Lime-Technology Shutdown?

[WeeboTech]

I thought the issue with the AOC SASLP-MV8 cards was worked out as of revision 4.5.3.  I am building a system based upon that since Tom has no stock nor a target date.  Initially I will not need that card as I only plan to start with 4 drives on the mobo and will add the other eight to the HBA later

 

There was a post regarding an issue on a supermmicro board and using two(2) of AOC SASLP-MV8 cards in the PCIe slots. One(1) card worked fine.

It could be the X7SBE because one PCIe is located in one area of the architecture and the other x4 PCIe is located in a different area. See the motherboard's manual for a hint as to the possible issue.

I've tried the a 4 port Marvell x4 sata card in both PCIe slots with success.

[prostuff1]

My suggestion for remote builders or "somewhat" certified unraid techs (new buzzword) may help enhance limetech's offerings.

 

I think the new wiki section on suggested configurations is a good idea.

It provides a consistent baseline to work with.

 

I agree with everything said here.  I think unRAID is starting to grow to the point were keeping up with stuff is getting difficult for Tom.  I am hoping for some sort of response from him on the subject, so we know for sure what he thinks about it.

 

I have spec'ed out the systems that LimeTech sells and he does not make much on them when it is all said and done.  I am sure he can get bulk pricing discounts to help with some of that, but if "we" were "certified unRAID techs" (thanks WeeboTech) than maybe that discounting could/would be extended to us.

 

This is mostly conjecture right now.  I am sure we could go ahead with this on our own but i would love to get a response from Tom.

 

I am in the process of buying a house right now.  This should give me the extra room I need to build and test these setups for others.  My current apartment i have to build and teardown in my living room... not the most convenient to say the least

[barrygordon]

I assume you are either unmarried, or married to a most understanding woman. (;-)

 

 

[prostuff1]

I assume you are either unmarried, or married to a most understanding woman. (;-)

 

 

 

LOL. I am unmarried currently, but i figure if i get all of this computer stuff started now then my lady friends will know what they are getting themselves into ahead of time!

[Rajahal]

Is there a place to obtain pre-built unRaid products assembled by the community?

 

There are plenty of us who would be happy to build them for you, or walk you through the process.  I, for one

[unraided]

It seems like a good idea, so long as were not stealing profit from Tom (which is the last thing we'd want to do) and if his happy with the some of the community member being certified unraid technicians, it would be good to assist those who don't feel comfortable building their own server. I would like to help, but in my geographical location, a wife (yes I had to put that I'm ), work commitments and little free time, it would be hard for me to do this. I had to struggled to find time to build my unraid server or to tweak with it. Id be happy to look over parts lists for any one in Australia and perhaps suggest where they could buy parts or have a PC supplier build it for them (kind of like consulting I guess).

 

Is there a place to obtain pre-built unRaid products assembled by the community?

 

There are plenty of us who would be happy to build them for you, or walk you through the process.  I, for one

[Shurik]

I assume you are either unmarried, or married to a most understanding woman. (;-)

 

Sorry to hear about such a short leash you've got there

[NAS]

The single best way to do this is for Limetechs build to contain only products obtainable globally.

 

this way people can either purchase from Limetech for a guaranteed and certified system or do a DIY build for a certified system only.

 

If community persons want to build systems for profit they can do so using the same kit list.

 

Currently we have official kit that is only available to a small fraction of the world and dozens of other systems that are in various levels of testing by various levels of skilled users with even more varied use of the systems.

 

The fundamental problem with this idea is that server boards are expensive and rare whereas a residential boards are common and cheap but go out of date very very quickly.

 

We need less variables for new users. Giving them loads of options just confuses matters and we end up with every oddball configuration and obscure problem. Think back to the old officially limetech board ... loads of people purchased this as it was a non server board and easy to get. Its only recently become unavailable, I got one new as recently as 6 months ago. The build was easy and any snags were well documented on the forum.

 

So in essence less is more, keep it simple.... new users buy this kit.

 

Also there is absolutely nothing stopping any user building systems. No matter which way you cut it eventually Tom makes more money. Selling systems is alot of effort vs gain. If someone sold 1000 compatbile Limetech servers tom would get 1000 licenses for zero effort. Multiple that by a planet full of people and theres big money to be made.

[barrygordon]

Shurik, My leash is infinately long. I am a 70 year old widower whose late, very understanding wife with a masters degree in Comp Sci, was a retirement/pension consultant.  Need I say more?  Honestly though, I would take her back over any decent retirement plan any time.

 

NAS, I agree that Tom makes out better if all he did was supply the licensed unRaid OS.  The building issue is time consuming, frustrating, and a pain unless you have a quality production line with minimal touch labor.  The original MAC (The Fat Mac) had under 1 minute of touch labor to assemble on their line.

[aiden]

An alternative approach for him as the company grows is to outsource the hardware builds to a custom pc builder, like Buy Direct, iBuyPower, Digital Storm, Velocity Micro, etc ad nauseam.  The point would be to for him to have all his hardware issues (construction, parts sourcing, customer service (hardware related)) handled by a hardware manufacturer, and leave him to deal with the software side of things.  The prices would go up a bit, I'm sure, but if he sourced a kit specification to a few of these kinds of boutique builders, they would compete with each other on price and availability.  He could even go so far as to get some custom branding.  If he doesn't find a way to grow with the company's growth, it will stagnate, which isn't good for any of us.  Just another thought to help relieve some of the strain of doing everything himself.  The question is, would you buy a Limetech branded PC from a non-Limetech source, assuming it is built to Tom's requirements?  If you can't build your own, would you be willing to pay a bit more (I'm guessing 10% off the top of my head) in order to have more responsive hardware support and availability of systems?

