Components We Use

Components We Use

• We build all our systems to order, and
• We only use factory-fresh, new components in our new systems.

This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but it still needs to be said. It needed saying when we first wrote this page in 2015, and it needs saying even more today.

Why?

Because 4-5 times a week, every week, for over a decade, we get emails like the ones at the end of this page.

The gray market, 2026 edition

The classic offer is "clean pull" components at low prices in large lots. At best these are refurbished; really they are just plain used, with a short broker warranty (or none) instead of the manufacturer's. They are often factory seconds, lot-ends, or gray-market parts sold sideways so a box-builder somewhere can shave cost.

The 2026 version is sharper: brand-name server CPUs at half price, listed as "brand new", shipped from overseas, wire transfer up front. Here is what those usually are: modern AMD EPYC processors carry Platform Secure Boot (PSB), a security feature that burns one-time fuses inside the CPU, permanently binding it to the first vendor's firmware (Dell, or a cloud data center). A vendor-locked chip pulled from a decommissioned server will never boot on any other maker's motherboard. It is not new, it is not usable in a custom build, and the discount is the tell. The same channel moves drives with dubious serial history and remarked or counterfeit parts.

We do not buy from these suppliers. Ever.

What we do instead

• Authorized US distribution only. We buy new parts from reputable, nationally-known distributors and retailers, so every manufacturer warranty passes through to you intact.
• Multi-source price and availability checks. Before we quote or set a configuration default, we verify the key components against multiple named sources for both price and actual in-stock availability. When a part becomes supply-constrained (as several high-capacity drives have in the current shortage), we mark it subject to availability or move it to quote-only rather than pretend it ships tomorrow.
• Quality brands, qualified by us. Supermicro and ASUS motherboards; Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC, Ryzen, and Threadripper processors; Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba drives (CMR only in our NAS lines, no SMR); Samsung enterprise SSDs; Intel Arc and NVIDIA GPUs; Broadcom/LSI storage controllers; Intel and NVIDIA/Mellanox network cards. We qualify and certify motherboards before they go into our systems.
• 72-hour burn-in. Every system runs under full load for 72 hours (minimum 24) before it ships. If a component fails during burn-in, and sometimes one does, we replace it and start the burn-in over from zero.

On occasion we sell our B-Stock systems, and those are always clearly marked as such: reconditioned, and described as exactly what they are.

Why cutting corners is tempting (and why we refuse)

In a storage server with dozens of 3.5" drives, the drives ARE most of the cost. That makes gray drives, seconds, and lot-ends especially tempting for some builders. There is a long tradition here: buying big lots of parts with a "workaroundable" defect and shipping them anyway is literally how some famous PC companies got their start. Second and third-tier no-brand components with inferior capacitors, bulk RAM that passes a quick test but fails a 72-hour burn-in, hot-market drives with rewritten labels: it is all still out there, and it is all still cheaper than doing it right.

Our answer has not changed in a decade: new parts, authorized channels, real warranties, long burn-ins. That is what "eRacks-certified" means.

Joe

Joseph Wolff
Founder and CTO
eRacks Open Source Systems

The evidence, then and now

The 2015 example (a "clean pull" drive lot, bank wire only) is preserved below exactly as it arrived. The 2026 versions of this email offer current-generation EPYC and Xeon server CPUs at 50-70% below any plausible new-part price, "brand new, 2-3 days lead time", from a broker with a WhatsApp number. Now you know what those chips really are.

Clean Pull HDD offer ( Lot# ST4815)
90 days warranty
Payment Bank wire only
EXW- CA USA

Seagate ST3120025ACE 120GB IDE 3.5" Qty 820 pcs take all deal @ 5.00 each
Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB SATA 3.5" Qty 940 pcs take all deal @ 5.50 each