Silent J1900 PFSense box eBay (4x cores and 4x intel ethernet)

[ullbeking]

I'd heard compatibility issues with usb adapters.

For home use I think you are better off getting a LGA1155 SFF unit ~$100, add a Intel dual port NIC and call it a day. Just need to make sure processor has AES-NI.

This is almost exactly what I have actually done, minus the SFF part. I got some good deals on a few SM X9 boards, and picked up the corresponding E3-1270v2 CPUs and 32 GB RAM.

One machine for NAS, another for virt host, and a few others to supplement. Even though my virt. workloads are light and the NAS has only a few users, my concern is that 32 MB is a bit short these days.

It's alll still being planned out. One of the things I will be very careful about is noise.

 

[T_Minus]

Laptops, nah... as was said you can get 1155 (Sandy / Ivy Bridge Xeon E3) for super cheap, and they're low idle power with a nice 'kick' if you need it depending on CPU choice. Much more configurations, customization YOU can do easily, more RAM/options, more CPU/options, etc... and still low power if you need them to be.

I'm really liking the Ivy E3 Xeons right now for my need, and power utilization.
High frequency, low core, low RAM, but for my projects working good.

 

[ullbeking]

Laptops, nah... as was said you can get 1155 (Sandy / Ivy Bridge Xeon E3) for super cheap, and they're low idle power with a nice 'kick' if you need it depending on CPU choice. Much more configurations, customization YOU can do easily, more RAM/options, more CPU/options, etc... and still low power if you need them to be.

I'm really liking the Ivy E3 Xeons right now for my need, and power utilization.
High frequency, low core, low RAM, but for my projects working good.

This all sounds excellent. What are some of these Ivy Bridge laptops you speak of?

My servers are running Ivy Bridge Xeons. The computational power that is available from these Ivy Bridge laptops must be incredible.

 

[T_Minus]

This all sounds excellent. What are some of these Ivy Bridge laptops you speak of?

My servers are running Ivy Bridge Xeons. The computational power that is available from these Ivy Bridge laptops must be incredible.

I said "nah" to laptops, meaning NO to laptops.

You can get 20w or less (with SSD only) on E3-1220L v2, insane compute available for the power, esp. including SSD, IPMI, etc...

Others offer low power and even more compute for same $ too.


Just depends on your needs.

I use E3-1220L V2 for my backup always on file server aka hot/live archive backup.... power saving is worth it running 24/7 and backing up more often

 

[ullbeking]

For home use I think you are better off getting a LGA1155 SFF unit ~$100, add a Intel dual port NIC and call it a day. Just need to make sure processor has AES-NI.

LGA1155 and SFF are not terms I've heard mentioned together in the same sentence. So I did a search and discovered that mni ITX LGA 1155 boards do indeed exist.

However, all the ones I found take Celeron, Pentium, and Core processors, not Xeons.

I've got a few 1155 boards that I'm using with E3-1270v2 Xeons in micro-ATX. But I don't consider this to be SFF. Do you know of any small 1155 boards (e.g., mini ITX) that take the E3-1200v2?

 

[nthu9280]

If you are looking for mini-ITX build, choices are pretty limited in the 1155 space.

May be I'm just using the terminology incorrect. But if I look at Dell / HP / Lenovo what they call SFF use micro ATX and then they have Ultra SFF without any option to add PCIe.

HP elite 8300, Dell Precision T1600, Optiplex 3010 & 7010, Lenovo M92P all are lga1155 based and you should be able to snatch good deals for a whole system including Ivy bridge i5/i7 processor.


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[ullbeking]

If you are looking for mini-ITX build, choices are pretty limited in the 1155 space.

May be I'm just using the terminology incorrect [...] you should be able to snatch good deals for a whole system including Ivy bridge i5/i7 processor.

SFF (small form factor) as far as I understand it, means mini ITX or smaller, e.g., NUC, STX, pico ITX, etc. Mini ITX is kind of the cut off point.

I've already got several LGA1155 servers arriving in the post, which I'm going to build into white boxes. Supermicro X9 uATX boards, Xeon E3-1270v2, and 32 MB RAM in each. One for virtualization host, one for primary NAS, and one for backup NAS or experimental virtualization host (haven't decided yet).

I've got the option of getting yet another three (in racks), but I feel that this would be excessive. Besides this is already old hardware. I'd be better off buying a single new box for my next machine and repurposing these ones.

I use E3-1220L V2 for my backup always on file server aka hot/live archive backup.... power saving is worth it running 24/7 and backing up more often

How are you doing this? I'm always on the lookout for simple, resilient, and testable backup strategies.

