Hey,
I am looking for two new little machine to do virtualized pfsense/opnsense (I don't like BSD), BIND9 DNS, kea DHCP, OpenSM, VPN Endpoint (Should be able to do at least one wireguard at full 1GBit) and maybe print server
My requirements for the hardware are a bit different, because I need an PCIe slot for a Mellanox card
Requirements:
- Small (i.e. not Desktop ATX size), energy efficient (ideally sub 10W in IDLE) and not too expensive (let's say max 500€ per machine)
- Should probably have at least 4 Cores, Coffeelake, Zen 2 or newer
- 2 PCIe slots (min. 4 lanes 3.0 + 1 lanes 2.0) OR updateable Quad NIC + 1x PCIe slot (at least 1x 2.0) - Updateable because I need SR-IOV and Virtual Functions for virtualization and the older firmware versions often have bugs
- 2x M.2 NVMe or 2x M.2 SATA
Generally, it seems to be quite difficult to find hardware that matches those requirements.
Potential candidates I have identified:
- Intel NUC 9 Extreme - Currently selling for very good prices in Germany!
Although only the model with 9750H (NUC975QNX) or 9300H (NUC9i5QNX) would work, as the i9 version seems to IDLE at 40W?
@Patrick has tested the Pro version with a 25GBe NIC and got sub-25W - Patrick, have you tested without the NIC? Can you perhaps tell us an exact number?
- Dell Optiplex 5060 / 5070 / 7060 / 7070 SFF
The Dell models seem to be very efficient, although I couldn't really find any definite numbers for the SFF models too...
They're at the upper end of what's possible regarding size of the machine, but they have the PCIe slots
The i7 models are quite rare, so it doesn't really make a difference whether it's coffee lake (5060 / 7060) or Coffee Lake Refresh (5070 / 7070). With an i7, the non-refresh generation would be better, as they have hyperthreading whereas for the refresh models, only i9 has hyperthreading
Any other ideas?
I am looking for two new little machine to do virtualized pfsense/opnsense (I don't like BSD), BIND9 DNS, kea DHCP, OpenSM, VPN Endpoint (Should be able to do at least one wireguard at full 1GBit) and maybe print server
My requirements for the hardware are a bit different, because I need an PCIe slot for a Mellanox card
Requirements:
- Small (i.e. not Desktop ATX size), energy efficient (ideally sub 10W in IDLE) and not too expensive (let's say max 500€ per machine)
- Should probably have at least 4 Cores, Coffeelake, Zen 2 or newer
- 2 PCIe slots (min. 4 lanes 3.0 + 1 lanes 2.0) OR updateable Quad NIC + 1x PCIe slot (at least 1x 2.0) - Updateable because I need SR-IOV and Virtual Functions for virtualization and the older firmware versions often have bugs
- 2x M.2 NVMe or 2x M.2 SATA
Generally, it seems to be quite difficult to find hardware that matches those requirements.
Potential candidates I have identified:
- Intel NUC 9 Extreme - Currently selling for very good prices in Germany!
Although only the model with 9750H (NUC975QNX) or 9300H (NUC9i5QNX) would work, as the i9 version seems to IDLE at 40W?
@Patrick has tested the Pro version with a 25GBe NIC and got sub-25W - Patrick, have you tested without the NIC? Can you perhaps tell us an exact number?
- Dell Optiplex 5060 / 5070 / 7060 / 7070 SFF
The Dell models seem to be very efficient, although I couldn't really find any definite numbers for the SFF models too...
They're at the upper end of what's possible regarding size of the machine, but they have the PCIe slots
The i7 models are quite rare, so it doesn't really make a difference whether it's coffee lake (5060 / 7060) or Coffee Lake Refresh (5070 / 7070). With an i7, the non-refresh generation would be better, as they have hyperthreading whereas for the refresh models, only i9 has hyperthreading
Any other ideas?
