Some information about HP T620 Plus Flexible Thin Client machines for network appliance builds...

[jer emy]

I am finally looking to put this hardware in my network. Will this device keep up running OpnSense and/or something like PiHole virtually and not on physical hardware (KVM)?

Internet service is only at 200Mbps which is all I need. I plan to do vlans and other fun stuff on OpnSense as well so I want to make sure I am not going to kill it if I go virtual.

Complexity doesnt bother me as most of it will be automated. What I dont know is if the hardware will keep up with what I want to do.

Appreciate the insight!

 

[weust]

I am finally looking to put this hardware in my network. Will this device keep up running OpnSense and/or something like PiHole virtually and not on physical hardware (KVM)?

Internet service is only at 200Mbps which is all I need. I plan to do vlans and other fun stuff on OpnSense as well so I want to make sure I am not going to kill it if I go virtual.

Complexity doesnt bother me as most of it will be automated. What I dont know is if the hardware will keep up with what I want to do.

Appreciate the insight!

If you keep the machine as a hypervisor, don't dump other stuff on it, it should be fine.
I run OPNsense bare metal on it for my 1Gbps fiber connection. No IDS/IPS and such, but I see about 50% CPU at max download.

 

[jer emy]

If you keep the machine as a hypervisor, don't dump other stuff on it, it should be fine.
I run OPNsense bare metal on it for my 1Gbps fiber connection. No IDS/IPS and such, but I see about 50% CPU at max download.

Great info. Sounds like I should stick with baremetal. I have other devices I can use to run my other services rPi kube cluster and an extra laptop I now have available. Was hoping to combine it all. Maybe once I get this going and settled Ill get a better piece of hardware for my home router.

Thank you!

 

[weust]

Great info. Sounds like I should stick with baremetal. I have other devices I can use to run my other services rPi kube cluster and an extra laptop I now have available. Was hoping to combine it all. Maybe once I get this going and settled Ill get a better piece of hardware for my home router.

Thank you!

I didn't say you can't? I don't do GNU/Linux if I can help it, but I have run OPNsense on ESX, Hyper-V and bhyve (FreeBSD) all just fine, with other VM's or jails on that host too.
On my main server I have several jails including a dual jail setup with NSD, void-zone-toold and Unbound to no having to run pihole.

I just prefer to run my firewall/router separate from the rest. My OPNsense doesn't even do DNS and DHCP.
That all runs in jails.

 

[jer emy]

I didn't say you can't? I don't do GNU/Linux if I can help it, but I have run OPNsense on ESX, Hyper-V and bhyve (FreeBSD) all just fine, with other VM's or jails on that host too.
On my main server I have several jails including a dual jail setup with NSD, void-zone-toold and Unbound to no having to run pihole.

I just prefer to run my firewall/router separate from the rest. My OPNsense doesn't even do DNS and DHCP.
That all runs in jails.

Thank you for the additional insight. I wasnt worried about whether it would work. I just wanted it to work well. And given you said your CPU spiked to 50% download without IDP/IDS, that scared me enough to not decide to do it.

I plan to run OpenVPN within OpnSense and will need it to at least do DHCP. Add that to multiple vlans to segregate traffic between IoT/desktop/security cams. Probably best for me to keep it on bare-metal. I have other servers if I want to do something funky.

Worse case scenario, I do it on baremetal and I find my CPU/mem/disk are barely churning? I can go virtualize it. I already have the ansible roles to do KVM/openswitch for work so I would just need to augment that a little. and make sure I have enough disk

Appreciate it!

 

[weust]

OpenVPN and DHCP should be no issue.
And keep in mind my download (and upload) are 5 times yours ;-)

Have fun.

 

[jer emy]

OpenVPN and DHCP should be no issue.
And keep in mind my download (and upload) are 5 times yours ;-)

Have fun.

Yes, I am jealous. No FIOS for me

I think the plan is to run the box as is and do some baselining with the hardware and go from there on complexity. Gives me a chance to get ansible setup with it so if I decide to upgrade the storage or whatnot, I can just run a playbook to put it all back together.

Thank you for the insight!

 

[robbo2k]

T620+ work with... NVMe Disk (SK Hynix BC501 128GB SSD M.2 2230 NVMe) in Axragon PCIe card

root@pve2:~# hdparm -tT /dev/nvme0n1
/dev/nvme0n1:
Timing cached reads: 2744 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1372.38 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1776 MB in 3.00 seconds = 591.91 MB/sec

#lspci
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: SK hynix BC501 NVMe Solid State Drive 512GB



Unfortunately, I do not have an mSata port to verify that the M.2 SATA drive in the second slot will work. Here the second drive uses the signal with a normal SATA cable, but the power supply is directly from the PCIe slot

 

[weust]

Yes, I am jealous. No FIOS for me

I think the plan is to run the box as is and do some baselining with the hardware and go from there on complexity. Gives me a chance to get ansible setup with it so if I decide to upgrade the storage or whatnot, I can just run a playbook to put it all back together.

