HP T730: $129.40 (shipped)

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raiderj

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What line speeds are you able to get on this via pfsense? (asking for a friend, actually for a remote site hehe)
I'm able to get gigabit speeds up/down with my FiOS connection. Haven't tested with any kind of packet filtering, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better performing pfsense box for the price.
 
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Cheddoleum

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How's the airflow in these? Tempted to get one and stick in a spare HP NC364T (quad e1000 NIC), but the reason it's spare is because I was running it in a ThinITX with only a processor fan, and it got hot enough to grill pork chops. The i350s run a lot cooler but I don't have any more lying around.
 
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zack$

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How's the airflow in these? Tempted to get one and stick in a spare HP NC264T (quad e1000 NIC), but the reason it's spare is because I was running it in a ThinITX with only a processor fan, and it got hot enough to grill pork chops. The i350s run a lot cooler but I don't have any more lying around.
I have a Chelsio T-422 card (14W) running 24/7 in a baremetal pfsense box with no issues. CPU runs at 45-51 C depending on load. However, I know that @WANg has had heating issues with a solarflare card that did not have sufficient airflow.
 
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WANg

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I have a Chelsio T-422 card (14W) running 24/7 in a baremetal pfsense box with no issues. CPU runs at 45-51 C depending on load. However, I know that @WANg has had heating issues with a solarflare card that did not have sufficient airflow.
Yeah, it's a Solarflare Flareon SF7122F. Those things tend to run hot (since they are used in prop/algo trading, those Solarflares are known to have very low latency) and need a constant air stream. Okay for blades but not for most space confined applications. Tried it on the t730 and it locked up the machine in less than 10 minutes regardless of the OS or whatever tricks I pulled. They also have a big honking heat sink that sat right above the RAM shield+APU heat brace when it's installed on the thin client, so that doesn't help at all. The SFN5122 (a slower PCIe 2.0 card) worked just fine, though.
I did replace that eventually with a Mellanox MCX354BT (ConnectX 3 VPI 40GbE/IB) and it's been smooth sailing there - my machine has been running for months. I know that others ran the t730s with Intel i340 and i350 quad-ports with no issues.
I had an NC364T that ran just fine on testing, also expecting a NC365T (i350 quadport) to show up in the next few days.

I was supposed to test the Flareon with SRIOV in the t740 but I'll need to get them outside the chassis (with a PCIe extender) and run a dedicated fan on it (external USB powered fan) - no way I am melting down a practically brand new Ryzen embedded box with that monstrosity.
 
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Samir

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Looks like not in stock right now from The main liquidation seller but the listings pop up every once in awhile for $119 with a coupon code that usually brings it down between $100 and $110. eBay tried to get me to buy another just a few days ago so check periodically. They have sold thousands. They are listed as refurbished but are obviously new when you unpack them and in factory fresh condition. Here is the listing: HP 290-p0043w Slim Celeron G4900 3.1GHz 4GB RAM 500GB HDD Win 10 Home Black 193015195745 | eBay
If you plan to swap the cpu and storage anyways, here's some barebones for only $70/ea:
 

Firebug24k

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WANg

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With a name like that, I almost would fully expect them to, lol. :D
There's a good reason. Here's a comparison photo of an SFN5122F, an SFN7122F (The Flareon) and the Mellanox CX3.



Note that the heatsink on the Flareon SFN7122F is significantly larger than the other 2 cards. It also has to do with where the card dumps the heat - on all cards they are mounted upside down in the thin client, and the heat is pushed onto the motherboard. On both the Mellanox (which runs cool) and the SFN5122F (known to be a cool-runner with ~5w consumption) the small heatsinks are pushing heat to the SoC heatsink brace. On the Flareon the card heatsink is pointed onto both the brace and the RAM cage, and the heated area is fairly even. I actually did some thermal hysteresis testing by putting the Flareon outside of a t740 (via the PCIe extender) and out in ambient air.



Within 7 minutes the heatsink is hot to the touch (65-66 Celsius read via the onboard sensors) and if you touch the heatsink, it's hot enough to cause you pain (laser infrared thermometer reads at 45 Celsius) - it's not something you want to dangle only half an inch from your RAM. Since there are no significant air movement on that part of the thin client, you will trigger a thermal shutdown (or a crash) within 10 minutes.

There's a reason why I ran the Solarflare Flareon testing for the t740 with a USB powered fan on top of the Flareon heatsink - I only removed it to gauge temperature rises (the temperature reading from the chip went from 44 C with a fan to 65-66 C without, and that's within 10 minutes. From the heat sink it was reading 114 F/45 C with a laser thermometer before I slapped the fan back on).
 
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crw030

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ok, for my remote setup I just need an addl PCIE card to go in this with 1 port (to give 1 in 1 out) that will 1. NOT OVERHEAT in a building that will get over 100F in the summer and 2. will be ultra reliable/authentic (worried about a knock off "Intel" card on ebay that dies after few months because it will be 1000 miles away).

I want to replace an ASUS router that's been at a remote site and running strong for YEARS, that I have had a reliable OpenVPN connection to for YEARS with some new hardware and my main LAN is a pfSense router.

