The T620 plus is a nice little box but until you guys stop jacking up the prices I'm going to wait.
HP T730 8GB RAM 32GB Storage Thin Client
- Thread starter MiniKnight
- Start date
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$70 per unit looks just fine to me, and these comes with the AT27Mini Fiber NIC, so the carrier for (potentially) mounting a SATA SSD is there - like I've said before, those machines will work on any HP branded laptop/docking station power bricks as long as the wattage looks correct, so that can simply be a matter of scrounging an IT admin's closet for spares. The only thing I would make sure of would be to ask specifically for a Jamestown Rev. A board with the populated mSATA headers so you can conceivably slap an adapter to work with the SATA SSD.
Also, isn't this the thread for the t730 replacement?
Does anyone have a link to the recycling breakdown guide for the t730? Mine arrived today and a motherboard screw is stuck somewhere inside underneath the mainboard. I heard it rattling around while unpacking the unit but it's stuck fast now.
Does the T730 have the Jamestown Rev. A or B board? I am looking for a replacement for my WatchGuard XTM515 appliance running pfSense.
I'll take some readings after I'm finished testing ram. I've got a t730 sitting on my desk with a CX2 VPI dual 40Gb Infiniband card in right now, was planning on running 40Gb IB between two (dual port CX3s may be too hot.)
SR-IOV is on the menu later tonight or tomorrow.
My 4GB/16GB T730 arrived. They're cute little bits of kit.
I'm hoping to use it to replace my (very aging) Atom D525 based router. Or use it for a workbench computer. I haven't decided.
I also managed to forget I had literally no displayport to anything cables, so I can't do anything with it until amazon gets me one.
I'm hoping to use it to replace my (very aging) Atom D525 based router. Or use it for a workbench computer. I haven't decided.
I also managed to forget I had literally no displayport to anything cables, so I can't do anything with it until amazon gets me one.
Oof. Idling at the proxmox install screen right now with a CX-2 dual port VPI card installed: 33W.
@BLinux @WANg
FWIW if anyone's interested it looks like there's plenty of space inside to shoe-horn in a regular 2.5" SSD with one of those $5 m.2 to sata adapters. You'll need to be creative with the mounting but there's definitely room.
@BLinux @WANg
FWIW if anyone's interested it looks like there's plenty of space inside to shoe-horn in a regular 2.5" SSD with one of those $5 m.2 to sata adapters. You'll need to be creative with the mounting but there's definitely room.
Hmm, mine after booting ubuntu server is ~16.5-17.5W. A lot of that must be your CX-2 card (and maybe the PCIe link?).
With it loaded heavily, it can get up to ~28W, but that's about it.
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your numbers are close to mine. i got 15.8W at idle after booting up pfsense with nothing else installed (no PCI-E card).
Misc stuff:
Power on hours is 1, so it sounds like this was indeed brand new.
I can find literally NO information on the disk (PSSBN016GA27MC0). Just looking at it, it's got a Phison PS3111-S11-13.
------
Oh wow, if you let the display output go to sleep, or just disconnect it, the idle power draw drops to ~11.7 watts.
Edit: Hey, the SSD is actually Phison branded:
It's a "GA5HSN27P92-S110J0", but I don't get anything for that either, with or without the S110J0 suffix.
It has 2 flash memory ICs:
TA16G5LARA
K1706
E72T026A00
I'm not sure who makes them either.
Code:
durr@tinybox:~⟫ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [x86_64-linux-4.4.0-31-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: PSSBN016GA27MC0
Serial Number: 90530773070807202513
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: SBFH00B8
User Capacity: 16,013,942,784 bytes [16.0 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Form Factor: M.2
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: Unknown(0x0ff8) (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Mon Aug 20 21:57:46 2018 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: EnabledI can find literally NO information on the disk (PSSBN016GA27MC0). Just looking at it, it's got a Phison PS3111-S11-13.
