Grimmer
@0xGrimmer_ • 1,089 subscribers
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APPLE SOLD THIS 39.9-POUND TOWER FOR $2,499 IN 2009 - ONE LATCH TURNED THE ENTIRE MACHINE INTO A WORKBENCH. this is the Early 2009 Mac Pro. the video shows the part spec sheets rarely capture. pull one latch and the aluminum side panel comes away. the memory, graphics card, drive bays and expansion slots are immediately visible. no hidden screws before you can inspect the machine. no loose SATA cables hanging from every drive. the base model shipped with: 2.66GHz quad-core Xeon 3GB of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory 640GB SATA hard drive GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of memory four PCIe 2.0 slots. the quad-core model supported up to 16GB of RAM. storage was handled by four cable-free carriers that connected directly inside the chassis. the case also left space for two optical drives. the rear panel carried hardware that now feels like an archive: dual Gigabit Ethernet optical audio USB 2.0 FireWire 800. the GT 120 offered Mini DisplayPort and dual-link DVI. install four of those cards and Apple rated the tower for up to eight 30-inch displays. the enclosure measured 20.1 inches tall and weighed almost 40 pounds before serious upgrades. this was not a compact desktop. it was a machine designed to be opened, understood and rebuilt. honest line: the Xeon, GT 120, SATA drive and USB 2.0 ports are ancient by modern standards. beautiful serviceability does not make old hardware fast. those parts aged. the enclosure did not. 17 years later, the most impressive component is still the case. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer224,481 views • 1 month ago
THIS $380 BOX TURNS 166TB OF DRIVES INTO A PRIVATE CLOUD - WITHOUT A MONTHLY STORAGE PLAN. this is the ORICO HS500-Pro. 5 SATA bays 2 M.2 NVMe slots dual 2.5GbE maximum raw capacity: 166TB. CyberData OS puts project files, 4K movies, documents and photos behind one interface available from a computer, tablet or phone. the M.2 drives can handle the fast tier while five hard drives hold the archive. honest line: $380 buys the NAS, not 166TB of storage. the drives are separate, and RAID reduces usable capacity. you are not buying cloud space. you are buying the cloud. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer36,071 views • 1 month ago
THIS "BACKUP" PSU CAN BECOME A $37 - A - YEAR IDLE TAX - AND REMOVING IT ALSO REMOVES YOUR SAFETY NET. the clip compares two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers: 168W 140W that 28W gap running 24/7 equals 245 kWh a year, or about $37 at $0.15 per kWh. the reason lives inside iDRAC. Hot Spare lets one redundant PSU sleep while the other carries the load. Not Redundant lets the server run without PSU failover. the creator removes one supply and switches the policy to Not Redundant. honest line: those readings come from two machines, not a controlled A/B test. CPUs, drives, workload and PSU efficiency can all change the result. the setting can cut wasted power. a failed PSU can now cut the server. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer27,027 views • 1 month ago
FOUR 600W GPUS. 384GB OF GDDR7. AND DELL MADE THE INSTALL LOOK EASIER THAN BUILDING A GAMING PC. this is a Dell PowerEdge XE7740 receiving four NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. each card brings: 96GB GDDR7 ECC 24,064 CUDA cores 4 PFLOPS FP4 up to 600W but the most satisfying part is the cable management. every GPU power lead is already routed, labeled and held beside its assigned slot. drop in the card. lock the retention hardware. connect one 16-pin plug. no loose bundle hanging across the airflow path and no guessing which cable belongs where. the four-card build totals 384GB of GPU memory and 16 PFLOPS FP4. the 4U XE7740 supports up to eight of these GPUs, doubling that to 768GB and 32 PFLOPS FP4. honest line: the memory remains split between separate cards, and four GPUs can still pull up to 2.4kW. Dell made a rack-scale AI server this dense without turning the next GPU swap into cable surgery. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer26,693 views • 1 month ago
