What is the COMET - hakehardware/comet GitHub Wiki

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COMET in One Sentence

The COMET is a Custom 3D Printed Case + CM3588 (8G/64G) + NAS Kit (4x M.2 NVME) + 60W PSU + Armbian OS delivered to you, ready to rock and roll.

How the COMET came to be

WARNING: There will be a lot of Autonomys Network terms.

I love hardware. I know, shocking. And one of the ways I justify playing with hardware and making videos about it is by participating in various projects. One project I am participating in is called Autonomys, and after years of testnets mainnet is just around the corner! But, this is not really about that, but that did lead me to this! See, Autonomys uses SSDs, lots of them, in order to farm blocks and participate in the network. Sure I could build a Threadripper and attach a boat load of SATA SSDs or M.2 NVMEs, but what is the fun in that! Plus I tried that and it was super unstable, probably because I bought a Threadripper used off eBay. Anyways, I digress.

One day while looking into Raspberry Pis and such, I stumbled across the CM3588 NAS Kit. I was immediately drawn to the FOUR M.2 slots. Uh, hello! As I started to dive into the specifications I had a pretty good idea this would be a great option for Autonomys (and to replace my pesky Threadripper). Did I mention is has a 2.5G NIC??? Impatiently I overpaid and bought one off Amazon, and by the weekend I was playing around with this bad boy. Surprisingly this was my first ARM board, and it took some learning to even figure out how to install the OS. Or I guess, flash the OS. I do not really know the official terminology.

But with a bit of work I was farming successfully with 16TB of M.2 NVMEs on Autonomys! After some testing I had fallen in love with the possibilities of this little board. So, I decided that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for others to replicate what I am doing. I have no idea if anyone will feel the way I do about this board, but I decided to reach out to the manufacture and place a bulk order. Not only did I need a few more for my own use, but I wanted to have some in the US for quick shipping to anyone else that wanted to use them.

Early Bench Testing

The Specs

The COMET comes with the CM3588 Core Board in the 8GB RAM/64GB eMMC flavor. This is plenty for Autonomys, and for most workloads. It is mounted to the NAS Kit carrier board, which has tons of IO and 4x M.2 NVME slots. Full specs can be found on the Official CM3588 Wiki

The carrier board is mounted in a custom Hake Hardware COMET case. The first version includes provisions for a 50mm 5V fan using the included connector on the carrier board. The case itself is stackable, with a bit of room for the top mounted fan to still draw in air. This is a great way to reduce the overall foot print if you want to run a bunch of them. We are also working on a 9" Server Rack compatible case for those wanting to pack a bunch in a tight space.

The first batch of 20 will receive V1 [Launch Edition] cases

The shoes (feet) and hat (lid) of the case are swap-able, and we will be offer a wide variety of colors if you want to customize your setup to match your desk.

Hake Hardware's Shop

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To make things official, and easier for everyone, I decided to create a Shopify account and build a little shop. My brother has a 3D printer and after talking his ear off about how cool this board was he offered to print me a 3D case for it. We found a few free ones but decided to build our own with a few improvements. I also wanted to replace the default Open Media Vault OS with Armbian as I think it is way more useful. And from this spawned the concept of the COMET - A CM3588 NAS Kit + Case + Armbian. But I think it's so much more than just that. We want to offer an ecosystem of parts for it, with various color combinations, upgrades, and accessories. But that is not all, along with all this existing goodness, I want to make it easy for people to get started by producing this WIKI, and a playlist on YouTube dedicated to the COMET.

I hope that selling a few of these can help support my content, which I try and offer for free. However, this wiki will provide pretty much everything you need to get started even if you decide to buy one elsewhere.

But keep a few things in mind! We have a really cool case, we include a 12V 5A power supply capable of power all 4 NVMEs (the 2A ones others provide will not provide enough power), and you get access to some cool things such as the private Hake Hardware supporters channel.