I’m looking to finally move into a rack system as I was given a fairly large server rack that was retired equipment from a church sound setup. Anyway I was looking at maybe just getting a 1U Supermicro chasis used on ebay for cheapish. Something with a power supply. I’ve got a Cryorig C7 heatsink (i3-6100t) that’s low profile but from a quick googling it’s not going to fly with a 1u. I’m wondering if I can maybe pick up a Supermicro passive heat sink and have that work…I guess that would depend on the motherboard fitment.
Update: I ordered a 2u chasis off Amazon and also ordered this thing off the ebays
Seller cut me a deal on it. The green looks kinda cool so I figure I’ll do something with it. This also give me a good excuse to buy a drimmel tool.
Just got this guy for $40 shipped. The iPrism Web Filter from St. Bernard Software. The hardware is ancient, but the case is fantastic condition and looks really slick. Really interesting design with none of the motherboard io exposed to the outside of the case. Hopefully I can find a way to utilize the front ethernet ports in my pfsense build. It would look sharp.
I know the idea of the thread was to use the box to spice up my rack but I was thinking the hardware would be good to go for a pfsense box and a nas or minecraft server box. This would be my first time trying any of this so I was just looking for some opinions.
My internet is fiber 1gb symmetrical service, I was thinking of adding a 2 port sfp+ card into the Onesign box.
I was thinking that when I get pfsense up and running and bypass my ISP modem/router (Bell Canada Fiber 1gb service) , that I might switch to 1.5gb service.
Either way my service comes in via SFP already, so I thought I’d just pick up the dual port PCIe card, assign one as WAN the other as LAN out to my Aruba 3810m switch. That make sense??
If you haven’t gotten a 10g nic yet I’d suggest an intel x520(intel pretty much is plug and play with bsd) or a hp nc523sfp. I’ve got two of the hp nics,1 w/freenas and the other w/proxmox, and it worked OOB. they’re ~$20 shipped. But not sure of their price in CAD.
Don’t see why a ribbon style pcie extender wouldn’t work. But supermicro(and others) have risers. Basically a right angle pcie slot. I’ll get a link to one in a second.
This should work with the x9scm. It’s a x8 pcie riser. It’s specifically from super micro but should work with other boards. I found one on eBay for $10 shipped. So may have better luck on there.
can anyone report back on their experience with pfsense on any of these? Seems like dual Xeon processors are going to be power hungry for that use, so I’m guessing that most people ran with their own internals?
The HP Prodesk 400 that I recently purchased on eBay was DOA, so I’ll have about $90 to play with once I get my refund. Would REALLY like to aim for a 1u config because I’m running out of room in my 9a rack.
they take standard 2.5" drives. i’ve got a single ssd in mine. may be able to get a dual 2.5 drive carrier and add that for multiple drives but i think that would require making holes to mount it.
from personal experience, either the os201 or the qualys listed above would work just fine for pfsense. not power hungry and both already include dual nics. if you need more ports the os201 would be better since you can add a riser card and then a nic. the qualys will work but for a “standard” pfsense machine it’s way overkill. in either case should be able to find them for about $100.
I grabbed 2 of the Onesign OS201’s from eBay and got them last night. I realize now I didn’t get a shot of the the front but @adamsir2 posted it above. Just thought I would post up some extra internal shots and ask about mounting. Will I be able to mount this directly to my rack? It appears to be missing part of the rails. The weight isn’t too bad but what is the best thing to do? Picture below shows how they came, pretty sure it’s not the entire mounting rail, but is it enough?
I haven’t really pushed mine(haven’t fully setup my 10g network) but with them plugged in and doing nothing they get warmer than I’d like to touch to remove them. So yes, the posts of them being hit/“toasty” are true. I’m working on a mount for a fan either directly on the heatsink or right next to it to cool it down. From limited testing the heat the get to doesn’t seem to affect performance. Basically they work great and if you need to remove it give it a minute or two after the machine is powered off.
You can mount them directly to the rack without rails. Just make sure all the screws are in. They don’t weight much considering so they won’t sag or droop. If you want rails,easier for working on the server, if you go to supermicro a site and looks at the parts list for the cse 512 cases you’ll find the outer that mount to the rack. And then eBay. Other option would be the navepoint rails. I’ve got 4 mounted on top of each other and no issues without rails. Plus my rack is too deep to use Sm rails. At least the ones I’ve found.
