Some Off-Label Uses for Small Form Factor Machines
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- čas přidán 12. 04. 2023
- Router and Servers and Wendell oh my! We're taking it back to the beginning, and then looking at off-label uses for cases and small form factor computers, like the UM 450!
EnGenius EWS357-FIT
www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLY1PGL8/...
3D Print Adapter Design: forum.level1techs.com/t/3d-pr...
UM 450
US: bit.ly/3i58Wq8
EU: bit.ly/3jPqk2z
Check out our other videos on small form factor pcs
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Intro and Outro Music: "Earth Bound" by Slynk
Other Music: "Lively" & "FollowHer" by Zeeky Beats
Edited by Autumn - Věda a technologie
I love the idea that Wendell brings random SFF computers to hand out at conventions. I’d heard he travels heavy on the news, but this really puts that into context.
I would make wendell my best friend if he did that
After watching your Forbidden router series I tuned a Dell Wyse 7030 into a great little router - Added some RAM and an M.2 Ethernet adapted and installed pfsense. Around £50 ($70) all-in. Also, yes, my LGWebOS TV tries to call home so much! (need another old terminal to make a media box to replace the smart-tv functionality)
Linus Tech just released a video on media boxes (TV boxes from Chyna).
Hi Wendel,
As usual, great and perfectly timed video!
I'm glad you received my telepathic request.
I indeed loged in as installer 3 days ago on a "fanlessed" home made 1U appliance fitted with a X710 because my ISP as a new 8Gbps offer...
I'll definitely touch base on the forum!
Keep up the great work.
Even more magical, Floatplane had about 14 days of precognition with your telepathic request x)
Make sure to print that part with something more heat resistant than PLA. PLA will warp due to heat.
I've found that it depends on the geometry of the part. I printed a wall-mounted stepladder hook in PLA, and it's been in an outdoor closet that hits >110F in the summer and has been fine. Of course, it's big, has a lot of walls, high infill, etc. ABS, ASA, or PA-CF would be preferable.
I've been using a Zotac Zbox CI331 nano as my OPNsense box for years now! It comes with two 1g ports and fits a 2.5 drive for storage. Scoots along without breaking a sweat.
Can confirm the X540 is really toasty... Touched it with my finger once without any airflow blowing over it and have been regretting that decision since lol... But I bought it for less than 10 USD so can't really complain...
(queue "Fire Starter")
I used a 1L ThinkCentre M900 (MFF; $75) with the Realtek 2.5Gb NIC replacing the third (optional) DP out, installed pFSense and latest FreeBSD realtek driver module. Great low wattage firewall. I also use an HP Prodesk SFF running Proxmox for Home Assistant, Bluetooth and SDR radio devices... I can tell you my neighbour's tire pressures 🙂
how does the tire pressure thing work?
@@dfgdfg_ Modern cars have tire pressure monitors which feed into the dashboard indicators. The sensor is in the rim and since you can't run a wire across the wheel spindle they transmit wirelessly. AFAIK the transmit power is usually pretty low but if the SDR has a sensitive antenna it should pick it up.
@@eDoc2020 thanks. Are they powered wirelessly?
@@dfgdfg_ I think most have batteries but some are surely powered wirelessly.
There newer gen firewalls on Aliexpress with 6 2.5 Intel ports and 12th gen low power U series CPUs. Picked one up and it's great.
Only catch is no ECC RAM and if you're doing lots of threads they usually only have 2 P cores and a few E cores.
Check out the Gowin R86S. They're bringing out a new version later in April, 3x i226V 2.5Gb nics + 2x SFP+ ports up to 10Gb.
@dfgdfg Holy heck that's a neat little box. If I had the infra to justify it, I'd snap that up immediately.
They look appealing but I'm staying away from Chinese companies for anything network related because of obvious security concerns. Call me prejudiced but due to various events in the past I think it's justified.
@@-eMpTy- The only event I can think of off the top of my head was the Supermicro thing and that was found to be wrong.
Me too! Awesome mini PC with n5015 cpu, 6 2.5GbE running Proxmox with pfsense virtualized, uptime kuma, Adguard home, Home Assistant all in one small box
I am starting to have your addiction to miniPCs
I just bought a used Thinkcentre M73 for $41 and turned it into a full on emulation station running Batocera. It's pretty friggin great, I love little small formfactor systems. I bought another one for $31 just yesterday to do another one for another room :D
The little thing has everything I need, Bluetooth, Wifi, 1 SATA connection for a single super cheap SSD. I'm thinking I might turn the second one into a docker machine.
That's what I did with mine. Turned it into an emulation machine + little small HTPC. I've got a small Lenovo Tiny I believe 6th or 8th Gen Intel CPU. 16GB RAM runs fantastic for emulation needs and mirroring Plex to my TV
I got tired of my smart tvs always having issues so I got a couple of the Lenovo tiny 6700 i7s for less than 50 bucks a piece and put tiny 11 on them. Work great for streaming everything, playing my Plex movies, and also let me connect to my main gaining PC and steam that to my 4k TV with surround sound.