Code:
durr@tinybox:~⟫ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 3484 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1742.05 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1268 MB in 3.00 seconds = 422.34 MB/sec
durr@tinybox:~⟫ bonnie++
Writing a byte at a time...
done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading a byte at a time...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
tinybox 7G 647 99 246420 37 164373 24 2691 99 597928 38 +++++ +++
Latency 17138us 694ms 761ms 5228us 20737us 2444us
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
tinybox -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
Latency 1719us 734us 537us 393us 66us 285us
1.97,1.97,tinybox,1,1534836828,7G,,647,99,246420,37,164373,24,2691,99,597928,38,+++++,+++,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,17138us,694ms,761ms,5228us,20737us,2444us,1719us,734us,537us,393us,66us,285usOh wow, if you let the display output go to sleep, or just disconnect it, the idle power draw drops to ~11.7 watts.
Edit: Hey, the SSD is actually Phison branded:
It's a "GA5HSN27P92-S110J0", but I don't get anything for that either, with or without the S110J0 suffix.
It has 2 flash memory ICs:
TA16G5LARA
K1706
E72T026A00
I'm not sure who makes them either.
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So power settled down later to around ~26W idle which is closer to what I expected (~16W idle + ~10W PCIe card.)
Has anyone managed to get UEFI boot to the SSD working? I'm able to install proxmox but boot fails after that. Similar question re: BIOS updates, whenever I selection "Update BIOS" from inside the BIOS I get an error message that a file is missing or corrupted, I think the EFI partition on the drive I received is missing.
I tried installing Win10 IOT but I have the same issue booting from the SSD as proxmox, I'm imaging thinpro to try now.
Edit: got it booting with thinpro 7, updating bios now.
Sweet, the bios sees the m.2 drive as a uefi target after the update. The bios fan speed seems to stick once booted now too which is a good thing -- the Mellanox nic was getting *hot*.
Edit 2: If anyone receives a machine with a wiped SSD you'll be missing the EFI partition and won't be able to update directly from within the BIOS.
I had to download HP's "ThinUpdate" here HP t730 Thin Client - Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support and run it under windows to download the ThinPro 7 image and write it to a USB key to install. You also have to unpack the BIOS update on a windows machine and copy that over to usb as well. I'm going to pull an image off of a usb stick that has the bios files pre-included in case anyone wants to skip all of the windows steps and jump right into booting and flashing.
I tried installing Win10 IOT but I have the same issue booting from the SSD as proxmox, I'm imaging thinpro to try now.
Edit: got it booting with thinpro 7, updating bios now.
Sweet, the bios sees the m.2 drive as a uefi target after the update. The bios fan speed seems to stick once booted now too which is a good thing -- the Mellanox nic was getting *hot*.
Edit 2: If anyone receives a machine with a wiped SSD you'll be missing the EFI partition and won't be able to update directly from within the BIOS.
I had to download HP's "ThinUpdate" here HP t730 Thin Client - Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support and run it under windows to download the ThinPro 7 image and write it to a USB key to install. You also have to unpack the BIOS update on a windows machine and copy that over to usb as well. I'm going to pull an image off of a usb stick that has the bios files pre-included in case anyone wants to skip all of the windows steps and jump right into booting and flashing.
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There's no such thing as the Jamestown Rev A or B on the t730 - Jamestown is the codename for the t620 motherboard. This is a t730 we are talking about here. Completely different machine with completely different performance characteristics.
Yeah, Phison is one of those Taiwanese ODM (original design manufacturers) that almost no one outside the industry has ever heard of, like Wistron or Quanta. They usually make their marks on fabbing thumb drives for resellers like Sony.
As for the idle wattage - yep, not surprised by that either. That embedded Radeon R7 GPU is responsible for some heavy lifting, 2D-wise (4 DisplayPorts on-board, each capable of at least 2K resolution), and as for 3D, it's about the half the raw horsepower of a PS4. If there is a way to deactivate it or take it offline, do it. My suspicion is that it'll be the major consumer of power in a situation like that.
That being said...HMMM, I wonder if it's possible to do a PCI passthrough of that GPU and use it to host Plex in a guest VM.
Hm. Which version of the BIOS did you upgrade to, and did it cause any regressions on the AMD DMAR/PCI passthrough functionality?
01.11 Rev A
iommu looks alright from a glance at dmesg; I'm still dicking around with ThinPro and haven't switched to proxmox yet so I can't confirm beyond that. I'd setup OFED and test with the CX-2 but for some reason HP hasn't made the kernel source available for ThinPro 7 so I can't build the OFED drivers.
I'm trying to figure out how to make a USB image that isn't 3+GB right now. For whatever reason my dd images of the install stick are way bigger than the used space on the drive. I think the whole install package plus the BIOS is around ~1GB.
