Thought I would provide a snapshot/review/thoughts on my experience regarding Hashra (
http://hashra.com/)
To address the biggest black eye and frustration off the bat... shipping and delivery time.
I had been keeping an eye on the Hashra site once the Gridseed 5-chip miners were starting to surface.. even shot an email to the contact address on the site in early Feb. Received a prompt response that they were working on getting a supply chain established and to start offering sales of the GS 5-chips "soon'ish" - Feb 23 received a mass email (I did sign up for the newsletters/etc) that Hashra was going to open up ordering as they had visited with Gridseed and were ready to make things happen.
Well - as it turns out not everything was ironed out or thought to have been on the up and up regarding order fulfillment and shipping turn around times. (even with the stated 7-14 day turn around) I was really expecting and I'm sure others were as well a shipment notification before the end of the month. In the crypto world once an order is placed.. it is almost a soul consuming time period between hitting that submit button and opening the actual box in your hands. I had been in contact with Hashra and Mr. Bright relaying my frustrations and heartburn as others were too (hell, a group of us on here even had a group PM going back and forth for a period).
Where does that leave things now? Hashra / Mr. Bright have come out and concurred that the order fulfillment and shipping timelines were simply unacceptable and needed a drastic change given how other re-sellers and group buy organizers were blowing them out of the water regarding speed, which they have further stated has been completed as of last week.
Now on to the goods (one order of 20 x Gridseed 5-chip w/ accessories) - Pics below:Original delivery was scheduled for 18 March, but an indirect signature was required. It would have been nice to know this, but it is what it is.. I was able to sign the door slip and have the box just dropped off the next day.
The box was pretty big and heavy.. but packed exceptionally well.
It was nice having the PSU units already pre-wired and ready to go.. if they weren't I would have probably put off setting up until the weekend. With that said they were not just chopped and slapped together.. they are very clean with no exposed wires at all.
The rest of the accessories included... usb cables and hubs.. and surprisingly not crappy USB hubs.. 5V/3.5A, not some weightless all plastic one.
Now the added Hashra bonus items: Raspberry PIs, 16GB memory cards and the needed power cable + adapter (and CAT5s)... At first when the notification regarding the shipping situation was sent out with the added information about the Raspberry PIs being included I was still pissed off and frustrated about the delays... However, once everything got here and after reading everyone else's setup stories/issues with the default wiibox controller.. I am pretty happy to have the RasPI's
The barrel connectors don't go 100% in all the way to the GS miner itself and there is a little "play" (making me re-check/re-snug all the cords multiple times)..
The setup:Setup was actually pretty straightforward and simple... Hashra has even come out with their own RasPI img (which I have yet to try as the zip was corrupted last night, but appears to be fixed tonight as I was able to d/l and unzip).
http://hashra.com/support/I ended up loading Scripta on the two RasPIs and everything is working as it should... only have one unit right now throwing more HW errors than all the others (~8% / 24hrs)
Final Thoughts:I have received a couple apologetic emails from Hashra/Mr. Bright during this whole endeavor and I will admit I was being pretty negative at the later stages of the "wait game", but that didn't stop Hashra from following up and staying very professional at that to ensure I had my package yesterday and that everything was working as it should. Too many times in the Crypto world we see self proclaimed "businesses" and individuals fall short on promises (over promise, under deliver) and simply ignore customer or do the very bare minimum to save face (to an extent).
I told Hashra / Mr. Bright that what helped start reversing my obvious negativity towards Hashra (for legit reasons) was coming home yesterday and seeing a big old box waiting on my porch. Getting the hardware/product to the customer.. so we can see, touch and set it all up.. that's a piece of satisfaction right there.
Depending on the pricing (as it is getting VERY competitive with Scrypt related hardware) I actually would consider placing another order with them in the future given their honesty, professionalism and conveying their willingness to change things if they don't work.
Hopefully this helps someone out there!
M-M
