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

[nthu9280]

@msg7086
You are right on these HP & Dell workstations can be had for very cheap many times include the COA which is good for activating Win 10. Just being patient (not my forte) on auctions
AFAIK, Intel i3 did not have AES-NI till 6th gen. It was available on i5 since Sandy Bridge era per ARK.


T610 OpenVPN estimate.
69 / 75 mbps.

[2.4.3-RELEASE][pfsadm@pfs01-t610.localdomain]/home/pfsadm: time openvpn --test-crypto --secret /tmp/secret --verb 0 --tun-mtu 20000 --cipher aes-256-cbc
Mon Jul 30 23:48:04 2018 disabling NCP mode (--ncp-disable) because not in P2MP client or server mode
46.368u 0.015s 0:46.57 99.5%    812+177k 0+0io 0pf+0w


[2.4.3-RELEASE][pfsadm@pfs01-t610.localdomain]/home/pfsadm: time openvpn --test-crypto --secret /tmp/secret --verb 0 --tun-mtu 20000 --cipher aes-128-cbc
Mon Jul 30 23:49:48 2018 disabling NCP mode (--ncp-disable) because not in P2MP client or server mode
43.111u 0.055s 0:43.33 99.6%    812+177k 0+0io 0pf+0w

 

[MiniKnight]

These SFF boxes aren't small though. Let's get real for a second. Once we move past thin clients there's straight steals sub $200

$196 Core i5-6500 16GB RAM, HP ProDesk 600 G2 SFF Core i5-6500 3.2GHz 16GB RAM 500GB | eBay

Buy some cheapo SSDs and you'd replace the 500GB spinners. There's an x16 and some x1 slots for NICs.

If you wanted to go straight crazy, plop a $40-50 Mellanox CX3 40GbE NIC in one of these with a cheap SSD or two and you can have a 5 node cluster for $1500 with:
- 20 cores at over 3ghz
- 80GB RAM

And some SSDs.

Power would be under 100w idle and max at like 300w.

It'd take up a lot of space.

You can get the super cheapo corporate desktops for under $70, but they're bigger and less well spec'd than that auction.

 

[BLinux]

i started this thread about $35 machines for pfsense, and now you've gone into the wilderness of magical ponies and rainbows talking about $1500 5-node clusters LOL. I appreciate that we all have a server hardware problem, but please, I need you guys to stay focused here and buy up these $30-$35 machines before I sacrifice a family outing to In-And-Out and pickup one of these instead...

 

[Boddy]

Just be careful with SFF power abilities. They tend to have low power PSU's and the motherboard usually has wiring limitations on power draw on PSI slots. From memory 40 watt max on GPU slot and other slots are low power too. Read manuals carefully. Limitations on what you can run in PSI slots for upgrade possibilities. I'm on mobile so can't check specifics atm.

 

[kapone]

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

Well, there you go. Saves me from spending time on taking a video.

 

[kapone]

Just be careful with SFF power abilities. They tend to have low power PSU's and the motherboard usually has wiring limitations on power draw on PSI slots. From memory 40 watt max on GPU slot and other slots are low power too. Read manuals carefully. Limitations on what you can run in PSI slots for upgrade possibilities. I'm on mobile so can't check specifics atm.

This is true. On the 3010/7010 the power limit on the PCIe slot is close to 40w or less. But for what we're looking to use them for...it's more than enough.

 

[radar]

My netgate pfsense died had to send it back for replacement ok that was great but was without firewall for 4 weeks as I’m in a different country so the HP t610 plus was a good backup running while I was waiting for my actual replacement netgate device