eRacks Systems Tech Blog

Open Source Experts Since 1999

eRacks/AINSLEY

You Want Local AI

Tired of cloud AI bills that keep climbing? Worried about sending sensitive data to third parties? Want to run the latest open-source LLMs like DeepSeek, Llama, Mixtral, or Qwen — on your own hardware?

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about AI servers lately, so we’re excited to officially announce our RAM-optimized AI Rackmount Server lineup — four models designed from the ground up for local-first AI computing.

The Big Idea: RAM > GPU Hype

Here’s something the big vendors don’t want you to know: for many AI workloads — especially LLM inference, RAG pipelines, and vector search — total system RAM matters more than having the flashiest GPU.

Why? Because large language models need to fit somewhere. If your model doesn’t fit in VRAM, it spills into system RAM. If it doesn’t fit there, you’re swapping to disk — and that’s game over for performance.

Our servers are built around this insight. We focus on massive RAM capacity combined with COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) GPUs — the cards you can actually buy, at prices that won’t require board approval.

Meet the Family

So far, we’ve got four models, each named after Celtic / Gaelic names that happen to start with “AI” (we couldn’t resist):
Model Form Factor Max RAM GPUs Starting Price Sweet Spot
eRacks/AILSA 2U 512GB Up to 3 (LP) $4,995 SMBs, solo devs, 200-600B+ models
eRacks/AIDAN 2U 3TB Up to 3 $9,995 Small teams, 800B+ models, RAG
eRacks/AINSLEY 4U 2TB Up to 4 $14,995 R&D, training, fine-tuning
eRacks/AISHA 4U 6TB Up to 8 $19,995 Enterprise, hosting, all MoE models

eRacks/AILSA — The Entry Point

“Affordable Innovative Local Server for Artificial Intelligence” 😄

AILSA is our compact 2U starter — perfect for startups, researchers, and developers who want local AI without the sticker shock. With up to 512GB RAM and 3 low-profile GPUs (Intel Arc B50 or NVIDIA RTX 5060 LP), it punches well above its weight class for inference workloads.

Best for: Private chatbots, development sandboxes, entry-level RAG, running 600B+ parameter models locally.

eRacks/AIDAN — “The RAMstack”

AIDAN steps up to Dual AMD EPYC processors and up to 3TB of DDR5 ECC RAM. This is the machine for teams doing serious vector search, RAG pipelines, or serving LLMs to multiple users.

Best for: Small-to-medium teams, 800B+ models, retrieval-augmented generation, production inference.

eRacks/AINSLEY — The R&D Workhorse

Our 4U Threadripper-based system with up to 4 full-size GPUs and 2TB RAM. AINSLEY is built for the folks who need to train, fine-tune, and experiment — not just run inference.

Best for: Research labs, AI/ML startups, fine-tuning on private datasets, local experimentation.

eRacks/AISHA — The Beast

“Advanced Intelligent Server for High-RAM AI”

When you need to go all-in: up to 6TB RAM, up to 8 GPUs, and dual Intel Xeon or AMD EPYC processors. AISHA handles the largest MoE (Mixture of Experts) models, multi-tenant deployments, and enterprise-scale AI infrastructure.

Best for: Enterprise hosting, 800B+ models, multi-user deployments, running every MoE model out there.
Why Local? Why Now?

A few reasons we’re seeing massive demand for on-prem AI:

Privacy — Your data never leaves your building
Cost control — No per-token fees, no surprise bills
No rate limits — Run as many queries as your hardware can handle
Model freedom — Run any open-source model: Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, Qwen, Gemma, and more
Customization — Fine-tune on your own data without uploading it anywhere

100% Open Source Ready

All our AI servers ship with Ubuntu and Ollama pre-installed, plus your choice of models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, etc.). We also support custom preconfigurations:

• PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX
• Hugging Face Transformers
• LangChain, vLLM, LM Studio
• OpenWebUI, LibreChat
• Milvus, Chroma (vector databases)
• Docker / Podman for containerized workflows

And of course — Rocky Linux, Fedora, Debian, or whatever distro you prefer. It’s your hardware.

