Dual Intel LAN NUC!

_Rogue

So after a fair bit of searching I finally found a NUC with 2 Intel nics!

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC311U93.html

I got a quote and it is only about $200 USD. I think this would make a fairly nice low power box. What do you peeps think?

$200 barebones will be closer to $265 by the time you have RAM ($39 for Kingston @ SuperBiiz) and disk (16GB m-SATA $26-$30) inside.

and I see them for $149.95EUR (which is $190) here: http://www.minipc.de/catalog/il/1864

Maybe the case is only $10, but you'll need a power supply.

In a case, with a Power supply, they're 184.00 EUR, so $234.06. Note you still need the RAM and a disk of some kind.
Now you're at $299, and, frankly, in a few months, we'll be close to that price for 4 Ethernets on a C2358 platform (which has
AES-NI and QuickAssist, and has an on-board e.MMC.

Anyway, call it 'circulating around $300' with no AES-NI. (Maybe VPN isn't important to you.)

http://ark.intel.com/products/81073/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2930-2M-Cache-up-to-2_16-GHz

stephenw10

It's interesting though. There's a lot to like about it. It's small. It has Intel NICs. It has a wide range voltage input which opens up some interesting possibilities. It's very low power, be interesting to get some real power figures for it.

Steve

@stephenw10:

It's interesting though. There's a lot to like about it. It's small. It has Intel NICs. It has a wide range voltage input which opens up some interesting possibilities. It's very low power, be interesting to get some real power figures for it.

Steve

The C2358 (RCC-VE) platform also has better Intel NICs, and for approximately the same price as that NUC, you get 4 of them, and another miniPCIe socket (with SIM support).

And then there is this: http://imgur.com/EeLBavM

It's small. It also has better Intel NICs (i350 .vs 82574L), it wants 12VDC in, and if you can't provide that, you have different problems. It's very low power. It supports AES-NI. It also lacks HDMI and audio ports (yuck on a router/firewall)

In early 2Q15, it will be available at a similar price to the PC Engines APU. (Note: it's related to the product you'll find on Netgate/ADI websites, but I'm talking about a spin.)

This is what happens when someone who knows how to engineer solutions for pfSense software shows up.

stephenw10

Nice. :)
I do like to see a wide input voltage, mostly because I have loads of laptop power supplies and I'm a cheapskate. Also though with the cost of electricity rising ever higher I'm more seriously considering a small scale solar installation. I realise that's incredibly niche and it's also somewhat just moving the power electronics to different place in the system. I'm sure Phil would be pleased. ;)

Steve

@stephenw10:

Nice. :)
I do like to see a wide input voltage, mostly because I have loads of laptop power supplies and I'm a cheapskate.

have you considered he efficiency of your setup lately?

@stephenw10:

Also though with the cost of electricity rising ever higher I'm more seriously considering a small scale solar installation. I realise that's incredibly niche and it's also somewhat just moving the power electronics to different place in the system. I'm sure Phil would be pleased. ;)

Steve

http://store.netgate.com/Production-Boards-C209.aspx

stephenw10

Yes, and yes my home box was not the most efficient. It was around 42W. It died last week though and the replacement is ~25W so that's better but still not great.
I'm torn between saving money in electrical terms and keeping old hardware out of landfill. Not necessarily rational. ;)

Steve

kejianshi

Actually, I think your choices are perfectly reasonable.

25W isn't bad. Unless electricity is crazy high price where you are, the cost benifit is in your favor.

Plus, older hardware usually works better with pfsense anyway to be honest.

Seems to me that usually when I pay premium for "bleeding edge" I'm usually just paying for bugs.

I think my old athlon is burning 45w….

I'm really really happy with my q1900dc-itx. Its working quite well on linux but I think on pfsense it would be a different story probably.

stephenw10

Gone a bit off topic here but anyway…
The real reason I'm running such hardware is for fun. My inner geek just loves to make some piece of hardware do something it was never intended to do. :)
Yes 25W is good but not great. Looks pretty bad compared to the Alix at ~5W. The cost of electricity is getting ever higher but right now the sums don't always add up. I would want to get pay back on new hardware within, say, 3 years. Seems reasonable? I could have swapped out my old box a long time ago but would it have been worth it. I'm saving ~17W, those are pretty rough figures though I'll have to actually measure the Wh over a week. That's ~150kWh a year. At 12.82p/kWh that's ~£20 a year. So actually over 3 years that would have paid off the cost of that box from Ebay. ::)

Steve

kejianshi

I'm same as you.

The only reason I built that q1900dc-itx computer is because Its remote from me and my sons are super lazy about cleaning fans in cases, psu, cpu etc. I also like that it will run directly off the DC of my solar without firing up the inverter. Very efficient.

I had an old athlon there but they let it die of dust and heat. )-:

(24 * 365 * 25)/1000 * .1282 = 28.07580

(24 * 365 * 5)/1000 * .1282 = 5.615160

The low-end C2K SoCs are 6W TDP, 10W system.

stephenw10

When I next upgrade it's not going to be driven purely by economics. It would take many years to pay off even the most frugal system. There are many other reasons I might do it though, the total and VPN throughput of that firebox is nothing special. With any luck I might need more than that soon enough.

