[formerly_proven]

Depending on the vendor you might end up with drives that run custom firmware, which cannot be crossflashed, that might not even work at all in a non-OEM system, that might not be compatible with normal block storage use, that might not support stuff like power management etc. (and allegedly might have reset SMART logs)

[wil421]

You can easily buy the correct price of hardware by searching the forums and following the advice. The Freenas/Truenas forum is full of hardware guides and threads on what 10gb NICs or controllers to buy and when you need it flashed into IT Mode.

Most of the resellers will answers questions or even flash firmware. Local Craigslist guys even offered to do it but they don’t know why you’re doing it, the eBay people understand.

[formerly_proven]

GP is specifically about Enterprise SSDs from eBay, which comes with specific caveats that don’t apply to OEM Mellanox cards.

[wil421]

It does look harder than I thought for SSDs. It looks like a 5 year old thread was commented on this year with some details about Samsung drives.[1]

[1]https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/firmware-e...