@@jasonbernal9348 Tiny 11 sounds like a great idea for my next next box when I finally get around to replacing my Roku.
@@zushiba I also use one of them as a recording device for my playon home subscription.
@@zushiba watch christitustechs video about tiny 11.
Nice, I am looking forward to this series. funny how I'm building this kind of thing as of late. I think I will get into the forum more and post builds n' mods.
Thanks for another fantastic video!
I love off-label uses!
I LOVE these videos Wendel !
looking good Wendell
Set one up for my dad to add smart functionality to his TV using an HP mini, Kodi and an old X-Box controller.
A lot snappier on the menus than an actual smart TV, which he was finding really frustrating.
Thank you, Wendell...🇺🇸 😎👍☕
I don't care about Internet speeds, the local speed is the thing. that's what the 10G Nic is for.
Your 3d print looks bad and you should feel bad!... kidding, its a great use of rapid prototyping, being able to knock out a replacement case panel with a hole for a NIC. love these videos! keep making more homelab DIY stuff.
Where are the 10G versions m.2 nics? This would be an awesome sub for my tiny/mini/micro servers and routers
I bought a couple of SFF computers from eWaste last year to use for my CCTV camera DVR, plus one spare. They are a bit slow recording 6 cameras even to an SSD drive.
That cramped space issue is why it's a real shame there is no standard ITX motherboard with those mobile chips.
I have a Minisforum TH50 that I'm getting ready to put pFsense on... and they now have the NAB6!
One of my customers accepts e-waste and is perpetually swimming in 5 year old Dell Optiplexes (every form factor). They are real tanks and I use them for all sorts of things. Whenever possible I run them off USB drives and network storage so if there is a failure or when newer hardware comes along I can swap quickly.
If I had friends I could host services for I'd definitely do more homelabbing stuff, but every time I think about a stronger secondary server and a powerful network I figure that money can just go into the "just buy a beefy workstation with all the toys included" basket
Hats for all the old USFF boxes from HP, Dell and Lenovo would be really cool as well. It would also be nice if all the modern USFF manufacturers could agree on a screw pattern like vesa or ITX. Then you could start building micro towers! I would love one with a UPS, network switch and a wireless access point. Maybe even a micro nas hat for 4x nvme, or 8x?
We love Wendell
Been looking for new workstations for my colleagues and was doing research on MinisForum and now this video... Who's chasing who I wonder? :D
Hey Wendell, I am still using an old OCZ REVODRIVE 3 480GB PCIe X4 drive. It's massive card, but reliable, since it's all SLC. It's my main PC's boot drive. Lucked out when I got it in a PC that I bought on the cheap! Those things cost about #1,600USD when new!
Going to do what you showed in the video means you also have to upgrade your switch and network cards in your PC(s) to 2.5 Gigabit as well to get most out of it.
I managed to buy a HP prodesk mini with an i5-8500t in it for under 100 dollars, and a prodesk sff with an i5-6500 for a little bit more. The SFF one has PCIE lanes available, so a plugged a nice two port network card into it.
It is now my Firewall running openBSD
Well as an offlabel use, and a dad to 7 kids, network demands are pritty large, so every room has a SFF pc with a 10gig hardwire connection and provides wifi and wired points for consoles, and lights, and mesh's blah blah blah, and you might thing thats overkill, but a SFF pc with 10Gig connections and multiple 2.5 gig ports are actually cheaper than a box of cable connectors and the hours of wiring. 1 cable per room, hundreds of devices per room. There also good as file servers, firewalls, all out routers, wifi access points, and streaming vast ammounts of media
There just incredibly flexible, but its important to spec it right!
Our AT&T fiber gateway/router thing is surprisingly non-junk. Still using a switch for 10G / 2.5G home networking though. Also 10gb SFP+ in a Jonsbo N1 is fun lol.
Not only are the components from ISPs terrible, but they charge you an arm and a leg to rent the equipment from them. I replaced my router/wifi combo with a decent Asus router and an access point, and it pays for itself after less than 3 years.
More 3d printed stuff please!
Speaking of e-waste - look for older fortimail appliances, 1u ~4 nics - rip out the usb boot, and you have a 1u server ;).
Those new Alder Lake machines (BeeLink and similar) look amazing. I wish they were DDR4 to save some money, but they still look affordable, many with a 2.5 gigabit NIC. The AMD 8-core APU ( I think it is 6800 or 6900) looks pretty cool, but too expensive. I with they did a six core with RDNA graphics for a decent price (16gb RAM, 500gb NVME and a SATA port for bulk storage using an inexpensive 2.5" ssd). That is a machine that many of us would buy (I set someone up with a 4600U and the Vega graphics were shockingly good for an inexpensive min-PC) .