THIS $290 MAGNETIC SSD IS ALSO A 5-IN-1 HUB WITH HDMI 2.1 AND A 10,000 RPM FAN. IT SNAPS TO YOUR PHONE LIKE A POWER BANK, THEN TURNS IT INTO A POCKET WORKSTATION. that transparent slab is the SHARGE Disk Pro. it is storage, cooling, ports and power passthrough inside a credit-card-sized frame. what is hiding behind the clear shell: 1TB, 2TB or 4TB of built-in TLC storage up to 10Gbps transfer speed HDMI with 4K at 144Hz or 8K at 30Hz output one 10Gbps USB 3.0 port one USB 2.0 port for a keyboard, mouse or another accessory USB-C power input up to 100W, with up to 80W delivered through the integrated cable a magnetic back that keeps the whole setup attached to your phone the tiny fan automatically spins between 7,000 and 10,000 rpm. turbo mode locks it at 10,000 rpm when long transfers start producing heat. there is even a physical switch that turns the storage off while leaving the hub available. connect it to a phone and you can record video straight to external storage, move camera files, attach a monitor and keep charging from one device. connect it to a handheld or laptop and the same slab becomes the drive and the dock. the honest line: $289.90 buys the 1TB version, and the 10Gbps interface tops out around 1GB/s in ideal conditions. this is not the fastest or cheapest way to buy a terabyte. it is the cleanest way to carry an SSD, hub, display output, charging passthrough and active cooling as one magnetic object. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer23,423 views • 1 month ago
A USED $700 RTX 3090 HAS MORE MEMORY AND FAR MORE SPEED THAN THE ~$1,000 A2 GOING INTO THIS SERVER. THE A2 STILL WINS - FOR ONE REASON THAT ISN'T PERFORMANCE. that clip is a dell poweredge r760 - a 2u rack server - getting an nvidia a2 dropped in through a riser. this is the enterprise route to local ai. the rung the desktop ladder skips entirely. the a2, verified: 16gb of memory, single-slot, low-profile, and just 40 to 60 watts it's an inference card, built to sit in a server that has no room or spare power for a real gpu so why not a 3090? a used rtx 3090 gives you 24gb and many times the compute for around $700. the a2 gives 16gb, much slower, for roughly a thousand. on raw local-llm value, the desktop card wins, and it isn't close. the a2's whole reason to exist is the thing you can't see on a spec sheet: it fits. a 2u server has no spare gpu power and no room for a triple-slot furnace. the a2 slips into one low-profile slot on 60 watts and lets an existing server do inference without a rebuild. the honest caveats: the r760 is not a desk machine. loaded, it idles at hundreds of watts, and its fans sound like a hair dryer that never turns off. it belongs in a rack or a closet 16gb is still 16gb. the same 7b-to-32b ceiling as the cheap cards. the enterprise badge doesn't buy you a bigger model what it does buy: ecc memory, redundant power, remote management, hot-swap everything. reliability, not speed so who this is for: someone who already runs a rack and wants to add private inference without touching the power or cooling budget. for anyone starting from a desk, the mac mini or the 3090 wins on every axis that matters. the real point: the "best" local ai box depends entirely on what you already own. on a desk, efficiency wins. in a rack, fit and reliability win. the a2 isn't a bad card - it's a card for a constraint the ladder never mentions. no fastest gpu here, no desk-friendly box, no bigger model than the cheap cards already run. save this before you buy enterprise gear for a desktop job.
Grimmer24,287 views • 2 months ago
THIS 316TB PRIVATE CLOUD FITS UNDER A DESK - 12 DRIVES, DUAL 10GBE AND NO MONTHLY STORAGE PLAN. this ORICO CF1000 build combines: 10 x 30TB hard drives 2 x 8TB NVMe SSDs raw total: 316TB. the ten SATA bays handle the bulk storage, while two internal M.2 slots add fast solid-state capacity. inside is a 12-core Intel Core i5-1240P with 32GB DDR5, expandable to 96GB. two 10GbE ports can aggregate up to 20GbE. RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 are supported. honest line: 316TB is raw capacity. formatting and RAID reduce the usable space. ORICO's current official spec lists a 256TB maximum with 24TB per SATA bay, so the 30TB drives shown here sit beyond its published support matrix. the cloud did not disappear. it just moved under the desk. bookmark & watch today ↓
Grimmer16,226 views • 1 month ago
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