Feature / Changes requests for future Helios64 board or enclosure revisions

[James V.]

Late to the party but I'd like to see about a second case option to be able to rack these as storage units (drive + board) in e.g. a top loading chassis. My target is Ceph so having the 1 compute unit to 5 drives is a great ratio for a single ceph unit - scale-out is achieved by just buying more. Most of the options for Ceph are really x86 servers which has a severe growth on money and size.

 

Not suggesting a do-over, just a way to unwrap the outer shell and have the inner components be supported by internal skeleton which can be dropped into some larger supporting shell -- along with a few friends. :)

[abreyu]

Quote

Kobol Team is pulling the plug ;-(

Hi Folks, a bit saddened that after 4 months of radio silence we are coming up with a news that is clearly not the one you were expecting.

As the title says, we have decided to stop the adventure here. Quite a few reasons made us come up to this difficult decision, but it all comes down to 2 key points :

1. The still ongoing difficulties to manufacture electronics, to procure parts and mainly to control costs.

2. We made a rookie mistake of stretching ourselves very thin last year with the first delivery of Helios64 while being just a 3 men show. We should have brought few more people onboard sooner, but we waited too long until we were a bit burnt out.

Not seeing much improvement on the horizon and feeling like we didn't ride the wave as we should have, our motivation started slowly to fade out lately. All of this is of course a bit frustrating and ironic because we had a great start with Helios64 plus a batch 2 waiting list that keeps growing and growing. We were also quite excited to come up with a refresh and improved version of Helios64.

But unfortunately sometimes it's better to accept the fact that when the original motivation and passion are not there anymore then there is no point forcing it.

Now it's time for us to go back to a more stable and sustainable work lifestyle. But who knows maybe Kobol will reborn again one day ;-)

In the meantime we will post on the wiki all the blue prints of Heliso64. That should help people to tinker or even troubleshoot their board when necessary. We will try our best to provide still a bit of support during our free time. Sorry in advance for any inconvenience this will cause.

We are also happy to discuss editing access to our wiki if someone is interested to maintain the project a bit longer.

We want to thank you all very much to have followed us and supported us during this awesome adventure.

 

[bunducafe]

Yes, just received that email, too. What a pity. I am quite satisfied with my Helios64 and I do hope it will last quite a bit... in the meantime I do hope that this forum remains the best source for trouble shooting.

 

Thank you guys for your beautiful machines. Maybe it's there is a way to revive everything in the (not too far) future. Would be great!

[allen--smithee]

not surprised, and very mature decision of the team.

Thank Kobol Team for your hard work, your fruit continues to feed our needs here.

let us know if you decide to plant again.

[RaSca]

2 hours ago, allen--smithee said:

not surprised, and very mature decision of the team.

Thank Kobol Team for your hard work, your fruit continues to feed our needs here.

let us know if you decide to plant again.

I can relate with the thank you, because anyway, you know, it has been a difficult time (as for everybody), and the challenges with this project were surely a lot. I'm sorry for these three guys, burning out is never easy, but then I must also add that this is far from being a mature decision.

There's no exit strategy apart from "goodbye, we've had enough". It's comprehensible, but again, not mature, not at all. Mature would have been not being so silent, increasing the team so that at least the ones that were relying on this project could have been served. Because, you know, everybody wants to believe that 3 guys can create Apple computer in a garage, but things are different in reality. Putting myself in the shoes of the ones that were expecting the device for some project, man, I would be more angry than comprehensive.

With that said, it's really a shame, because these machines are really beautiful, and the project deserved a different ending for sure.

[ebin-dev]

What a pity that the Kobol team pulls the plug ! Helios64 is certainly a great product - its further development would have been very promising.

 

I hope that the Kobol team will return with refreshed motivation once the market has normalised - hopefully next year.

 

Thank you for your effort - and all the best.

[calvin_thefreak]

For anyone still interested, I am creating an archive.org archive, so that if the Mirrors or what so ever will go down, the will still be there.

 

You can find it all here

https://archive.org/details/Kobol-Helios64-Distro

and the Git Stuff here:

https://archive.org/details/Kobol-io-github 

[hartraft]

Like everyone I'm sad for the news. While the reality is difficult, in the end Kobol still achieved a great job in delivering the product in these circumstances. Considering how many kickstarters fail and have vapourware products. My only hope is that this will inspire a future aarch64 NAS whether it's by Kobol or another manufacturer. 

 

Would it be possible for the Kobol team to share the 3D print files for the drive trays? So that if some need repair we can fix this ourselves? 

[Igor]

14 hours ago, calvin_thefreak said:

I am creating an archive.org archive, so that if the Mirrors or what so ever will go down

Software support - the most expensive part of hardware product - is pure Armbian and without Armbian this project would never get this far. Also there is no need to create any mirrors since Armbian keeps archives at many places.  Also you can rebuild images from sources at any time.

 

 

 

 

[calvin_thefreak]

Am 26.8.2021 um 12:58 schrieb Igor:

Software support - the most expensive part of hardware product - is pure Armbian and without Armbian this project would never get this far. Also there is no need to create any mirrors since Armbian keeps archives at many places.  Also you can rebuild images from sources at any time.

 

 

 

 

Yes, but allways, keep a backup

I really love the Helios64. And if suddenly the Wiki or something else goes missing, it will be bad for the few people owning a Kobol NAS.

 

but Sure, Armbian will be one GIGANTIC point of the project, without it, the Nas will be useless.

[ebin-dev]

On 8/27/2021 at 2:39 PM, calvin_thefreak said:

Yes, but allways, keep a backup

 

Would you mind to also keep a backup of the rockchip64 related linux packages (see here) ?

They are essential if you wish to downgrade ...

[crosser]

Make it easier to disconnect fans, so the back plane is not hanging on the wires when disassembling.

[0x349850341010010101010100]

On 8/26/2021 at 11:58 AM, Igor said:

Software support - the most expensive part of hardware product - is pure Armbian and without Armbian this project would never get this far. Also there is no need to create any mirrors since Armbian keeps archives at many places.  Also you can rebuild images from sources at any time.

 

 

 

 

Thank you Igor! This is what needed to be said.
I had not been super happy with the helios64, mainly because of the instability issues.
But I will give it a last chance for some more time.
If we help each other and stick together as a community, we can still make our machines work.
Now, I'd certainly like to hear other peoples opinions on how this community will go forward. (Maybe this is not the right thread though).
@Igor Will this Club stay open on the armbian forums?