> If there is a way to deactivate it or take it offline, do it. My suspicion is that it'll be the major consumer of power in a situation like that.
Disconnecting all monitors led to a 5W power draw reduction. It gets down to 11 watts with no displays connected.
Disconnecting all monitors led to a 5W power draw reduction. It gets down to 11 watts with no displays connected.
Okay, so more fun news on the t730. Oh boy, it's the machine that keeps on giving.
So a few things -
a) I found out that a vendor is dumping stock on a bunch of Gigabit fiber NICs for the t730 at half price. As I am the curious type, I ordered 2 of them and they came in earlier today. I'll be posting photos and writeups on that one soon-ish. Quick executive summary - it's a Broadcom Tigon (tg3) connected to an SC optical transceiver wired to the machine via PCIe x1 via the M.2 Key E slot, so we have out of the box driver support for most OSes out there - if you need something that can be used as, say, the campus fiber NIC on the t730 pfsense box, eh, this will serve you well. For me, I'll probably use it to wire multimode fiber to the wireless router on the other side of the apartment (need a media converter to turn it back to CAT6). Like I've said before, PowerLine AV sucks when it comes to stability.
b) Back to playing around with Debian Stretch on the thin client. I can now verify that PCI VFs on SR-IOV should not be a problem whatsoever - I was able to configure the Solarflare to enable SR-IOVs / enable VFs, and the thin client boots with the correct VMs. Unforunately...eh, I don't have a standing set of VMs that I can assign traffic and test with (besides, my target on the other side of the SolarFlare card is the MicroServer G7 working iSCSI). I'll probably need to test it by setting up a mule environment, and then pick up a used Intel i350 quad-port adapter that can do SR-IOV.
This is exciting - a thin client that can run multiple pfsense or RouterOS VMs via Proxmox, each with allocated PCI VFs, each talking to its own trunks and running its own firewall policies. That's like a cheap Juniper NRX right here.
Anyways. Via the SolarFlare sfboot utility:
And in case you are wondering what dmesg looks like for the Solarflare on boot:
Fun aside, it looks like the Debian Stretch live disc image does not contain a cpufreq governor or any power saving tunables. Who knows, we can potentially tweak the power savings a little further down. Guess I'll be looking for a second t730 some times in the near future to do a deeper dive.
So a few things -
a) I found out that a vendor is dumping stock on a bunch of Gigabit fiber NICs for the t730 at half price. As I am the curious type, I ordered 2 of them and they came in earlier today. I'll be posting photos and writeups on that one soon-ish. Quick executive summary - it's a Broadcom Tigon (tg3) connected to an SC optical transceiver wired to the machine via PCIe x1 via the M.2 Key E slot, so we have out of the box driver support for most OSes out there - if you need something that can be used as, say, the campus fiber NIC on the t730 pfsense box, eh, this will serve you well. For me, I'll probably use it to wire multimode fiber to the wireless router on the other side of the apartment (need a media converter to turn it back to CAT6). Like I've said before, PowerLine AV sucks when it comes to stability.
b) Back to playing around with Debian Stretch on the thin client. I can now verify that PCI VFs on SR-IOV should not be a problem whatsoever - I was able to configure the Solarflare to enable SR-IOVs / enable VFs, and the thin client boots with the correct VMs. Unforunately...eh, I don't have a standing set of VMs that I can assign traffic and test with (besides, my target on the other side of the SolarFlare card is the MicroServer G7 working iSCSI). I'll probably need to test it by setting up a mule environment, and then pick up a used Intel i350 quad-port adapter that can do SR-IOV.
This is exciting - a thin client that can run multiple pfsense or RouterOS VMs via Proxmox, each with allocated PCI VFs, each talking to its own trunks and running its own firewall policies. That's like a cheap Juniper NRX right here.
