Yes, in theory all USB3 ports should be Pantone 300C blue, and labelled according to their spec. The ports do have sufficient wiring for at least gen 1 5Gbps (if you look closely at the SS ports, you’ll see the extra 5 pins right at the lip, in addition to the 4 big pins further in). Whether gen 1 5Gbps or gen 2 10Gbps is supported is then a matter of the PCH and board.
I have not tried a 10Gbps device on these ports myself, but I think it’s likely it should work.
Thanks again Sean, hopefully someone will see this post and confirm if it will indeed run 10 Gbps.
Disregard. I’m an idiot. hahaha
Hi JDM, I bought two of these, one for Plex transcoding as you suggested and one for SAB and QbTorrent. Neither one of them will power up. Am I missing something or did I just get really unlucky and have two duds shipped to me? I’m not as experienced as you, but I’m not a noob either. Very frustrating.
Did you get it fixed?
Yeah. Thanks for responding. I’m almost embarrassed how simple it was.
That said, I have a couple questions - actually a few - about making the 290 and Plex box. Should I ask in that thread?
You can ask here, if you want.
Ok. Thanks.
I apologize upfront for what are probably dumb questions. That said, I’m not a complete noob. I’ve built PCs from scratch and have configured NAS devices. I’m just don’t have Linux experience.
Here’s my questions.
Does either or both Unraid and Ubuntu replace Windows 10 or do they run side by side? If the plan is to feed the PMS running in Ubuntu it’s media from a NAS, is Unraid needed at all?
Then we get to the Linux terminal stuff. My head is spinning. If anybody is interested in helping me do this, I’d be happy to pay a consulting fee.
Thanks for this info, just what I was looking for. I don’t foresee having more than 5 cameras at the moment. I’m the proud owner of an HP 290 OPNsense box and might just pick up another one for Blue Iris. 
I’m using an Intel Optane H10, 32gb Optane with 512gb NAND. Only the 512gb of NAND is recognizable by the HP290, I believe this is because the M2 slot only has 2 lanes and the Optane H10 needs 4 lanes. So the 32gb Optane doesn’t show up at all.
The H10’s are double the M10’s on Ebay. I don’t think the M10’s would work based on the key.
I’ve opted for 128gb ssd’s (Kioxia) for $15 on ebay instead
There’s little reason to go for an optane drive unless it’s the 16GB that can be had for like $16.
I picked up an HP 290-p0043w as well as the intel optane 16gb (INTEL OPTANE 16GB M10 SOLID STATE DRIVE L08717-001 MEMPEK1J016GAH) as outlined. i have updated the bios to the latest for the 843F to F.44 revision and I still cant get the mobo to detect the intel optane . is there something I am missing that I need to also do to get this to detect the SSD? Thx.
edit: I have also disabled secure boot and enabled legacy support as well.
Hello. I have picked up my 2nd HP290. I want to use it for pfsense. Up here in Canada the ISP is offering 1.5gps fiber. Apparently they have an SFP+ module. I noticed the hp 290 has a pcie x16 slot and a pcie x1 slot, If I buy an Intel X520 T2 to take advantage of the download speed. What about the gigabit slots needed? Do I have to get an Intel quad port card with a pcie x1? Or can this be done at the 10Gb +gigabit switch?
Hey @rlk0007 -
On the PMS box, yes you’d run Ubuntu instead of Windows
Presumably your HP 290 came with Windows pre-installed on a slow 500gb hard drive; you should add a 512gb NVMe M.2 SSD (like the Sabrent Rocket Q from The Lord Almighty @JDM_WAAAT’s excellent guide to Intel Quick Sync Video hardware) and install Ubuntu + PMS on that SSD instead. And throw an 8gb stick of RAM in while you’re at it
Do you have an existing NAS you’re looking to utilize for storage (if yes, what specs?) That’ll determine whether you should be running Unraid or not on your second SAB / torrent HP 290
I’m happy to help you out and no consulting fee necessary, just pay it forward to the ServerBuilds crew and try to buy parts through their affiliate links
Hello, I currently am using a very old gaming laptop for plex with an 8tb external USB drive but its not exactly conducive. I hit 100% cpu usage and 95°c temps with max fans spinning loud af with a single audio transcode.
So I’d like to upgrade so I can actually watch half the stuff I have saved.
I have some issues: I’m limited on physical space as I live in an apartment and I would like to keep things as “all in one” as possible. Don’t really have the space to stick a bunch of 290s all over. Can I use this 290 as a plex server, with a VM for qbtorrent/vpn, and using the usb3.0 external drive for actual media?
Hey brklynmark,
Thanks so much for the reply!
Yes, they 290 came with Windows 10 pre-installed. I added 4 gb of RAM as JDM suggested and I installed a 512 NVMe. I then installed Ubuntu on it, but I didn’t install on the NVMe. Can you show me how to do that?
I’m not a complete noob, but I have never really worked with Linux so my learning curve is steep. I’m happy to pay it forward as you said, or pay you a fee. I really appreciate your help. So far all this hardware is just a paper weight because I am struggling with figuring this out.
So, I’d like to get the first 290 setup as a Plex box and the second setup as a SAB/Torrent box with radarr and sonarr. I’ve never used either but they seem like great tools.
I currently have a Qnap 251+ feeding files to a PMS on an Nvidia Shield. I also run a second PMS on the Qnap. I’ve also used a Mac mini in the past to run PMS. Anyway, my Qnap is 2 bays and right now have 8 gb Seagates, running Raid 1. I want to upgrade to a larger NAS or just get 16 gb drives for my current NAS, so I don’t run out of space anytime soon. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Let me know if I’ve given you the info you need. Again, I really appreciate this.
The Ubuntu install-loader should list the disks available where you can install. Try to reinstall with the USB disk
Hi Guys.
I have my 2nd HP 290 an installed Intel Optane Memory M10 Solid SSD M.2 2280 MEMPEK1W016GA PCIe 3.0 3D Xpoint NVMe, in the m.2 slot. For some reason my HP 290 Bios is not sensing the new NVME SSD. It just sees the 3.5HD and my attached USB with (PFsense). Any way to get the HP290 to see the NVME?
I picked up a second HP 290 for Blue Iris and I am noticing that recordings are tearing and dropping frames when alerts are triggered.
I am wondering if this is hardware limitations or if it’s something with BI itself. I am open to upgrading the CPU, memory, and hard drive, but would like to narrow down what might be causing this.
BI is running as a service. When the UI isn’t running the CPU idles at <10% and memory is at 68% with 4G RAM installed.
Any thoughts on what may be causing the bad recordings?
I have noticed the system is generally sluggish; I’m assuming this has everything to do with the slow stock drive that came with the machine.
Thanks.