New Build
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@johnkeates:
You cannot buy them for end-user purposes. They are not socketed and integrated on the motherboard directly.
Aha ! No wonder I wasn't able to find any. Well then in that case, if I am to build my own, the best i3/i5/i7 I would get would be with a TDP of 35W.
Looks like I should stick with Celeron J3355 or Pentium N3700 which are integrated as well, but at least you can get ITX boards instead of laptop boards of weird shapes and sizes which may or may not fit my case.
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Just go with exactly what pfBasic recommends ;)
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Just go with exactly what pfBasic recommends ;)
Oh I am going to. Was only wondering if there was an option to get a bit more grunt in the processor so that it could handle AES-256-CBC since that's what my VPN provider uses. I saw pfBasic's J3355 thread where he laid out it's performance vis-a-vis VPN and different ciphers which is why I was thinking of getting a slightly better processor, but since that would increase the TDP –leading to cooling etc. I think I am going to stick to the J3355
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For VPN get an i5. The Qotom boxes work fine with OpenVPN.
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@johnkeates:
For VPN get an i5. The Qotom boxes work fine with OpenVPN.
Nooooooooooo !!!!!
I thought I had finally made up my mind to get the J3355. Now I have to search all over again :(
I was going to build one in a 1U rack. and also wanted as low a TDP as possible. As I mentioned above, with i3/i5, the least TDP I can get would be 35W, which means I would have to fit in fans in the 1U making it difficult.
Looks like I should stop thinking about fitting it in 1U and just put a box in a rack shelf.
Starting from scratch… Thanks, but no thanks johnkeates. ;)
/justkidding
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@johnkeates:
For VPN get an i5. The Qotom boxes work fine with OpenVPN.
Nooooooooooo !!!!!
I thought I had finally made up my mind to get the J3355. Now I have to search all over again :(
I was going to build one in a 1U rack. and also wanted as low a TDP as possible. As I mentioned above, with i3/i5, the least TDP I can get would be 35W, which means I would have to fit in fans in the 1U making it difficult.
Looks like I should stop thinking about fitting it in 1U and just put a box in a rack shelf.
Starting from scratch… Thanks, but no thanks johnkeates. ;)
/justkidding
I think the TDP of those mobile i5 boxes is like sub-15W :p You could take the board out and put it in a 1U rack mount case? Oh, and it's passively cooled so there's that. But in a 1U with no fins, you might want to put a little fan running at a slow speed in there.
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What throughputs do you need for VPN? The j3355 will do quite a bit of VPN throughput. (300mbps)
I5 is a bad recommendation. I3 is better at openvpn than i5.
If you need something more powerful than a j3355 (which you probably do not), then look to a modern Pentium that is not passively cooled, not an i3 or an i5. Massive Overkill recommendations are pretty much par for the course on this forum, you have to be careful and protect your wallet.
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What throughputs do you need for VPN? The j3355 will do quite a bit of VPN throughput. (300mbps)
I5 is a bad recommendation. I3 is better at openvpn than i5.
If you need something more powerful than a j3355 (which you probably do not), then look to a modern Pentium that is not passively cooled, not an i3 or an i5. Massive Overkill recommendations are pretty much par for the course on this forum, you have to be careful and protect your wallet.
Currently my internet speed is 50Mbps, but I am planning on bumping it up to 75Mbps or 150Mbps after my current contract ends. So I will still be within the limits of J3355, I believe.
I also have options for 300Mbps, 1000Mbps and 2000Mbps, but they are prohibitively expensive right now where I live.
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What throughputs do you need for VPN? The j3355 will do quite a bit of VPN throughput. (300mbps)
I5 is a bad recommendation. I3 is better at openvpn than i5.
If you need something more powerful than a j3355 (which you probably do not), then look to a modern Pentium that is not passively cooled, not an i3 or an i5. Massive Overkill recommendations are pretty much par for the course on this forum, you have to be careful and protect your wallet.
Currently my internet speed is 50Mbps, but I am planning on bumping it up to 75Mbps or 150Mbps after my current contract ends. So I will still be within the limits of J3355, I believe.
I also have options for 300Mbps, 1000Mbps and 2000Mbps, but they are prohibitively expensive right now where I live.
I that case, the J3355 would be a good choice. Not only does it work very well, it also has the right performance for your connection. Regarding i3 vs. i5, for pure OpenVPN performance, single core speed is the most important at this time.
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As I was prowling the local craigslist last evening, here's what I found
A Supermicro server for sale
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Board: Supermicro X9SCL-F
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Chipset: Intel C202
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CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 - 8M cache, 3.3GHz, 4 cores/8 threads
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PSU: Supermicro 350W 80 PLUS Gold
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RAM: 4x4GB ECC Unbuffered RAM
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RAID: LSI MegaRAID 9260-4i 4 port SAS RAID controller
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HDD: 4x500GB Seagate Constellation
All for $200 !!! A new build with J3355 ($55+$2 shipping) + picopsu ($35) + RAM ($25) + 1U case ($45+$20 shipping) + riser card ($14) + sata to pata adapter($4) (my laptop drive that I was gonna use is IDE) would have cost me exactly $200.
