HP T730: $129.40 (shipped)

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raiderj

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I used a half-height Intel quad-port NIC. Works great. I have one port feeding my LAN, which then goes out to a Unifi PoE switch. WAN is another port on the NIC, and I'm leaving the single Ethernet port that's onboard as unused for now.
 
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SolarAxix

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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).
 
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KC8FLB

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Aug 12, 2018
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I missed the original deals on the 730’s and kinda gave up on them. I recently found that that there were multiple vendors liquidating hp 290 sff desktops for ~$100. These are brand new and come with dual core 8th gen coffee lake (quick sync and aes-ni) 4gb ddr4, 500gb spinner, and win 10 home. They have room to add nvme drive and two pcie shots (16x+ 1x) half/server height slots.

I bought three and using one for pfsense with 16gb nvme and 4 port i350 nic, one for blue iris security camera controller (nvr) with 1tb nvme+4tb data drive + mellanox dual sfp+ 10g nic and the last one as a plex server which works great because of quick sync (similar hardware to nvr)

info here: [Official] HP 290-p0043w Owner's Thread
 
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tommybackeast

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Jun 10, 2018
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Dammit, these look even nice just as an upgrade for an older Wyse wes7 thin client--must not spend...:eek:
I have never used a thin client or zero client.

If I run ESXi (Single host, no vCenter Server, no Horizon) -

and I took something like this HP T630; added KB, mouse, Screen; plugged in CAT6; am I able to run ESXi Linux or Windows VM? (or does that mandate VMware Horizon (which I don't have). Thanks
 

Samir

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In stock form, these run windows embedded 7 which is essentially just windows that's locked down like win 10 iot.

As far as how well they run esxi or windows vm, someone else will have to chime in on that.
 
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WANg

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I have never used a thin client or zero client.

If I run ESXi (Single host, no vCenter Server, no Horizon) -

and I took something like this HP T630; added KB, mouse, Screen; plugged in CAT6; am I able to run ESXi Linux or Windows VM? (or does that mandate VMware Horizon (which I don't have). Thanks
Be mindful of the difference between the t730 and the t630. They are very different machines.

The t630 is based on the GX420GI (a "special" version of the AMD Brown Falcon SoC family) and performs about the same as the old t620 Plus (GX-420CA), but it does NOT and will not have a PCIe x16 slot. The GX420GI is an Excavator dualcore - its closest equivalent on the AMD consumer lineup is the A10-8730B (it's 2.4GHz on the A10 versus 2GHz on the 420GI, which accounts for the passmark benchmark difference). The GX420CA is 4 Jaguar cores (Kabini family, same as the XBox One/PS4) - it's like the A6-5200 on the consumer side. GPU is more powerful on the 420GI versus the 420CA (~450 versus ~150GigaFlops), but expect only hardware assisted VP9 decoding to be added.

The t730 (a member of the "Bald Eagle" SoC family) is a bit more powerful than either, and is similar to the FX-7600p on the consumer side - it is a quadcore AMD Steamroller architecture chip - on the GPU front it's about 615 GigaFlops - same tech/feature set as the GX-420, just slightly improved. It does features a PCIe x16 slot just like the t620 Plus, so you can grab a multiport 1, 10 and 40 GbE card and install them (note that the slot is only a PCIe x8 electrically). There are at least multiple write-ups about the t730 on this forum, discussing its abilities and functionality.

Also, note that the t630 can have up to 2 network cards - the built-in Broadcom and an M.2 Key-E upgrade. There is a hidden (well, hidden in plain sight, it's not on the support documents) M.2 Key E slot for plugging in a M.2 PCIe x1 network card, and is described in the recycling teardown guide. HP themselves can sell you an Allied Telesis AT29M2 fiber card suitable for the t630/730, and based on the well known Broadcom Tigon/tg3. A vendor on evilBay based in Long Island, New York will sell you that one with an SC connector (requires multimode fiber) for about 10 dollars + shipping (it's the same one used in my t730...read my writeup). In some cases all you need is either an SC->LC patch cable, or you'll need a media converter from the likes of 10Gtek or FS to go to Gigabit copper.
The LC connector version of the AT29M2 suitable for the t630/730 is for some odd reason ridiculously expensive and difficult to find.

Of course, you can hunt down an M.2 PCIe x1 network card based on Realtek or Intel Silicon. How you choose to integrate it...is up to you.
 
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WANg

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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).
I should mention that if you are interested in using the HP regular thin clients (no PCIe slot, in other words) as small cluster nodes or as a "sleeper" Ryzen NUC, I am starting to see used/refurb HP t640 thin clients enter evilBay at the 150-180 USD price point. They feature a Ryzen Embedded R1505G, which runs close in performance to a Ryzen 3 3200U (a good little chip with HTPC possibilities).
180 USD for working machine, that's not bad at all whatsoever.
 
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WANg

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Thought my blatant reference to your guide might have pointed some into that direction.

Looking forward to the complete t740 write up, excellent stuff.
Thanks - if you want to see some work in progress - it's here. The video encoding/decoding capabilities should be about the same between the t740 and the t640 (they are both VCN 1.0 based) but the GPU is a bit weaker on the t640 (the V1605B/Vega 8+ in the t740 gets about 1300 Gigaflops (same ballpark as the nVidia GT1030), the R1505G/Vega 3 in the t640 is around 400...which is around the same as the t620 Plus), so the gaming experience will be somewhat different. The hardware SRIOV is relevant only for the t740 (and yes, you can do hardware SRIOV/PCIe passthrough on the t740...).
 
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Guillem

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KC8FLB

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Where is dem hp's mate? Got a link for your ol boy?
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
 
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