Anyways. Via the SolarFlare sfboot utility:
Code:
enp1s0f0:
Boot image Option ROM and UEFI
Link speed Negotiated automatically
Link-up delay time 5 seconds
Banner delay time 2 seconds
Boot skip delay time 5 seconds
Boot type PXE
PF MSI-X interrupt limit 32
SR-IOV Enabled
Virtual Functions on each PF 127
VF MSI-X interrupt limit 1
enp1s0f1:
Boot image Option ROM and UEFI
Link speed Negotiated automatically
Link-up delay time 5 seconds
Banner delay time 2 seconds
Boot skip delay time 5 seconds
Boot type PXE
PF MSI-X interrupt limit 32
SR-IOV Enabled
Virtual Functions on each PF 127
VF MSI-X interrupt limit 1And in case you are wondering what dmesg looks like for the Solarflare on boot:
Code:
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: [1924:0803] type 00 class 0x020000
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x10: [io 0xe100-0xe1ff]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x18: [mem 0xfd000000-0xfdffffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x20: [mem 0xfe090000-0xfe09ffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x30: [mem 0xfe040000-0xfe07ffff pref]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x184: [mem 0x00000000-0x00001fff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: VF(n) BAR0 space: [mem 0x00000000-0x000fdfff 64bit] (contains BAR0 for 127 VFs)
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x18c: [mem 0x00000000-0x0000ffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.0: VF(n) BAR2 space: [mem 0x00000000-0x007effff 64bit] (contains BAR2 for 127 VFs)
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: [1924:0803] type 00 class 0x020000
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x10: [io 0xe000-0xe0ff]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x18: [mem 0xfc000000-0xfcffffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x20: [mem 0xfe080000-0xfe08ffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x30: [mem 0xfe000000-0xfe03ffff pref]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: PME# supported from D0 D3hot
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x184: [mem 0x00000000-0x00001fff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: VF(n) BAR0 space: [mem 0x00000000-0x000fdfff 64bit] (contains BAR0 for 127 VFs)
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: reg 0x18c: [mem 0x00000000-0x0000ffff 64bit]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:01:00.1: VF(n) BAR2 space: [mem 0x00000000-0x007effff 64bit] (contains BAR2 for 127 VFs)
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:00:02.1: PCI bridge to [bus 01]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:00:02.1: bridge window [io 0xe000-0xefff]
[Tue Aug 21 23:40:19 2018] pci 0000:00:02.1: bridge window [mem 0xfc000000-0xfe0fffff]
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I spent way, way too long today repacking ThinPro and the BIOS update in a more convenient form. You're welcome to use these if you don't want to dick around booting windows to unpack HP's lovely windows only packages to install their linux distro and BIOS update.
Here's the most recent BIOS (01.11 RevA) repacked as a .tar.xz:
BIOS 01.11 RevA - Google Drive
Here's a ready to go image of the constructed ThinPro installer stick, with the latest bios available as well:
ThinPro7Installer+BIOS01.11RevA.img.gz
I also managed to get ThinPro installed to a usb key and bootable with the BIOS staged in /root ready to flash. But without the EFI partition on a hard drive the BIOS lacks the EFI applet it needs to actually flash the BIOS update on reboot. If anyone knows how I could work around this please have a look at the image and let me know:
ThinPro7onUSB+BIOS01.11RevA.img.gz
These images should work with both UEFI and legacy boot though legacy will probably be more compatible on unpatched systems. I tested them with win32diskimager but they should work with etcher, rufus and dd too. One note: the bootable ThinPro image made most of my cheap USB3 sticks sad, they tended to overheat and hang during boot. Use something that won't overheat if you want to run ThinPro off USB (I used an mSATA drive in a metal enclosure.)
Here's the most recent BIOS (01.11 RevA) repacked as a .tar.xz:
BIOS 01.11 RevA - Google Drive
Here's a ready to go image of the constructed ThinPro installer stick, with the latest bios available as well:
ThinPro7Installer+BIOS01.11RevA.img.gz
I also managed to get ThinPro installed to a usb key and bootable with the BIOS staged in /root ready to flash. But without the EFI partition on a hard drive the BIOS lacks the EFI applet it needs to actually flash the BIOS update on reboot. If anyone knows how I could work around this please have a look at the image and let me know:
ThinPro7onUSB+BIOS01.11RevA.img.gz
These images should work with both UEFI and legacy boot though legacy will probably be more compatible on unpatched systems. I tested them with win32diskimager but they should work with etcher, rufus and dd too. One note: the bootable ThinPro image made most of my cheap USB3 sticks sad, they tended to overheat and hang during boot. Use something that won't overheat if you want to run ThinPro off USB (I used an mSATA drive in a metal enclosure.)