I know this completely ruins my low TDP requirement and is serious overkill for what I want to do, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I am thinking of using this as my pfsense because my crummy Netgear WNR3500L just cannot handle the VPN and keeps getting disconnected.
I will still build a low power router with a J3355 a few months down the line and then convert this as my backup or a 2nd FreeNAS box.
Now comes the fun part of exploring the new machine and tinkering with it.
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That's a good find, enjoy!
In order to offset the high power usage, consider not building a standalone J3355 now that you have this box. It would just be another box to buy and feed power even if it's not much power
Use your new server as intended and virtualize as many services as you can on it! There's a subforum here dedicated to virtual pfSense setups and it works very well.
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I'd suggest virtualising pfSense as well, but running pfSense stand-alone on it wouldn't be so bad either. You can change the profiles to down clock and lower the fan speeds dramatically. A bigger server doesn't always require a baseline of 100W, it really depends on the settings. PowerD and the likes help a lot too.
If you have more services you want to run besides pfSense, and are interested in virtualisation, it is worth it to set it up. The NICs in this server are excellent.
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Ooh!!!
New things to learn. Will seriously look into virtualization and powerD etc. I might come back with a shit ton of questions. Be ready to answer them ;)
The one thing I am not sure about is the backplane on that server. It says SAS, but can't be 100% certain. I haven't been able to see the model number on the backplane.
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Ooh!!!
New things to learn. Will seriously look into virtualization and powerD etc. I might come back with a shit ton of questions. Be ready to answer them ;)
The one thing I am not sure about is the backplane on that server. It says SAS, but can't be 100% certain. I haven't been able to see the model number on the backplane.
It's probably SAS with SATA fallback support, at least, that's what the cables and part numbers so far tell me. It is totally plausible that they are using a SAS controller, SAS cables and SAS connections but a SATA-only backplane chip. The disks themselves look like SATA disks.
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The disks are definitely SATA. I pulled each one out and checked.
Will need to figure out the backplane once I get back home.
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Found the case model number: its CSE-813M ( I have updated my previous post, to provide links where I can)
However I found 2 models with the 350W gold power supply : Not sure which one I have.
https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/1U/813/SC813MT-350CB
https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/1U/813/SC813MTQ-350CB
Secondly the backplane is the Supermicro SAS815TQ, so I am assuming that my chassis is SC813MTQ-350CB, because the other one has SAS815T backplane, although I haven't found much difference between the 2 backplanes. How would I figure out if this was a SAS1 or SAS2 backplane ?
Also for the motherboard: I found 3 different X9SCLs. I am not sure what the difference is :
[Supermicro X9SCL+-F](https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C202_C204/X9SCL_-F.cfm)
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After reading through the specs of X9SCL+-F and X9SCL-F, I found the following 3 differences:
| X9SCL-F | X9SCL+-F |
| Intel 82579LM and 82574L, 2x Gigabit LAN ports | Two Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet Controllers |
| 1x DOM (Disk on Module) power connector | N/A |
| Memory Voltage – 1.5 V, 1.35V | Memory Voltage – 1.5 V |How much would these differences matter?
And if not much, then why does Supermicro build similar boards like these? There is another board X9SCL that has the same features as X9SCL-F except that X9SCL doesn't seem to have IPMI.
These boards are also quite similar to X9SCMs where they have 2 SATA3 and 4 SATA2 ports vs all 6 SATA2 in X9SCLs
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Here are the differences in Ethernet controllers: http://ark.intel.com/compare/32209,47620
it looks like one supports low power ram and the other does not.
also, one has a power header for sata doms that require them.
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Here are the differences in Ethernet controllers: http://ark.intel.com/compare/32209,47620
it looks like one supports low power ram and the other does not.
also, one has a power header for sata doms that require them.
Thanks for the Ethernet controller comparison. Looks like 82579 works at a wee bit lower TDP and price, but does not have the Sideband interface. I have the X9SCL-F which means I get one of each ethernet controller :)
Also my board would be able to support low power RAM and has the power header for the DOM. -
I have one question regarding the case I have: Supermicro CSE-813MTQ-350CB
In the specs, it mentions
SAS or enterprise SATA HDD only recommended
Why would that be? I plan to use this as a FreeNAS box and convert my existing FreeNAS box into a pfSense router. Would WD Reds or Seagate Ironwolfs be ok to put in? I am still not clear why a chassis would care about what type of HDDs are installed.
Secondly a more pfSense relevant question is :
my current FreeNAS box uses TYAN S5533GM2NR-LE as the motherboard. It has 2 intel NICs, so I can use it for pfSense, but the only problem is that I chose a Pentium G3240 as the processor back then (about 2.5 years ago). It has served me well, but since I plan on using VPN services, I was thinking of getting a CPU with AES.
I found these 3 on ebay that will fit the LGA1150 socket that the TYAN board has:-
Intel Xeon E3-1220L v3 – 1.1 GHz, ~$50, TDP 13W
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Intel Xeon E3-1230L v3 – 1.8GHz, ~$220, TDP 25W
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Intel Xeon E3-1240L v3 – 2.00 GHz, ~$180 - TDP 25W
I'd love to get the 1220L-v3, because its cheap and has the lowest TDP, but will 1.1 GHz be sufficient for openvpn? I'd rather not spend the extra $120 on the 1240L-v3, if I don't really have to.
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