Did some testing, LITE isn't for production

Main concern is the activation, since I have many hardware parts laying around, I thought I should do the

public service and answer some questions.

I used a P4 (Intel M/B Perl865k, onboard SATA150, Intel Gig NIC), plus an old Tekram 390 SCSI controller (rated 40MB/s), and a 36GB SCSI HDD, another Intel 100Mb NIC.

1. Initial activation and configuration, created a vg, vl, and an NAS share, used a Linux machine as NFS client; copied over a 3.5GB VM files (size from several hundred MB to over 1GB), the crappy Tekram gave me 23MB/s over gig NIC, performance is not bad;
2. I replaced the 100Mb NIC with same model, rebooted. Had to reconfigure the external IP on the NIC, but no activation required. However, replacing it with another gig NIC requires activation. Another strange thing is that I had to reapply NFS setting for the share. Although the check box of enable NFS is checked, I had to click Apply button again, otherwise I get permission denied on NFS client.
3. I replaced the Telram with LSI1010 (rated 160MB/s), activation required. That controller gave me 32MB/s on average.
4. I added a SATA HDD, no activation required. The SATA HDD gave me 33MB/s average.
5. Identical hardware, different systems, requires activation. I tested on two identical Dell SC1425.

So it's clear now that you can replace NIC, controller with identical models, you can add HDD. I didn't try adding RAM or upgrading CPU, but I don't suppose these should be a big problem. But you can't use different NIC or disk controller, and apparently system board can't be replaced.

I got too excited too early, and ordered two SuperMicro SuperServers yesterday. But now I don't think I should use them for production given the fact that most modern systems have everything integrated on motherboard. If anything goes south, the whole system becomes useless.

This free LITE version looks more like Demo CD on USB stick. Well, what did Economic 101 tell us? No free lunch. Guess we should just quit complaining or trying.

Thanks for your honest opinion. I would like to point out that our professional version of DSS 4TB, 8TB and 16TB you do not have this issue of activation and hardware interchanging. Additionally if you have an issue with your hardware we are willing to allow the re-activation. It is best to be informative of the conditions of DSS LITE and that DSS LITE is only available until January 31st, after that this will not be available for download as stated on the website. We could go into how others do not provide this opportunity (and others do with limitations - let's not mention names please!) and we may decide later to extend this but nothing will be decided until after the 31st (this was one of the fist post on the forum).

Open-E wanted to offer something back to the community for free, in hopes that you will find something useful from DSS LITE.

Again the DSS professional versions do not have these limitations.

Thanks again for your opinion, even though you have had a negative experience.

License key is related to the hardware list, this can be accessed in the Console tools in "Hardware info" (ALT+CTRL+H), only exception is recreation of the Units, Soft Raids and Tape devices.