lol
Raid owl is my 128gb of registered ECC memory in a zfs pool that can make any day have good random write speeds
Curious to see what the power draw on these looks like, both the standard build, and your performance upgraded build.
The stock CPU sips power, I haven't run one in that exact board but stressing those CPU's they pull like 30w and they can pretty easily be passively cooled (in a rack with decent airflow). Probably part of the reason they went with that config, by default it's pretty low power but you can throw in a ton of other Xeons that are pretty easy to get second hand.
I don't think that this case is really that ''premium'' beyond the paint job, definitely not worth 800 bucks, imo.
It's literally just folded metal with a backplane and shitty fans. You don't even get drive sleds or expansion slot covers.
The chassis alone is a bit expensive, and yes you can get something like that rosewill for ~$220 (or a second hand super micro or what have you) but I've worked in a lot of 'low end' cases and while it's not worth $500 to most people it is nice to not slice your hands up when working in a case. I'm personally going to grab one in the hopes that they sell enough for it to be worth it for them to keep working on it and come out with a cheaper version in the future but the full build version is competitive with similar offerings. So right now kind of a niche product (home labbers with the money to spend) but I'm hoping V2 comes in at a lower price with upgraded internals. I'm probably going to throw a 2nd gen Epyc mobo/CPU in mine when I get around to rebuilding my NAS next year.
Just a warning I don't think Houston plays that well with the HL15 yet, some people on the forums have tried it and the general consensus was it's not ready yet.
Dear Monopoly man,
You'll be more believable if you wear a top hat in your next 45Drives video.
😂.
Thanks for the video! 🎩
Been waiting for an HL30. 45D wants something like $2000 or 2200 for their 30 drive chassis/backplane/psu. At that point I'd probably do a HL15+disc shelf.
Powdercoatings bother me because of ground/shielding issues - with a plain zinc/aluminum/stainless steel case you always have a solid ground connection no matter where
My issue with this is that they only kinda listened to the community's comments. I bought an **open box** Supermicro CSE-847 for $700 several years ago. That's SAS3 backplanes, dual redundant Super Quiet power supplies. Granted I watched and waited for many months but these days you can get used in the $600 range.
It seems like it's a very nice system but it's too expensive for what it is. I don't think they are pricing it for giant margins. The made in North America cost is a problem for competitive pricing. I think if they can make just the case and backplane $600 that would be more palletable for a lot more people.
I'm not seeing the value proposition in the other direction--spend a little more and get a new Supermicro 4U, 24-bay chassis. Integrated redundant power, hot-swap drive bays (and 60% more of them), chassis sensors into IPMI (intrusion detection, power consumption, fan speed), and just a much more solid device. Spend a little more (buying new), get a lot more. Or, of course, buy used and get much more capability for less money.
I am wondering if you have looked at the case offerings from Sliger their CX4712 and CX3701 look like interesting alternatives to the HL15
They know someone out there in an enterprise market who has built the whole infrastructure DIY could sell this and make a good bonus end year...
I've got one, and no it's not worth it. I only got it because of it's compact size compared to most 4U cases with hotswap/backplanes. The drive cage and PCI slots are very thin, bend super quickly if not careful. Tons of QC issues like PSUs not properly fitting, PCI cards not being able to fit, power buttons not being wired correctly or missing parts altogether.
It's not a bad case at all. But you can get a 4U case with hotswap and a SAS backplane for like €450-500 from Inter-Tech for example (with more drive bays)
Could you post your ZFS TrueNAS setup? I'd love to see which drives or Z1, striped, mirrored, meta and if it's in one pool or many.
Check my homelab tour video from like a month ago :)
I love your content. My problem is that I know nothing about TruNas. I have been looking at 45Drives HL15 and have decided that is my platform of choice. My plans is to host my Massive Plex server storage. I also need a dedicated storage server for my other devices and have a dedicated storage server for my Windows 2022 server needs. Honest opinion needed. Is TruNas going to meet these needs?
Oh yeah 100%
@@RaidOwl Thanks very much!
Power consumption isn't as nutty as I thought it would be though, as you alluded to, the typical 'Homelabber' probably won't be using that platform as a starting point. Hopefully they'll do something similar based around SSDs that's a bit smaller...or the same size that actually allows you to put 45 SATA SSDs in lol.
My one point of criticism is noise. Not every homelabber can afford to stash loud stuff down to a basement. The price doesn't bother me as much because most people would use this thing for many years like a typicaly NAS (I used my previous Synology DS1512+ for 12 years before I felt the need to upgrade), and so even "fully loaded" price is not outrageous for someone who needs a reliable storage solution.
