4TB PCIe SSD $150 - Good deal or waste of money? Manufacturer: RazorBack?

[xzec]

Found this 4TB PCIe SSD listed on ebay. The seller auto accepts offers of $150. Not sure if this can be booted from or how the storage can be used but it might be worth a try for the low cost/TB. It's from a company that i cannot find any information on whatsoever "RazorBack". I bought 1 so we'll see what happens. Ill report back my findings.

NEW Razorback 4TB PCIe SSD Application Accelerator KR115194-74001 | eBay

Condition: NEW, pulled from a new server. We support processors, storage, and tape.

www.ebay.com

 

[doughnet]

How is it new if it's pulled from a server?

 

[Samir]

Strange one. Definitely let us know how it goes! It sounds akin to the IBM accelerators that were only good for their servers.

 

[gardar]

Not able to find much info on these but found some hints that suggest these are made by Toshiba.


COO-TW 1030556-03 ASSY , RAZORBACK PCIE X 8 , 4096GB ETLC , 2048GB SCREENED 3D BICS G3 ODP , 1.8V , TOSHIBA , REV B1 CONTROL

Assy, Razorback Pcie X 8, 4096gb Etlc, 0.3.14 Canary, 2048gb Screened 3d G2 Odp, 1.8v, Toshiba, - Taiwan

Also found a forum post where someone is actually trying to use one of these but unsuccessfully unfortunately

IT Crew: Question regarding 4TB NVME PCIE card.

We are always getting weird stuff in. The other day we got a couple of 4TB NVME PCIE cards in. There is no information available on them anywhere online. They say 4096GB TLC Razorback on the side. I took the heatsink off of one and the chip underneath says NVME. I tried to put one in my...

offtopic.com

Curious what servers these came from as there are actually a few sellers on ebay that have these cards listed.

 

[fake-name]

Yeah, these are interesting if dubious bits of kit. The fact that it has a pretty obviously custom mounting bracket is also of note.

The label does specify "TLC", so it's either a terrible coincidence, or it's using TLC flash, so I'd imagine it's intended for primarily read-based workloads.

I'm not convinced Razorback is the manufacturer, it might be the product line or similar.

Someone is selling a 10-pack of the things as well: Lot of 10 Razorback 4TB TLC SSD Enterprise Accelerator PCIE Card KR115194-15903 | eBay

How is it new if it's pulled from a server?

Because the server is new?

Also found a forum post where someone is actually trying to use one of these but unsuccessfully unfortunately

Arrrgh, what a frustrating series of posts. Like, my dude, does it show up in device manager (why would you do this on windows)? What about `lspci`. Or dmesg. Gah.

 

[Fritz]

Something tells me the seller's 100% rating isn't going to last much longer.

 

[Cruzader]

Something tells me the seller's 100% rating isn't going to last much longer.

With how happy ebay is to remove reviews for any vague reason you feel its not correct, id say they can hold it if they want.

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Price is awesome, 150 for 4TB - and my guess is that it probably have all the required enterprise features you require - or at least the most important one PLP

But heatsink on both sides - I guess it gets hot like crazy

Also it looks like there are no real mounting holes for a pcie-bracket - so a 3d-manufactured bracket would have to be made - unless you just get a pcie-cable and mount them whereever in a case - or outside for heat dissipation

If I was not actively avoiding items that probably use a lot of power - I would consider buying one - just to get a dmesg/dmidecode to find out what its all about.

My guess is that its a regular pcie nvme, formatted weirdly and thats why windows could not see it - and in linux you can fix stuff like that - but the suspected power consumption and weird mounting bracked and 100% heat issues is a no go for me

 

[Cruzader]

But heatsink on both sides - I guess it gets hot like crazy

As you leave sata stuff you can generaly expect to enter the 10-25w territory instead of 1,5-4w.

1per host as cache infront of the satas is already overkill for most.

 

[Quartermaster]

This is an end to end custom design (hardware, firmware, drivers) built by a hyperscaler to meet their needs (read: not industry standards). You likely won't get it working well (or at all) without some reverse engineering.

 

[abq]

This is an end to end custom design (hardware, firmware, drivers) built by a hyperscaler to meet their needs (read: not industry standards). You likely won't get it working well (or at all) without some reverse engineering.

Would you have any more background or technical information? ...Or do you have restrictions from formal non-disclosure agreement?

 

[JayRandom]

I can only confirm that Quartermaster is likely correct, and these are unlikely to work without substantial reverse engineering and custom firmware / software support.