Open-Spec NAS Specialist Kobol Shuts Its Doors, Leaving Helios64 Owners Adrift

Kobol, the three-person company behind the popular Helios4 and Helios64 open-spec network attached storage (NAS) devices, has called it quits — promising only that it will try to offer customers support in its founders' spare time.

Kobol unveiled the Helios64, a stylish Arm-powered five-bay open-spec network attached storage system, two years ago as a follow-up to its considerably more blocky Helios4. At the time, the three-person team promised a custom board powered by a Rockchip RK3399K, though this was downgraded to the slower RK3399 following COVID-19-related component shortages ahead of launch.

When the device finally landed, it impressed with style and performance — but, sadly, was beset by design flaws ranging from minor issues like drive sleds which were slightly too big to fit in the chassis to bigger concerns including a faulty Ethernet port which could only be fixed by soldering a bodge wire in place — and rendering the warranty null and void.

Over time, additional issues came to light — ranging from further design mistakes to rushed software updates, some of which must be blamed on the Armbian project on which the board runs, introducing issues including disabling the 2.5Gb Ethernet port entirely and stopping the fans from spinning — potentially damaging any drives installed in the system as the heat builds up.

In the face of these issues, and after announcing a two-month break back in April, the Kobol team is now throwing in the towel. "We have decided to stop the adventure here," the company told customers this week. "Quite a few reasons made us come up to this difficult decision, but it all comes down to two key points."

"The still ongoing difficulties to manufacture electronics, to procure parts and mainly to control costs. [And] we made a rookie mistake of stretching ourselves very thin last year with the first delivery of Helios64 while being just a three-men show. We should have brought few more people onboard sooner, but we waited too long until we were a bit burnt out."

The news puts paid to plans for a second production run of Helios64 hardware with some, if not all, of the design flaws fixed, as well as the promise of newer revisions with more powerful system-on-chips or ECC RAM support. It also leaves those who have purchased a Helios64 with an uncertain future, though the team says it will "try our best to provide still a bit of support during our free time."

Kobol has said it will "post on the wiki all the blue prints of Helios64 [to] help people tinker or even troubleshoot their board when necessary," though the promised files have not yet appeared on the site.