 

[Cybertron]

Not sure if I should be posting this in the non-deals area as this is not part of the deal, but if anyone can recommend a rackmount option that fits all of these items you guys are discussing, that would be stellar. I'm in need of a 1Gig WAN capable router, and I'm finding my best bet is going to be custom built / super quiet 1U low power machines. The first server that comes to mind is the Dell R210 II. I'm now regretting selling my Dell R320, that probably would have been perfect too. Any other suggestions are welcome. I'm only familiar with dell servers, but other quiet 1U's must exist out there?

 

[ullbeking]

Maybe this? mini-itx.com - store - 1U Short Depth Intel LAN Rackmount Server

 

[Cybertron]

Maybe this? mini-itx.com - store - 1U Short Depth Intel LAN Rackmount Server

Oh wow. totally forgot about that site. They have some great stuff, but far to expensive for my application. But thanks for the reminder. I can probably use their configs as a base and build something myself.

 

[realtomatoes]

so, is anyone running the J1900?

 

[BlueFox]

so, is anyone running the J1900?

I'm running pfSense on one of these: MSI Global MS-9A65

Works quite well. The CPU is quite capable even with a bunch of IPSec traffic.

 

[Nnyan]

I'm a big fan of the dell Optiplex. You can get the USFF/Micro systems pretty cheap. I have a 7010 USFF and a 7020 Micro and they are awesome for running things like OPNSense and Sophos XG/UTM.

 

[ullbeking]

Oh wow. totally forgot about that site. They have some great stuff, but far to expensive for my application. But thanks for the reminder. I can probably use their configs as a base and build something myself.

I don't think they're that expensive, and I buy a lot of mini ITX chassis and picoPSUs from them. Great service, and so helpful when you have questions about how to get a SFF idea to actually work. Highly recommended.

 

[realtomatoes]

anyone with an unused j1900?
any chance you can test sophos xg on it. tried running xg on a 4 vcpu, 6gb vm and it was hogging the resources on my esxi. wondering if a dedicated j1900 is enough compute to power an xg.

 

[ullbeking]

anyone with an unused j1900?
any chance you can test sophos xg on it.

I'm sure there are many. J9000 SFF systems are cheap and plentiful, and as more people become aware AES-NI I would expect this to be even more so.

However, consider asking on a Sophos forum instead if this is a suitable board, rather than asking a seller if they can install and test it for you.

tried running xg on a 4 vcpu, 6gb vm and it was hogging the resources on my esxi. wondering if a dedicated j1900 is enough compute to power an xg.

It's a reasonable ball park estimation. Are you trying to find the cheapest possible board that will run Sophos?

Personally, I wouldn't buy a J1900 these days, and I don't think many other people would either. They're the cheapest of the cheap with it comes to SFF boards. I'd rather get an Orange Pi or something like that and have more fun.

You could buy something MUCH better without spending too much more money, simply by choosing the already-classic Pentium G4560 with a cheap B250 motherboard. If you want even cheaper, choose the Celeron G3930 or G3950 with an appropriate board. All my recommendations have VT-x, VT-d, and AES-NI, so you're miles about the J1900 already. I think you'll get a a lot more use out of a small system like this.

 

[realtomatoes]

i don't think the OP is the seller. this is the deals section not the FS/FT section.

no, i'm not asking the seller to install and test.

if you backread the thread, you'd see a healthy discussion on what the j1900 and, yes, the other options could do and not do. asking people who may have an unused j1900 to test isn't unreasonable, as most of the folks in the forum are enthusiast and hobbyist who on their free time test these things out because they can.

 

[ullbeking]

yeah, i agree this thread got confusing and should have died pages ago.

it was established several pages ago that the j1900 is not a good investment, and i have zero interest in the j1900 anyway because it's pretty useless moving forward. that's why i tried to offer you helpful advice nonetheless, i.e., that Pentium and those Celerums have AES-NI, VT-x, AND EVEN VT-d, all of which are becoming more and more important. The range of entry-level, cheap CPUs is getting SO GOOD now, I have no idea why people are still wasting their time on things like J1900.

 

[Nnyan]

I tried running some VM's on a J1900 CPU and it wasn't pretty. I don't recall all the details but I remember that one or two very light VMs may work OK but I gave up on that pretty quickly.

 

[mstone]

With J3355 (apollo lake) boards running $50-60, there is no reason at all to look at J1900 boards anymore. If you want to use one as a firewall, pop in a dual or quad intel card.