Wise, not wise? I have to reset my local pfSense like every 90 days, but might be due to packages (like Unbound etc).
 
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zack$

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Don't know if you can integrate fiber into your setup up, but apart from getting a low power pcie Ethernet card in there, you can get this little guy: Allied Telesis AT-29M2/SC-AA-001 M.2 MULTI-MODE NETWORK ADAPTER 990-004932-001 767035207797 | eBay

A couple of us have purchased the AT-29M2/SC from that seller before.

So, with my Cheliso T-422, AT-29M2 and onboard realtek rj-45, I have 3 x 1Gb RJ45, 2 x 10Gb sfp+ and 1 x 1.25 sfp. All in a small form factor and sipping power.

I got these for around $165 last year, which make these an even better deal.
 
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WANg

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Don't know if you can integrate fiber into your setup up, but apart from getting a low power pcie Ethernet card in there, you can get this little guy: Allied Telesis AT-29M2/SC-AA-001 M.2 MULTI-MODE NETWORK ADAPTER 990-004932-001 767035207797 | eBay

A couple of us have purchased the AT-29M2/SC from that seller before.

So, with my Cheliso T-422, AT-29M2 and onboard realtek rj-45, I have 3 x 1Gb RJ45, 2 x 10Gb sfp+ and 1 x 1.25 sfp. All in a small form factor and sipping power.

I got these for around $165 last year, which make these an even better deal.
I ran mine off a Solarflare SFN5122F (a 10GbE card) and then switched to a Mellanox ConnectX-3. Ran it off an Intel i340-T4 for a bit. Expecting a i350-T4 soon - no issues, but they were in climate controlled rooms (my living room, which has its AC setup to fire off above 78F/25C). Your mileage might vary.

Oh yeah, I should mention that the seller above also sold me AT29M2-SC cards and my t740 client - He comes highly recommended. I am sure more than a few forum members here can/will vouch for him. If you only need 2 ports in total (one Realtek, one fiber off a Broadcom Tigon) and no need for a PCIe slot, you can probably get away with a t630 (which runs just like a t620 plus). Those are like 100 USD or less.
 
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WANg

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I have a Chelsio T-422 card (14W) running 24/7 in a baremetal pfsense box with no issues. CPU runs at 45-51 C depending on load. However, I know that @WANg has had heating issues with a solarflare card that did not have sufficient airflow.
How's the drivers on that Chelsio? I was thinking of buying a Terminator 4 based card to play around with. The Mellanox CX3 and the Solarflare 5/7 series cards do not have native driver support in VMWare ESXi 6+, and the SFN5122F in particular do not seem to have working VF drivers in modern Linux...since the t740 seem to have decent SRIOV support in Linux (the ESXi situation doesn't look that great), I want to buy some cards to play around with.
 
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WANg

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This same seller sold them last month for the same price. I got 3 of them for my offer price of $300 +shipping at the time and couldn't be happier. The packaging was great and it was as described.

I'm using one for my OPNsense server with a quad-port Intel nic, another one is running Windows 10 Enterprise with 16 GB RAM/250 GB SSD, and the third is going in my lab (along with 6x T630's I bought for $32/each plus shipping -- they came with 4 GB RAM/16 GB SSD/WIFI -- I'm looking at adding ram and bigger/faster SSD local storage on the cheap for a Proxmox cluster as well as a couple of DFI DT122). The goal is to have a low-powered cluster. I just need to find time to work on my lab now :)

(I was originally looking at going with a RPi 4-based cluster, but for the price at $32 a unit, the T630s with 4 GBs of ram were a lot better value for money, even though they will take a bit more power and space, they are a lot more flexible for this particular use case -- even if they have Realtek nics).
Oh yeah, if you don't have the stands to go with them, they are HP model # 934597-001 (they use the stands on the t530 as well). Once you have the stands you can stack them vertically. The t630 can also use the 10 dollar Broadcom Tigon based fiber NIC from the t730, so you could wire them up using SC-LC patch cables (useful if you have a switch that can do SFP modules and you have a bunch of LC/Multimode modules - otherwise, you'll need media converters. That's what I did with my t730)
 
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Firebug24k

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ok, for my remote setup I just need an addl PCIE card to go in this with 1 port (to give 1 in 1 out) that will 1. NOT OVERHEAT in a building that will get over 100F in the summer and 2. will be ultra reliable/authentic (worried about a knock off "Intel" card on ebay that dies after few months because it will be 1000 miles away).
10G or 1G or 2.5? There are USB3 2.5G adapters now that work well. Also for 10G the current crop of consumer stuff (asus?) has 10GBE that runs cool since it's much newer tech. Bit pricey though. Amazon.com: TRENDnet 10 Gigabit PCIe Network Adapter, TEG-10GECTX, Converts a PCIe Slot into a 10G Ethernet Port, Supports 802.1Q Vlan, Includes Standard & Low-Profile Brackets, Windows, Server, Linux, Nbase-T: Computers & Accessories for example.