COTS GPUs: No Vendor Lock-In

We spec readily available GPUs — NVIDIA RTX 30×0/40×0/50×0 series, professional A-series cards, Intel Arc, and AMD options. No waiting 6 months for an allocation. No $30k price tags for a single card. Swap, upgrade, or scale on your terms.

Ready to own your AI stack?
👉 Check out the full AI Server lineup – eracks.com/products/ai-rackmount-servers/
👉 Contact us for a custom quote

We’re happy to help you figure out the right balance of RAM, GPU, and storage for your specific workloads. That’s what we do.

Get Started: eRacks.com/contact

j

January 17th, 2026

Posted In: AI, Deep Learning, LLM, Local AI, Ollama, Open Source, Rackmount Servers, RAG, Technology

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leave a Comment

We are now an official supporter of the OSAID (Open Source AI Definition):

J

January 28th, 2025

Posted In: AI

Tags: , , , ,

Leave a Comment

eRacks/NAS36 Front

eRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server, with 36 removable 6TB hard drives, which yields a maximum of 216TB (Terabytes*) of raw storage with current widely-available technology. The eRacks/NAS36 rackmount server is shipped pre-configured to the user’s custom specs, with any available open-source software, and more flavors of Linux or BSD available than any other vendor.

Fremont, CA (PRWEB) October 3, 2014

eRacks Open Source Systems is pleased to announce the latest upgrade eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.

Available immediately, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of widely available 6TB drives, yields a total storage of 216TB*.

This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, nicely filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the all-front-loading 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, eRacks’ flagship storage server.

When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represents a density / price breakthrough – using the best value (lowest price/TB) 6TB drives, this enables 216TB* of raw storage in only 4U, and for less than $30,000, as configured on the eRacks website.

The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.

It’s signature service, eRacks will be happy to install any of the popular Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing fast in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSes.nas36-both

eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFiler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.

Also available is OpenStack, and other OSS cloud software, such as Eucaluyptus or CloudStack, as well as best-of-breed Open Source software for BigData / Cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.

In addition, the eRacks policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or Open Source software on request – Contact eRacks today at http://eracks.com/contact to see how they can meet your needs.

Please email info@eracks.com to request a custom quote.

 

Note: *For the purposes of this press release, the term “Terabyte” is used to mean one trillion bytes – eRacks understands the issues about this, we are using the term as the disk drive and other industry manufacturers use it.

 

Dennis
eRacks

 

October 1st, 2014

Posted In: NAS36, News, Open Source, Ubuntu 14.04, Upgrades

Tags: , , , ,

Leave a Comment

Debian LogoeRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of Debian 7.3

Debian 7.3 is now available in the OS Dropdowns on most or all eRacks Systems.

If you don’t see what you want, just ask us – http://eracks.com/contact

Here’s the paraphrased original notice from the Debian Project:

– – –

The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian 7 (codename wheezy). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available.

Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian 7 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old wheezyCDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated.

Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won’t have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

New installation media and CD and DVD images containing updated packages will be available soon at the regular locations.

Upgrading to this revision is usually done by using the aptitude (or apt) package tool.

– – –

That’s It!

Dennis
eRacks

December 21st, 2013

Posted In: Debian, News, Operating Systems, Upgrades

Tags: , , , , , ,

Leave a Comment

eRacks Open Source Systems new website design

eRacks new website is officially live and fully functional! We completely redesigned the old website. We’ve added a ton of new products, including a custom line of high end gaming laptops.

 

Fremont, CA (PRWEB) January 14, 2013

Have  a look at our Product Lines:
Product Showroom

About eRacks

eRacks strives to return the control of the IT department back to the business owner, by providing quality open source enterprise-level applications on easily-upgradable industry-standard hardware. eRacks believes businesses should not be required to rely on third-party closed-source software vendors

For More Information contact eRacks at info@eracks.com or visit http://www.eracks.com

Dennis
eRacks

January 14th, 2013

Posted In: Laptop cookbooks, News, Open Source

Tags: , , ,

Leave a Comment

Next Page »