I guess I would install Noctual Resistors on those big fans.
$800 with no reapl hardware support is not a good deal. What happens when one of their custom made SAS expander boards dies and you need a replacement unit?
What custom made HBA? They don't sell any. Their default configuration uses a standard Supermicro motherboard... or you can use your own with standard LSI SAS 3008 HBAs
@@robertkohler4173 I was talking about the sas expander the hard drives connect to, not the HBA. My bad.
Is it an expander or a passthrough? Either way they are an established company with a reputation for good customer support they will likely sell you a replacement part if they don't just give you one (warranty replacement).
Love the Raptor reference.
*slaps truck* you can fit so such storage in this bad boy
@@RaidOwl the motherboard they bundle looks to be $600 from what I can tell. +200ish for the processor, heat sink, and memory gets closer to ok for the entire bundle.
Luxury but .. only 15 not 16 drives in a 4U height. No SAS expander backplane. No drive sleds for hotswapping. It's priced very poorly for what it offers which is just a steel case with a passthrough backplane.. just my opinion. Kind of weird having the power button on the back too.
Like I mentioned this is their first product for home labbers. I know they read comments and forum posts so your concerns are heard.
@@RaidOwl I did see them reply to a lot of comments on the Level 1 Techs review of the same case. The case designer said in those comments it's meant to be a centrepiece of someone's home lab. I found that wordage little confusing haha but I suppose design is in the eye of the beholder.
haha I mean yeah they're a little biased but I get what they're going for. It's def a good looking piece of hardware@@droknron
45Drives goal has been to have 1-1 system level access to drives with their direct-wired architecture which provides full line speed for any drive. There is no drive sleds by design as they are not required for hot swap capabilities and are just annoying. They also follow the top loading form factor which can only fit 15 drives across.
@@RedstoneGamez Sounds like a lot of compromises when I have a 24 bay in 4U.. only 10cm deeper too and uh cheaper with 500MB/s to each drive bay, not much of a compromise..
I may have to contact 45Drives to see if I can buy the chassis with backplane only so I can source my own motherboard, power supply and other parts. I do know they would sell you a blank chassis with backplane only on their higher tiered products.
You can already do this on their purchase page
i thought "needing cheaper version" was referencing to the homelab chassis, way overpriced even for empty chassis, the only way i would buy the empty version for that much, would be with a dual socket xeon 2698R v4 already installed
The honest of this video !! Damn.
Honestly, the ZimaCube at $700 sounds like a much better deal for homelab use, and even that has some flaws (2.5 gbe, doesn't seem expandable). But at least it's just add disks and go.
Now I have something new to dream about, and something my bank account to have nightmares about 😆
Still a little steep on price and like you said, I can buy the same thing for half the price. I've actually already done it so I'll be giving this one a pass even though I am looking at expanding my NAS. I will be keeping an eye on any new products they release in the future though. If something with a bit more reasonable price tag pops up, I'll take a look.
I bought a sliger 4u 10 bay chassis and the next month this came out......really wish I would have held out 😂
A used Supermicro 846 or 847 is a much better use of the money and a much better use of 4 units of rackspace.
Agreed. Even a new one gives better bang for buck as far as I can see.
I agree as well but the toolless drive bays are nice even if you have to slide it out a little to swap drives.
I don’t get how airflow works with cpu cooler shooting up?
The price really doesn't make much sense considering server prices are dropping sharply right now. Things are almost at the point where you can get a 14th gen Dell r740 XD for the same price with better specs.
While I agree, you are taking 2nd hand Enterprise gear to a new hardware from 45 Drives
@@jonathan.sullivan I mean I'd trust a used Dell server to be more reliable than the new 45 drives hardware any day. The build standards are on a whole different level.
My QNAP TVS-h874 i9 was more. I do not have the space for the HL15. I will wait for a smaller unit for TrueNAS scale
Im looking at this case for my AI homer server. I have been looking for a case like this because having a motherboard laying around doing nothing is no fun. I will be looking at changing the fans to Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans. I found out these fan push 60 CFM per fan. I do love how modular this case really is. I eventually want to have a personal minecraft server on this as well as some storage. Im glad i have a motherboard and cpu ready with 256gb of ram and 2 ai gpus
I’d score one of those if I hadn’t built my home server outta a define r5
One day I will have a HL15.. love it
Yessir
Fun fact on the IPMI - the username ADMIN must be in caps! Took me way to long to figure that out today. Also I'm sad that my unit came in with a bit of damage.