[Rajahal]

The question is, would you buy a Limetech branded PC from a non-Limetech source, assuming it is built to Tom's requirements?  If you can't build your own, would you be willing to pay a bit more (I'm guessing 10% off the top of my head) in order to have more responsive hardware support and availability of systems?

 

Yes, absolutely.  That's a very good idea.  I would probably still want to build my own custom servers, because I like to tinker, but I would recommend that friends and family buy the pre-built ones.

[reggie14]

Out of curiosity, has anyone heard back from Tom on any support requests recently?  I sent him an email a week ago and haven't heard anything back yet.  How long does it usually take to get a response?

[xamindar]

Also, was the site down for a time yesterday? Are there other problems Lime-tech is having?

[barrygordon]

I believe Tom is out of country this week.

[WeeboTech]

I saw a response from Tom today in one of the forum threads.

[aiden]

I would probably still want to build my own custom servers, because I like to tinker, but I would recommend that friends and family buy the pre-built ones.

 

I think the majority of us on here share that sentiment.  We're active on these forums because we exchange ideas about configurations and hardware compatibility, and it's that drive that helps Tom test thousands of configurations without having to make large purchases for testing, because we do part of the initial recon for him.  That allows him to better target parts when he's designing his Limetech approved list.  

 

But I can tell you from my own personal experience that I do NOT want to be hardware support for someone I built a system for.  It doesn't matter how much you disclaim your support when you do a whitebox for someone, if they have a problem, you're the warranty.  And I'm wondering how much of that will be true for Tom as more of his systems go out into the wild.  He's either going to have to hire some monkeys, or outsource, because his development will stop if he's on the phone and email all the time.

[xamindar]

I believe Tom is out of country this week.

If that's true then judging by the start of this thread it is now two or three weeks that Lime-Technology has been "closed"

[aiden]

I believe Tom is out of country this week.

If that's true then judging by the start of this thread it is now two or three weeks that Lime-Technology has been "closed"

 

It's kinda simple to check, and I don't want to sound condescending, but just click on a post by "limetech" to pull up his profile, then click on recent posts, and you get...

 

Reply #11 on: Today at 08:44:26 AM

[NAS]

I believe Tom is out of country this week.

If that's true then judging by the start of this thread it is now two or three weeks that Lime-Technology has been "closed"

 

It's kinda simple to check, and I don't want to sound condescending, but just click on a post by "limetech" to pull up his profile, then click on recent posts, and you get...

 

Reply #11 on: Today at 08:44:26 AM

 

and the second last post was 1 month ago today. one post in one month does not a company open make

[aiden]

Since we're all so logical here, we should perhaps agree on a definition of a closed company then.  Let's create a poll thread and present our different definitions, close it after about 20 responses, post it to the wiki, and by then it will probably all be moot.    I was simply indicating that he has responded openly within the past 24 hours where we can see it, which represents some sort of activity within the company above "Shutdown".

[NAS]

Actually I agree. I dont like the topic of "Shutdown". Its being dramatic for impacts sake alone. However I would be mightily pissed if I had actually needed support and i couldn't get it.

 

IMHO these big MIA hiatuses really let an otherwise excellent product down. I continue to support it but I wouldnt recommend it to any of my clients for this reason alone.

[aiden]

I agree with that.  The one-man-show feeling can be extremely off-putting to people, especially potentially new customers.  It's also difficult to argue against when you're a proponent.  What do you say, "The software rocks, the support is great when it's available"?  And I'm sure most of us would not use this in a corporate environment that we didn't directly support, for similar reasons.  It's not slight on Tom, he's just at that edge of needing more help with operations.

[WeeboTech]

I think there is plenty work going on behind the scene and we do not have the full scope.

 

Realize, In the effort of participating with support, we get free upgrades. At least 2 a year.

 

 

[xamindar]

I think there is plenty work going on behind the scene and we do not have the full scope.

 

Realize, In the effort of participating with support, we get free upgrades. At least 2 a year.

I was just going to say $70-$120 is a lot to pay for just a control web interface on top of a free operating system. But with free upgrades when they come about it doesn't seem that steep a price anymore. You are right though, we do not know what goes on behind the scenes. But the positive appearance to potential customers still needs to be there.

[WeeboTech]

I think there is plenty work going on behind the scene and we do not have the full scope.

 

Realize, In the effort of participating with support, we get free upgrades. At least 2 a year.

I was just going to say $70-$120 is a lot to pay for just a control web interface on top of a free operating system. But with free upgrades when they come about it doesn't seem that steep a price anymore. You are right though, we do not know what goes on behind the scenes. But the positive appearance to potential customers still needs to be there.

 

There is more then a web interface on top of a free operating system.

The md driver code is very different from the base md driver code in the kernel.

There is also the building of an environment that can run from a ram disk.

 

These things are intricate and take time. Sometimes allot of it.

During the last time of low activity, what we did not know,  is the work going on behind the scene.

After the release we were greeted with new performance levels in unRAID for writes.

 

I agree with the positive appearance to potential customers.

again, we don't know what happens at the other side of things.

 

As far as I know. The we have the website and forum in working order.

They are paid for and continue to get updates and support from the community.

 

I'm sure there are new things going on behind the scene.