I’ll be straight with you. I haven’t been around here nearly enough. And one of the things I want to fix is making sure there’s always a real human on the other end when you have a question or a thought you want to share.
So here it is. Ask me anything.
Seriously: products, pricing, what’s coming, what’s not coming, things you think we’re getting wrong, things you wish we’d do differently. If something has been sitting in the back of your mind about 45HomeLab, this is the place to say it. Nothing is off the table.
I’ll be honest: some answers will be “I don’t know yet” or “I can’t share that right now.” But I’ll always tell you that straight rather than give you a non-answer.
To kick things off, here are the things I genuinely want to know from you:
What almost stopped you from buying, and what made you pull the trigger anyway?
What do you think we could do better?
I’m reading every single reply in this thread personally. Not a support ticket system, not a template: just me, sitting at my desk, reading what you wrote.
When I was getting ready for preorder of the HL15 I wasn’t sure the cost was going to be justified. but then I decided to order anyways. When it finally got here it was way nicer, stronger, heavier, etc. than i was giving it credit for.
I also preordered the mini workstation and client. I did not like the redesign as they didn’t end up fitting my needs or wants any longer, and reached out to you for refund which you very promptly and hassle free did. Thanks again.
The beast was going to be aa purchase for me as well, the extra height would allow for better CPU coolers for modern CPUs (cooling anything with high Single Core performance is 4U is HARD without AIO) The thing that prevented me from ordering is it didnt add any 3.5" storage for the bulk of my stuff, over what the HL15 offers. With NAND prices, SATA and NVMe are almost same cost here, but one is 12x to 24x faster. I cant see paying money on SATA SSD in 2026 personally. except maybe boot drives.
I always thought about buying the beast for non server use as 5U allows for high end graphics cards to fit with the cable not being over stressed. I was going to buy it to use as a gaming PC chassis, but my AIO hoses aren’t long enough. So again maybe my niche use case prevented purchase, Most people I know run low end AMD cards and can fit better in these chassis. My 4090 Strix and the 5090 Astral I’m going to be using would not fit the HL15, but would fit the beast.
Well, first I want to say, i haven’t had any actual complaints about service or purchase or shipping.
IIRC during the preorder the fact of user serviceable and modular build design were being used in marketing. I REALLY would like to see some of that happen. The custom and themed face plates are nice, but things like faces with I/O options, AIO support (btw i tried having a HL15 1.0 rear fan wall made that had fan spacing for radiators, but wasn’t enough room without hitting motherboard maybe possible with Beast models?) or different rear panels like the one offered on other machines with the 2x 2.5" SSD slots in the panel. I know some people wanted the hybrid SSD & HDD drive cages/backplanes for a while like the F8X1.
As well as adding more options for panels, I would love to see repair parts like backplanes to show up on the website. I don’t want to have to haggle over email or phone, get quoted wildly different prices than my friend got on same day (we tested this on Q30 and on replacement HL15 backplanes) I know this practice is the standard in business because volume, etc. but for a consumer facing division this is off-putting in my opinion.
@ZarZ — This is exactly the kind of post I was hoping this thread would generate. Thank you for taking the time to write all of this out.
Really glad the HL15 exceeded expectations when it arrived, that moment when it’s heavier and more solid than you imagined is one of my favourite things to hear from customers. And thanks for the kind words on the refund experience; that’s how it should always go.
Your points on the Beast are genuinely useful. The gaming chassis angle, fitting a 4090 Strix or 5090 Astral with AIO cooling, is a use case I honestly hadn’t heard framed quite that way before, and you’re right that the 5U clearance is a real advantage for high-end GPU builds. The AIO hose length issue is a fair limitation and something worth feeding back to the team.
On your feedback about modular panels, I/O options on faceplates, radiator support, and hybrid drive cages, these are all things that have come up before in different conversations, but hearing them all together like this with the context of why it would actually matter to a real build makes it hit differently. I’m going to share this post directly with our product team.
The repair parts and backplane pricing point is the one I want to be most honest about. You’re right; inconsistent pricing for the same part depending on who asks is not a good experience for a consumer-facing brand. I hear you on that and it’s something I’ll raise internally. I can promise it’ll be heard by the right people.
Genuinely appreciate you being this candid. This is exactly what this thread is for.
Thanks for the response. I am a very straight forward person. I mean no malice in pointing out my grievances, and i know a company needs real world feedback to better themselves and a product. No reason to sugar coat, nor be a jerk to do that. if you sugar coat it, people might not get the importance or depth of it as needed.
I have talked several people in buying 45Homelab products over the years now. I also would like to comment on another thing, which was linked to the pricing concerns. A gentleman from the Unraid community named iownyrface here on the forums who is from Nova Scotia himself, went to purchase one after my raving about mine. He was during the tarrif increase, which is not an an easy buisness decision to increase prices im sure. But before he checked out the price increased.
Now that the US has removed the tariffs is there any chance of that increase being reverted? I know Arctic is going beyond expectations and not only reverting to pre tariff prices but also discounting stuff with the tariff refunds that companies received.