Incredible deal on HP T610 thin client machines that can be used for pfsense

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BLinux

BLinux

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I really need you guys to buy these up so that I don't spend money on things I don't need. I'm counting on you guys here...

HP T610 thin client, 4GB RAM, 16GB SSD. This seller is known to readily accept best offers, so don't hesitate to make an offer. Shipping is usually reasonable.

$36+S&H, looks like already has a dual-port NIC:

HP t610 AMD G-T56N 1.65GHz 4GB DDR3 16GB SSD Thin Client B810AA#ABA | eBay

$34+S&H, no add-on NIC, still great deal:

HP t610 AMD G-T56N 1.65GHz 4GB DDR3 16GB SSD Thin Client No OS B810AA#ABA | eBay

a pair for $60+S&H, no add-on NIC:

LOT 2x HP t610 AMD G-T56N 1.65GHz 4GB DDR3 No Drive Thin Client | eBay

They claim the units are tested to BIOS, but it's not clear if they will include PSU. PSUs should be found for $10 or less.
 
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fohdeesha

fohdeesha

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Just to clarify, these do NOT have AES-NI correct? So come pfsense 2.5, you'll need to jump over to opnsense, and any encryption (vpn's) will be horrifically slow as these have 1/3rd the CPU power of the T620's we were playing with before
 
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BLinux

BLinux

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fohdeesha said:
Just to clarify, these do NOT have AES-NI correct? So come pfsense 2.5, you'll need to jump over to opnsense, and any encryption (vpn's) will be horrifically slow as these have 1/3rd the CPU power of the T620's we were playing with before
Click to expand...
yes, no AES-NI, so no-no for pfsense upgrade later. "horrifically slow" is subjective... but in the T620 thread, AES-NI improved openvpn crypto test by less than 1 order of magnitude, so is that horrific?
 
BLinux

BLinux

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fohdeesha

fohdeesha

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BLinux said:
yes, no AES-NI, so no-no for pfsense upgrade later. "horrifically slow" is subjective... but in the T620 thread, AES-NI improved openvpn crypto test by less than 1 order of magnitude, so is that horrific?
Click to expand...
Well my point is it will of course be CPU bound, which isn't an issue on its own, but the CPU in the t610 is barely 1/3rd the processing power of the t620, which isn't particularly fast to begin with. The cpu passmark for the t610 is ~700, which is basically in league with the last of the pentium 4's/athlons - not exactly much compute to work with. In fact last time I ran pfsense on a processor with a sub 1k passmark score, I remember it having difficulties breaking 500mbps of simple NAT +firewall, let alone all that plus cpu bound crypto

given how cheap they are, it couldn't hurt to pick one up just to do some pfsense benchmarking. My guess is maybe 100mbps of AES256 - not the artificial benchmark, but an actual AES256 encrypted VPN tunnel where it's also having to deal with that much firewall + NAT traffic
 
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fohdeesha

fohdeesha

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wow, if their typical power draw really is that low, that's an insane deal if they can be regularly had for $40 - 7k passmark is no joke, plenty for a starter hypervisor

edit: yeah, it seems these go for closer to 130 regularly, I knew it was too good to be true :p
 
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kapone

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fohdeesha said:
wow, if their typical power draw really is that low, that's an insane deal if they can be regularly had for $40 - 7k passmark is no joke, plenty for a starter hypervisor
Click to expand...
It is. I stop thinking about power consumption for anything that idles under 20w, I look at the overall strengths.

My outdoor floodlights burn up more energy in a few minutes, from passing deers (and the lights are on a motion sensor!), than a low power server running for hours.
 
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kapone

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BLinux said:
this: Intel® Core™ i5-3470 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz) Product Specifications

is 15W?

i don't think so:

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge Quad-Core CPU Review - Page 8

Overclocking and Power Consumption : Intel Core i5-3470 Performance Analysis
Click to expand...
Yup. A Dell 3010/7010 motherboard is based on the Q77 chipset, which itself is pretty thrifty on power, and these motherboards are SPARSE, I mean really sparse. Very few components on them. With 1-2 ram sticks, an Ivy Bride CPU (i3/i5 and the S variants) and an SSD, it's about 15w at idle, depending on your power supply.

Disclaimer - I typically use high efficiency PSUs, either PicoPSUs or platinum rated ATX.
 
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kapone

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I'll do one better. I'll take a video of one of these motherboards in action tomorrow. I have one lying on my test bench.
 
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msg7086

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I was following the 7010 deals auctions last week and I believe there were way more than 20 or 30 pcs sold at ~35 to 45/ea+SH. I only grabbed 2 of them to see if that actually works out.

That SFF model (can be identified by 2x2 layout USB port front panel) has 1 slim DVDRW and 1 3.5 HDD space, if the seller gives you the HDD caddy or even the 2.5 to 3.5 adapter. 2 full length LP PCIe, one routed to 16x the other one I've no idea. 3 SATA 4DIMM on board, USB 3.0 front outlet, 2 HDMI Big DP+1VGA and a 1Gbe Intel. 240W Gold PSU uncommon form factor with 24+4pin.

Pretty compact size (and thus very tiny space inside to upgrade.) If I had choice at similar price I'd have gone with DT version.

Plan to have one of them as my pfSense and the other box as my second NAS box.

=EDIT=

Correction: They come with full size DP ports, not HDMIs.
 
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Marsh

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Ubuntu 16.0.4
HP 8300 , CPU i5-3470, 1 SSD
I5-3470 idle at 11w

HP 8300 , CPU i7-3770K, 1 SSD
I7-3770K idle at 11w ( 4gb ram )
This combination power consumption surprise me , I had to measure it many times in different days.

Proxmox 5.x
HP 800 G1 I5-4570 , 2 SSD , 32 GB ram
14-15w idle

add: using a inaccurate kill-a-watt for measurement
 
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msg7086

msg7086

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Those 7010SFF boxes are frequently available on ebay auctions possibly dumped by big companies (or gov agencies?) in batch. If anyone is interested you can monitor those keywords from time to time. Avg auction price was like $40+SH like mine was about $40+12SH for i5 2G 0HDD config, YMMV, and there's also i3 version that may come cheaper.
 
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