I had been a subscriber to this website, but had a terrible experience that really showed me what their reviews are really about. Basically they do flashy reviews of 'hot tech gear' with little or no thought as to how 'cool reviews' will affect the lives of those foolish enough to trust said reviews.
There was an article about what appeared to be a very nice box (basically a SFF pc with passive cooling, 64gb ram max,and 'nas' with 4xsfp+ and 4x2.5g interfaces). The review spun wonderful colours of how great the box was, and how nicely the interfaces worked. So I made the mistake of buying it. It was 'only $275.00 or so' so I thought, Oh, I will save lots of money on this. So I bought this (and 64 gb of ecc ram, 2 1tb ssd's and a sata to ngff adapter) in the delerious hopes I could have both a NAS AND an extension to my switches.
The trouble began when none of the interfaces (10gbps) would be recognized by the switch. The author of this article (who shall remain nameless) 'tested' the interfaces by cross-connecting to ANOTHER pc, NOT a switch. So his 'oh works on my machine' fallacy was promulgated in a follow up article.
I did comment on his website to inform other would be suckers to NOT TRUST the review. I just wanted to post this to simply voice some irritation about misplaced trust and computer hardware.
- I wasted 20 hours trying to get this thing working
- The author NEVER replied or apologized for his terrible review
- What started out as a 'fun' excercise ended up sad. The machine is slag now. It couldn't even stand 10 hours in a 95 degree environment without permanently never coming back up.
- The 10gbps interfaces and linux drivers are SHITE. They ONLY negotiate (auto) with 'proper' intel (non in tree) drivers which have to be separately compiled and installed
- The passivly cooled unit works fine in 72 degrees, but put it in a hot room and you are doomed
- Cheap does not mean you save time! I wasted 20 hours at at proposed billing rate of $100.00/hr (since that my going rate). $2,000 POOF.
I mostly was sad that the author NEVER apoloigized or offered any recanting of the review, since it stank so much. I did at least note that my comments haven't disappeared.
I am DONE with sth, and have decided to go with a terranas 8-423 which is an 8 rack mount nas WITHOUT THE CRAP that these jokers espouse.
Thomas