And the PW is on the motherboard...
I am that guy who has been very loud with all the buy-off's and flog-tubers who drank their coolade after getting bribed with free units and solutions for positive reviews. Not saying 45D is a bad product, what is is the very, VERY expensive price tags for a product that could/can easily be smashed (price/performance) by other products.
All the big-named YT channels sucked on the 45Doodle and I and others quickly dropped them.
Just for the record, I have a -media server packing 60+ drives for less coins that box.
Lol dude I said it was expensive, and well built. I even said it’s not for everyone. It’s also their first product into their consumer line. Did you even watch the video or see “HL15” in the title and immediately spring into nerd rage?
@@RaidOwl The title did trigger, here is another bribed YT'er but no, I watched to see what your review was and for the whole, what it was supposed to be. I have been watching your channel for a bit hence why didn't just drop your channel feed.
I prefer people who take the time and pride to build their servers rather than buying expensive lazy-boxes or worse, get freebies and then claim to be unbiased.
@@bentheguru4986 So when 45 Drives asks to send me an HL15 to look at I should say no? Would you prefer me be unbiased and say "this is expensive and not for everyone"...oh wait, I did. There are plenty of people with the budget to spend on nice things, so don't be a cringey gate keeper and just let people enjoy things.
$800 for a storage chassie and the drives not even easy to swap without take the lid of sounds really expensive.
The pre-built system is weak for the money I think
any suggestions for a cheaper version ???
Where tf are people seeing the option to select stuff like this a checkout or just the chasis? They have me requesting quotes.
I wish the chassis alone would be a bit cheaper.
Same
"no shit" 😂 only practical questions from the peanut gallery
Honestly the price isn’t even crazy when you look at what synology charges
i thought "needing cheaper version" was referencing to the homelab chassis, way overpriced even for empty chassis, the only way i would buy it for 800$, would be with a xeon 2698R v4 already installed and at least 128gb ram, platinum psu too, "built with quality materials" won't explain the 800$, neither will the quality materials help the performance
It made me laugh when he put that 40gbps nic in the server and I was like BRO do you think those HDDs can and those SSDs can do that throughput??? 10gbps was good enough!!! that was extremely funny
Regretting not doing 100Gbps tbh
Hello, just started building my TrueNAS server it will have 8 spinning disk in a raidz2. I want that to be my main storage for plex media. I want to have faster storage for everything else (family photos/videos, documents, etc). I also want to buy a Flex 10 GbE for the TrueNAS, TrueNAS backup, and my computer. My question is do I go with four 2TB SSDs in a raid10 or two 4TB NVME drives in a mirror? If the is a waste do I save some more and do four 4TB NVMEs in a raid10?
Honestly it seems like a lot of your needs are larger files that’s aren’t being read and written too often so hard drives may be your best bet. I’d stick with the the 8 spinning disks and add more ram for ZFS caching. You can speed up that spinning drive array with a metadata cache SSD vdev as well. You can certainly go with an SSD pool if you want but I think your money would be better spent elsewhere. You def don’t need nvme.
@@RaidOwl Thanks for the help. So I have my old gaming computer i9 9900k with 64GB. Is that enough or should I get a 7302p with 128GB RAM? Also are you saying that the spinning disk alone on raidz2 can get me 10gbps when transferring files or a metadata cache SSD vdev is needed also?
I don’t think you’ll get 10Gbps but you’ll get really good speeds. If you’re looking to max out that 10Gbps then SSDs should get you there. And the 9900k is plenty fast, just not many pcie lanes for expansion.
@@RaidOwl I just watched your video on using 4 NVMe drives on a single card. You used Log and not metadata for cache. Just curious why did you go with that over metadata?
@@wpoole10 Didn't really understand ZFS well at the time
Seems to me that the value-added aspect of this case is the build quality and backplane, but there is no guarantee that the backplane connectivity/circuitry will be relevant in 5 years. People talk about this case as a 10-15 year investment. Calling bullshit on that. Also presumably there is a non-trivial shipping fee from Canada so the price is more than $800 delivered.
Right on their website - "Shipping is free for most of the world"
Biggest drawback for me is the 15 drive limit. For far less than $800 I can get a supermicro sc846 or 847. Give us a HL30
You know if the backplane had u.2/NVME capabilities I could justify the price (sort of). But it doesn't. How are they going to sell a product when it can't stand out to the rest?