@kejianshi:

I also like that it will run directly off the DC of my solar without firing up the inverter. Very efficient.

Nice. Care to detail your system? Are you running purely from panels and batteries or you have chargers, regulators etc?

Steve

kejianshi

It has 2 100 AMP-hour deep cycle batteries with very low internal resistance. Low loss on charging.
300 Watts of mono-crystal solar cell.

Uses a morningstar PWM charge controller.

The computer runs straight DC off the batteries.

The batteries stay at full charge. In the event of a power outage a Xantrex Prowatt Sw2000 with a quick switching relay acts as ups. It switches power fast.

The system is very old by now. I built it long ago. Even the inverter is old and thats the newest part. I originally used a modified sine wave inverter.

That never failed but a real sinewave inverter is better for inductive loads. It just keeps going.

stephenw10

@kejianshi:

The batteries stay at full charge.

So you don't run the machine after dark?
I'm just considering what size batteries and panel I might need for a 25W continuous load and how long the payback might be on such a system. The biggest problem with solar here in the UK, even in the south, is that variation between summer and winter in Wh per day is huge.

Steve

kejianshi

In hawaii I was able to run all my lights in my small apartment and only used a 100W panel.

Less light in Maryland, so I use 3.

You can size your battery, charger, inverter etc based stricly on the intended load.

You can estimate solar panel need to be around 200w to keep the battery charged.

You can add another panel if its not charging well.

Its hard to estimate your available sunlight not being there. Not knowing your available orientation to the sun. Average shading. ETC.

Knowing what you know about seasonal solar variation there, build and test it in the dead of winter. Around Dec 21st – Winter Solstice

Yes - The computer runs 24/7. It barely bothers the batteries. They recharge to full shortly after the sun is up. Its drawing maybe 13w.

I think solar is a great way to power low watt items like modem, router, switch etc. If sized properly, its far more reliable than grid power.

Pretty much guaranteed to never surge or spike or brown out if its all DC directly its especially reliable.

So thats Maryland.

Where I am now, in Manila, there is 4x as much solar radiation and electricity is 2.5x higher than USA prices.

This is what we call a "no brainer". I will build something here big enough to power the house completely.

Supermule

Links to hardware?

phil.davis

@stephenw10:

Nice. :)
I do like to see a wide input voltage, mostly because I have loads of laptop power supplies and I'm a cheapskate. Also though with the cost of electricity rising ever higher I'm more seriously considering a small scale solar installation. I realise that's incredibly niche and it's also somewhat just moving the power electronics to different place in the system. I'm sure Phil would be pleased. ;)

Steve

Yes, Phil is pleased and happy that this niche is becoming more popular. My bigger offices would do well with 4-port devices so we can have 2 WAN/ISP connections and have 2 LAN (e.g. office LAN and guest WiFi system) without also having to add a VLAN switch. But want 12V DC and low-power to run from solar as much as possible.The links from gonzopancho look promising. It will be interesting to know what power the production boards use at or close to idle (which is most of the time) and when doing some real work, and also if they officially can take wide-range DC input (e.g. 10/11-15/16VDC) to connect directly to batteries that are being charged and discharged during day and night.
Outside of Kathmandu we have to beg to get a 2Mbps link, so bandwidth/throughput/processing power is not our problem any time soon!

kejianshi

The q1900dc-itx is a nice computer. I run it as the main linux machine for the house supporting samba shares, printer sharing, and as the media (Movies, music, pandora, hulu, netflix) machine that is hooked up to a large TV. It simultaneously runs windows inside a VM to support a legacy printer/scanner. It accepts voltage from 9v - 19v DC with a common barrel plug. I don't think phil.davis would want to use it as his router, but I assume he also needs real computers? Its super low power and no fans to fail. Mine runs super cool. Around 27c for the mobo and 38 for the CPU.

As far as the computer, http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC311U93.html

I like it OK. Good enough for pfsense. I like the HDMI ports because I prefer full installs with regular monitors and keyboards, mouse, etc.
Abit pricey for my uses and not as fast as my current board but power use is lower so if you are on a power budget, might be nice.

Abit pricey for my uses and not as fast as my current board but power use is lower so if you are on a power budget, might be nice.

Yes, more expensive, no AES-NI, and higher power than other solutions.

But pfSense runs on it, so you can do what you like!

Howdy All:
I was eyeballing an older Intel NUC –DCCP847DYE--Rather cheap at $150
Only one LAN but it has 2 mini-pci-e. One full and one half sized slot.
I want to build a nice low power pfSense MIFI and with 2 slots this will work.Half sized -Atheros/Full Sierra

Q: Any other NUC's offer 2 mini PCIe slots in any form??
I see the DC3217IYE as well but both are last generation QS77 and that one is more.
Thanks Frank