I’ve also thought it would be nice to have some upfront I/O on the HL15. I don’t think it would be too hard to do myself. I think something like the plug below and a step drill bit would get the job done.
Something like that would be fine, IMO. I’d have to measure to be sure there is space.
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I agree, aesthetically I think it would look better (cleaner) without them.
Functionally, I am not sure why they are there? I don’t think they are needed to take the cover off, as you can remove it from the side, by lifting on the lip.
I thought perhaps the notches are for pulling the server out when on rails, but with the lid on, you cant get your fingers in there, and the screw/knobs on the front would work until the ears clear the front.
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Pretty sure they are for if you are in front of the rack and push in your thumbs to slide lid back. I cant get my lid off without those where one of mine is.
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^^^ This exactly.
I also relied on those notches to push the lid back (to take it off) and wouldn’t have been able to do get the lid off without them. Trying to grab the lid from the side might be possible, but is probably very unpleasant to your fingers. So I hope they keep those notches.
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@Vikram-45HomeLab do we have a known depthyet ? guessing about 23inches deep? With the 5U are you going to scale up the fans to 140mm? I would like to see that.
5U will open itself up to use for a rack mount gaming/work station chassis. If GPUs would fit 4U i was going to by another HL15 and take out backplane and cage for spares, and use it as Gaming chassis. But GPUs are just too massive in height to work without the GPU power cable/plug/ issues/fire risk.
STILL holding out for a HL30. the Q30 price quote i got, the price to drive bay ratio was not from the same planet as the HL-15. So for now I had to upgrade the HL-15 drives multiple times. I built it with 20TB, then moved to 24TB, to all 28TB HAMR.
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I have an idea that might be dumb, but regarding the 5U unit, would it be possible to add extra studs for standoffs (in addition to the ones for EATX support) or mounting points? This could allow users to add more accessories in some sketchy way. For example, you released a 3D model for adding 2.5-inch storage on the back of the current HL15. If we only use an ATX motherboard, we could potentially create additional 3D-printed components to mount that right next to the motherboard.
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Okay, an HL15 5U would be right up my alley as I really, really want to build a new system to move away from my MS-01 nodes and I was looking at SSI CEB-sized motherboards. And somehow I have exactly 5U of available rackspace right now so it seems like it’d be the right match!
Honestly the only thing I’d prefer would be NVME instead of Sata/SAS storage (or ideally half and half) since I have a separate 45S chassis for my storage needs, but hey, this still seems like it may be the appropriate direction for me to go!
Any idea on when the HL15 5U variant will be available?
Hi @sepfy
Thanks for your interest in the HL15 5U! It’s great to hear that it would be a perfect fit for your available rack space and your plans to move away from your MS-01 nodes.
Right now, we are still in the initial stages of developing the HL15 5U, and we estimate that it will be completed in a couple of months. We’re working on making it as versatile as possible, and I appreciate your feedback regarding NVMe storage—half-and-half NVMe/SATA-SAS.
Stay tuned to our forum for updates, and feel free to share any other thoughts or feature requests. Your input helps shape our development!
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I’d love to see a motherboard option using amd ryzen. In general I’d like 10gb Ethernet in either connector type, more than 1 pci slot for expansion, and good single threading experience. I keep looking at the hl8, but hold off because of 2.5 gbe and limited nvme (2-3 drives) options with a gpu.
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You could look at @rymandle05 's HL8 build;
but if you want both a GPU and 3+ NVMe, you’re not going to find that in an mITX form factor.
It should be easy enough to do your build with an ATX board in an HL15 (I have a Ryzen build). Your choices would depend on if ECC and IPMI are requirements.
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the issue with using a consumer CPU like Intel Core, or AMD Ryzen or even the Ryzen rebranded as Epic 4004, is there just arent PCI lanes to support much. Especially when you have NVMe drives on the board, thats 4 PCI lanes each drive gone.
The flagship Ryzen 9950x has 24 lanes, 16 of which are to the top slot. If you want to build your own, ASUS Pro Art boards typically have 10GbE on them and a couple m.2
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oops i was thinking this was about HL-15 since its hl-15 thread. Ya you are not going to get much in the HL-8 for stuff, thats the cost of ITX form factor. Minisforum should do a ITX version of their MS-01 (Intel) and MS-02 (AMD). Those have 2x 10Gb SFP+, 2x 2.5GbE, x16 PCI, etc.
Good suggestions. Maybe I should focus on the hl15. Space isn’t an issue. What boards have others had good experiences with that have ipmi?
Well any ITX, mATX, or ATX will fit the current HL-15, they are going to be releasing one with extended depth that will also support E-ATX. the prebuilt uses a xeon board by supermicro, i think X11? but if you want AMD the H11 or H12 epyc boards are ATX, have IPMI, and tons of PCI lanes
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I would buy an extended 5U HL15 version for an AI oriented build with for instance two 3090 / 4090 / 5090 graphics cards. In such a usecase I am not heavily relying on harddrive storage, but would have more interest in SATA SSD storage alone.
@Vikram-45HomeLab I was wondering if you guys would also make use of the 1U free space on the front of the to be designed 5U HL15 case? For instance for hot swappable SSD’s or front side connections like USB to name a few things.
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SSDs because loading models into ollama and the like will be faster?
Wondering where you see the bottlenecks for self-hosted AI inference/fine-tuning, and what physical properties of the HL15-5U would overcome those?
Wil this impact the current cost of the HL15?
Im really comtemplating picking one up - If someone was Nova Scotian is it possible to pick up onsite and get a tour?