Here's the USB adapter (many similar): Amazon.com: CableCreation USB 3.0 to 2.5 Gigabit LAN Ethernet Cable Adapter, USB to Network up to 2.5Gbps Compatible with MacBook, Chromebook, Windows 10, 8.1, Mac OS X 10.6-10.15, Black: Computers & Accessories
 
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zack$

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How's the drivers on that Chelsio? I was thinking of buying a Terminator 4 based card to play around with. The Mellanox CX3 and the Solarflare 5/7 series cards do not have native driver support in VMWare ESXi 6+, and the SFN5122F in particular do not seem to have working VF drivers in modern Linux...since the t740 seem to have decent SRIOV support in Linux (the ESXi situation doesn't look that great), I want to buy some cards to play around with.
Drivers on Chelsio are rubbish; Chelsio never updates them so the cards become useless pretty soon. Only reason I got the T4 is simple, intended to run pfsense baremetal and pfsense (like FreeNAS) being FreeBSD based loves these Chelsio parts.

Thing is the Chelsio cards, apart from the driver issue, are pretty decent cards (see T-422 specs for example:https://www.chelsio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/T422-CR-010312.pdf) . And, fortunately for me, due to the driver issue they sell for peanuts. If you intend to run baremetal or pass-thru to pfsense or FreeNAS, the Chelsio cards are hard to beat.

Other than that, the Intel 82599 based cards are golden for the price. How does a 2011 part get support until 2024? :D

Edit: I think the drivers for T-4 have been dumped for the latest linux kernel, go figure.
 
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zack$

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Also to note, the vmware fling project for usb nbase-t would also give these boxes more ports. With the onboard usb 3.0 ports, you could get a theoretical 5 gbps. @WANg , have you considered testing these in your t-740 write up? Think it will make an interesting piece.
 
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WANg

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Drivers on Chelsio are rubbish; Chelsio never updates them so the cards become useless pretty soon. Only reason I got the T4 is simple, intended to run pfsense baremetal and pfsense (like FreeNAS) being FreeBSD based loves these Chelsio parts.

Thing is the Chelsio cards, apart from the driver issue, are pretty decent cards (see T-422 specs for example:https://www.chelsio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/T422-CR-010312.pdf) . And, fortunately for me, due to the driver issue they sell for peanuts. If you intend to run baremetal or pass-thru to pfsense or FreeNAS, the Chelsio cards are hard to beat.

Other than that, the Intel 82599 based cards are golden for the price. How does a 2011 part get support until 2024? :D
Hah. And here I thought Solarflare were being pricks dropping support for the SFN5/6/7 series cards on ESXi. Those things are not cheap when they were new (north of 400 bucks each), but I remember my old gig were looking at Chelsio to replace Solarflare cards for low latency applications simply because Solarflare were getting ridiculous with licensing starting on the 7s. You can't go through eBay without tripping through tons of cheap 10GbE cards.

I should pick up a T420 - might have more luck with Chelsio + ESXi on my t740.

Also, *uggggh* running 10GbE on copper - I think I threw up in my mouth a little.
 
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WANg

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Also to note, the vmware fling project for usb nbase-t would also give these boxes more ports. With the onboard usb 3.0 ports, you could get a theoretical 5 gbps. @WANg , have you considered testing these in your t-740 write up? Think it will make an interesting piece.
This one? Maybe - But I think there's only one NBaseT chipset currently in production (The Aquantia Pacific/AQC111U), and most devices based on it go for at least 100. I am also not sure if it needs a USB 3.1 Gen 1 or Gen 2 port (The t740 has 2 Gen2 in the front, one USB-A and one USB-C, and no Gen2 ports in the back) - that's the same situation with the t640. That t640 is an interesting little machine that deserves its own brief guide. Especially since only 9 months after intro I am starting to see them on evilbay for 150-200, and those are like bona-fide AMD Ryzen NUCs good for building cheap clusters.

Also, *ugh*. I really shouldn't encourage people to use copper for > 1GbE. Singlemode Fiber+SFP/DACs are just so much easier at 10/40/100GbE speeds, and there's none of these weird little steps like 2.5GbE, 5, 10, etc. At some point you really should ditch copper for fiber.
 
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SRussell

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Also, *uggggh* running 10GbE on copper - I think I threw up in my mouth a little.
Don't feel bad. I am running dual port 10GbT on 8 hosts. I should seriously setup a grow room to take advantage of all this wasted power and heat.
 
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Samir

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ok, for my remote setup I just need an addl PCIE card to go in this with 1 port (to give 1 in 1 out) that will 1. NOT OVERHEAT in a building that will get over 100F in the summer and 2. will be ultra reliable/authentic (worried about a knock off "Intel" card on ebay that dies after few months because it will be 1000 miles away).

I want to replace an ASUS router that's been at a remote site and running strong for YEARS, that I have had a reliable OpenVPN connection to for YEARS with some new hardware and my main LAN is a pfSense router.

Wise, not wise? I have to reset my local pfSense like every 90 days, but might be due to packages (like Unbound etc).
In my experience thin clients generally are ultra-reliable, even with some extended temps like 80-90F. However, because their cooling is limited, these temps do reduce their life unless you put a small fan or something to help enhance the cooling capability.