Ordered 10 3.5" 500GB HDDs. They came packed in a small box, like books.

[Torn Mind]

Contact seller. Post proof. Ebay is generally, or more like almost always, buyer friendly to the point of allowing buying fraudsters to run free.

 

[Torn Mind]

Cheapest 120GB SSD on Newegg right now is the King Dian S200 (JMF608 dram-less controller and MLC NAND) for $38 shipped (from Asia).

Cheapest US source 120GB SSD on Newegg is Zotac T400 (Phison S11 with Toshiba 15nm TLC) for $41 shipped.

So much closer to $40 rather than $30.

His mistake was buying the motherboards in the first place, and without a plan.

He also placed too much hopes in a Linux-derived OS(Chrome-OS) to meet his original budget. Linux in the hands of a computer programmer geek is a precision tool. But Linux also provides a Harbor Freight-like experience of "oh crap, how did that mess things up or not work?", especially with AMD drivers.

 

[Mike64]

I ordered them from newyorker1999 on ebay. They had thousands of feedback... (96.4%)

Seriously? Wow, you do like to live dangerously, don't you? I don't even briefly consider ordering even stuff like cheap nylon watch straps from Ebay sellers outside the US with feedback ratings below 99%...

ETA: It seems to me that conversely to what seems to be your view, with a low rating, the larger the number of ratings, the worse it is. The average rating of a seller with only a small number of ratings can get unfairly skewed low by even just a few unreasonable "cranks", but with thousands of ratings, you know a whole lot of people hate them, most probably for reasonable reasons.... (Exactly why so many people continue to do business with sellers like that to begin with is of course totally beyond me, but that's a different issue...)

 

[dave_the_nerd]

His mistake was buying the motherboards in the first place, and without a plan.

He also placed too much hopes in a Linux-derived OS(Chrome-OS) to meet his original budget. Linux in the hands of a computer programmer geek is a precision tool. But Linux also provides a Harbor Freight-like experience of "oh crap, how did that mess things up or not work?", especially with AMD drivers.

This comment triggered me. If I may have a moment for a slightly off-topic rant:

WHY DO PEOPLE CONSTANTLY BUY REALLY EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE THAT DOESN'T DO QUITE WHAT THEY NEED IT TO, BEFORE THEY KNOW IF IT WILL WORK FOR THEM? Salespeople are not your friends, folks. And stop falling for that "extensible via add-ons" bait-and-switch. It just means you'll spend double on plugins than you spent on the product itself. You want things to work, listen to your IT guys once in a freakin' while. Yikes.

Thank you,
dave

 

[Torn Mind]

This comment triggered me. If I may have a moment for a slightly off-topic rant:

WHY DO PEOPLE CONSTANTLY BUY REALLY EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE THAT DOESN'T DO QUITE WHAT THEY NEED IT TO, BEFORE THEY KNOW IF IT WILL WORK FOR THEM? Salespeople are not your friends, folks. And stop falling for that "extensible via add-ons" bait-and-switch. It just means you'll spend double on plugins than you spent on the product itself. You want things to work, listen to your IT guys once in a freakin' while. Yikes.

Thank you,
dave

To be fair, he was going in the opposite direction. Pay nothing for the software and as little as possible for the hardware. He was trying to build the cheapest box he could that could pass as "good enough".
Actually, I'm not sure how Neverware's pricing would work for his scenario. It's free dollars-wise for home use to individuals, but $49 a year for the "workplace". Within four years, that equals the cost of Windows 10 Pro Retail.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, I was planning on using the "Free" version. Which is based on Linux, so I don't see why I wouldn't be able to distribute it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

To be fair, he was going in the opposite direction. Pay nothing for the software and as little as possible for the hardware. He was trying to build the cheapest box he could that could pass as "good enough".
Actually, I'm not sure how Neverware's pricing would work for his scenario. It's free dollars-wise for home use to individuals, but $49 a year for the "workplace". Within four years, that equals the cost of Windows 10 Pro Retail.

Yeah, I didn't mean that applied to Larry's case. Just... know how stuff is going to work before you commit. That's all.