Thank you for the insight!

Just a quick insight: downloading (Steam game update) at around 75 to 80MByte/s utilizes the CPU at around 30%.

 

[tartanpion]

Hi everyone,

I've just bought a HP T620 plus unit without the PCIE riser card.
The seller said he forgot to mention it...

I would like to know if among you there is a person who has the HP T620's PCIE riser card available?

For now my device is useless and I can’t wait to play with it like you

hoping to read a do-gooder

 

[weust]

Hi everyone,

I've just bought a HP T620 plus unit without the PCIE riser card.
The seller said he forgot to mention it...

I would like to know if among you there is a person who has the HP T620's PCIE riser card available?

For now my device is useless and I can’t wait to play with it like you

hoping to read a do-gooder

Return it and get your money back?
It's basically false advertisement if he advertises a Plus model when it's not.

 

[tartanpion]

Thank you for your reply Weust.
Indeed, It's a real "plus" model. the seller is not in IT. He didn't know what he has really sell.

Even if your advice is wise (it's seem to be a pain in t..to buy this part), i will struggle to find it.

 

[weust]

Wait, so it's a T620 Plus chassis, meaning extra wide, but doesn't have the riser card?
That is very odd. Can't imagine a T620 Plus being sold without one.
Would be pretty useless to have a expansion slot you can't use.

 

[tartanpion]

You can’t imagine how pissed I was when I opened the box

 

[Samir]

You can’t imagine how pissed I was when I opened the box

And someone out there has a nic/gpu/whatever with this riser attached and they're going to chunk it thinking 'what is this crap?'.

 

[tartanpion]

And someone out there has a nic/gpu/whatever with this riser attached and they're going to chunk it thinking 'what is this crap?'.

That's not the worst. Secretly, i'm hoping that the die of your device as this poor guy.
I know this is bad...

if someone here in this forums has this riser card. don't hesitate to contact me !!

 

[Samir]

That's not the worst. Secretly, i'm hoping that the die of your device as this poor guy.
I know this is bad...

if someone here in this forums has this riser card. don't hesitate to contact me !!

Oh wow, pretty cool you found someone that is looking to get rid of theirs for the parts. I hope he responds and you're able to buy his unit--then you're set with a host of spare parts.

 

[Khaveer]

I glandec quickly through this thread so I'm sorry if someone has already posted this and I've missed it.

The actual screw for the M.2 slot it the same spawn of satan/pain in the arse overengineered part HP used in their Z Turbo Drive cards. Using a regular screw for mounting the drive bends the drive slightly too much towards the motherboard. It's not an issue for the longer M.2 sizes, but it gets quite tricky to mount the smaller drives.

Unfortunately as the HP forum thread states those screws are pretty much unobtainium. I was lucky enough to find someone who sold the original t620 drive that went into that slot and they agreed to include the screw.

I am planning to give my t620 a break soon so I may be able to take the screw out and try to design a 3d printed replacement for it, but that will probably happen in the next 2-3 weeks.

I've attached some photos from the HP forum thread in case that ever goes down.

 

[Samir]

I glandec quickly through this thread so I'm sorry if someone has already posted this and I've missed it.

The actual screw for the M.2 slot it the same spawn of satan/pain in the arse overengineered part HP used in their Z Turbo Drive cards. Using a regular screw for mounting the drive bends the drive slightly too much towards the motherboard. It's not an issue for the longer M.2 sizes, but it gets quite tricky to mount the smaller drives.

Unfortunately as the HP forum thread states those screws are pretty much unobtainium. I was lucky enough to find someone who sold the original t620 drive that went into that slot and they agreed to include the screw.

I am planning to give my t620 a break soon so I may be able to take the screw out and try to design a 3d printed replacement for it, but that will probably happen in the next 2-3 weeks.

I've attached some photos from the HP forum thread in case that ever goes down.

If a normal screw is screwing it down too much, do you think a small nylon washer would be better to use to re-create the proper gap?

 

[Khaveer]

If a normal screw is screwing it down too much, do you think a small nylon washer would be better to use to re-create the proper gap?

Yeah, you'd probably need a couple of them depending on the thickness, but that sounds like a reasonable workaround