I'd rather push people off to supermicro cases and build it. Far cheaper and more powerful. For 2k I can throw in a CSE-826, EPYC rome, 128GB ram and still have almost 1k left over.
I appreciate their want to join the home-lab group, but unfortunately, they are out of touch with the pricing. Four hundred dollars would be a more acceptable price to swallow.
Man that mangle meat shove of the drive into the backplane was hard to watch
You poor delicate flower
@@RaidOwl just saying. Could be why they didn’t send you any drives with it lol 😂
@@charelsfastbender haha I'm messing. I don't expect them to include drives though, the chassis is enough.
I’d rather spend about the same, get 20 drives, be able to choose my own mobo, and go with the 20 by Silverstone NAS case.
Did they forget to send the rack ears for a review unit? Hilarious...
Raspberry pi mini storinator please 45drives. 😍
Yeah I'd be all over that
@@RaidOwl Looks like a hl8 and 4 names to be determined mate be in the works from the forums. That would be nice!
I'd love it if 45 drives would just donate a machine and drives to me, a youtube-consumer-only chap. I'd love to review it for my own personal use. {smirk}
This case emits to much NOISE…….It lacks sound damping solutions. It’s just a BIG Empty Sheet Metal box that amplifies the noise hard drives make. And I think it’s too BIG for a home lab storage solution.
I mean to be fair thats most 4u chassis. Honestly, I didn't think it was any louder than expected especially with 6 fans. Maybe ill try some DIY sound dampening though.
I have 3 big 4u steel boxes in my lab (2 supermicro 1 random consumer grade) and the noctua fans are the loudest part. Unless you're running truely ancient drives there shouldn't be much noise. The supermicro trays are just solid plastic and metal that go into bare metal slots.
Your HardBoi array is degraded 😅
Lol yeah I pulled a drive out for b roll then messed up when I put it back in 😅
Wrong, the HL 15 IS a BARGAN, tested solution with high quartz parts... pull this review...
wut
after revving again, yeah, this is a STEEL. The price is right on POINT.. you would be an idiot to ignore this. Again , I think you were way too critical of this product @@RaidOwl
@@_SR375_ lol ok
45drives in dubai
lol solidboi and hardboi ;)
Yeah boi
yee 800$ for just a pc case ,, you know you can get pc case for 20$ and give 50 to metal worker to make you hdd cage ,
Cool then you go do that
@@RaidOwl i have ,, next one i will make i will make a video also
Not worth it imo. If you've got $800 USD to drop on new hardware, you've got Gucci homelab money.
Half of the learning experience that comes with building a home lab from retired enterprise hardware is learning how to get old jenky stuff to work properly together. This directly translates to when you're placed in a position of getting jenky hardware to work together for a really cheap employer who doesn't see the value in IT. And we all know there are many of those employers.
But if you got the money, then go for it. They're your freedom bucks so spend em how you want ;)
The only issue with Enterprise hardware is the power usage can be INSAINE i say just build on yourself
@@notafbihoneypot8487 That's a very fair point. I rarely have all of my equipment powered on at once since I'm paying the power bill lol
@@KILO993UNFORTUNATELY 24/7 here (zero) downtime besides mandatory security patch reboots
$800 for a hunk of metal? Nice try! 😂
Ill save yall 12 min,
No
but... does it hold 45 Drives? 15? i'll past, they brought it on themselves lol
And the shilling for 45Drives continues... Who’s up next; Tom? 😂
UA-camr: This product is nice but it’s a lot more expensive than its competitors so I don’t think it’s for everyone.
Commenter: Shill!!!!!
UA-camr “review”: This 2019 MoBo/CPU is dated, but it’s awesome! It’s made of steel (bent sheet metal) and powder coated so it’s totally premium, high-quality, and high-end if you “have the cash”. Did I mention you get a lot premium-ness for $800!?
Community: What’s special (sorry, “premium”) about steel, a few cheap fans, and a proprietary backplane with no (or hidden) part(s) availability?
UA-camr: Bro it’s powder coated, strong AF and totally premium. But I completely understand if you don’t “have the cash” for this Gucci-level product.
I said the motherboard and cpu are dated so you prob shouldn’t buy the full build. Did you even watch the video or did you just get a hate boner from seeing “HL15” in the title?
I literally quoted you from your video... but judging by your triggered response, I seem to be directly over target.
@@Max-jv3yg I don't think your peanut brain knows what "quoted" means
Too much expansive !