You know, i've gont some of those Lenovo M75 Q gen 1 and Gen2 (zen+ and Zen2 based) they have an internal wifi card, but they also have these removable plates on the back that look like they're just a 1/2 height PCIE slots without the little arm for the screw to go though, I wonder how easy it would be to modify a dual port passthrough slot, or even get a dual port card, and then run an adapter from M.2 to normal PCIe.
**Heck** there are pin-outs on the M75Q Gen2 for a full 16x PCIe slot(or maybe it was 8x), i wonder if those could be populated and someone were to make a right angle adapter so you could fit a dual port 40G card in there, cooling would be an issue though.
I have that AT&T router at home, and it is doing a 10GbE link to my Juniper EX4300 without modification. It doesn't make it *good* but hey, 10GbE equipment works
2nd gen base model i3-2100 can still route 5gbit connection just fine, assuming your IP leasing method is not PPPoE.
Be careful with that Intel 320 SATA SSD. There’s an unfixed firmware bug causing the models to lose all their data and remain unusable until you perform a Secure Erase operation on them. Was personally affected, one time it happened during a system power cycle, the other instance during normal OS operation, it didn’t crash the OS since it was used as a non-OS drive and you could see in the logs how the drive “just” vanished.
I know these projects likely aren’t built for something super-critical but I wouldn’t use a piece of hardware that is known to f you over even in situations where it’s not a complete sudden hardware failure.
I'm curious, is there any secret way to fix them? I have a Seagate 7200.10 (IIRC) drive which succumbed to a bug which basically bricks it. But there is a trick involving removing the circuit board and accessing a debug port which I was able to use to revive it.
Alternatively don't store anything important and keep backups.
Intel did never publicly disclose the cause for the issue. One hypothesis was a faulty capacitor, they even replaced them on RMA’d customers’ SSDs but the issue came back eventually.
After seeing this I ordered a $20 2.5G NIC for my Protectli VP2410 router and will convert it to a forbidden router. I figured it wouldn't hurt to see if I can add it as a 2.5G WAN then use Proxmox + passthrough 4 ports to an IPFire VM with the last 1G port being a bridged management port. Then I'll run a bunch of little LXC container services. I finally have an excuse to move away from pfSense. If it doesn't work then I'll use it to upgrade my computer. Thanks for the idea Wendell!
Good video, since you are using Engeniuse Ap's why not get an Engeniuse 2.5gbe switch too ? Then connect it to the 2.5gbe port on the firewall :)
My firewall is a 1U with R5 Pro 4650GE, i had planned to turn it into a steamcache machine but never got around to it, still only draws like 10w under full multi-giga network load
I have a 2u 1700 system that I currently use as an automated backup to my main nas server, but I could some nics in it and make it my router too... This is why I love coming here, you always get my mind going!
@@jasonbernal9348 Speaking of getting your mind going, my other comment was about how the Lenovo M75Q Gen2 has what looks like pin-outs for a 16x PCIe slot, and there is a removable plate that may fit a half height PCIe face plate. dual 40G networking in the near future anyone?
didnt know there was new firmware for the x550, going to check that out now
it's relatively hard to track down SLC sata ssd now. the seller pages advertise 3D and TLC and quad or what not because they sound impressive and marketable but average people don't know the advantage of SLC so you can't have that information easily on the store pages.
If there is a new SLC drive for sale it will definitely be marketed as such. But SLC drives have always been pretty rare so outside of high-end enterprise drives you probably won't find any.
8:49 I thought Intel 320 ssd was MLC and not SLC ?
Do any of these mini PC's have lights out management ? so it can run headless.
My sff is the smarts for my TV.
I LOL'd at the ghost/out of focus moment. Imagine the ghost is like "why is this guy constantly trying to teach me about technology" lmao
Know of any way to communicate to the ghost to not walk in front of the camera? This isn't the first time it's happened. ~Editor Autumn
I have a liberated optiplex sff 5070 running unraid. There isn't a single 1511 socket motherboard that has the features of this around anymore that doesn't come with mash potato'd pins or some other issues. I use a usb c 5 bay terramaster and shoved so much ssd and noctua inside it. If I get another one I'll def use it for a router. An option for USB people is getting a usb pendrive style m.2 enclosure they run sata m.2 usually but I used one on pi's and as a ventoy/toolbox device.
What type of keyboard is that on your desk? I need that!!!!
Very nice! I'm in the process of switching my router to something more powerful that can handle VPN connection.
Just one thing ... AliExpress is flooded with mini PCs that have 4 built in 2.5Gbps ports. Some even have Intel 226. And they come with all kinds of CPUs for any budget and purpose. And they start at 130$. And there are units with multiple M.2 and SATA ports. And can be fitted with WiFi.
So my idea is to get one of those with something like N300 CPU, install something like Arch, create a router VM with NICs passthrough and use the rest for backup/file/media server. Hell, with a 42$ CEC adapter, it can be a perfect Kodi machine. In my case, it will be 1 box that replaces 3 and does everything better.
Really surprised (in a not so good way) with this unit choice ...
I bought a no-name mini-PC from Amazon with the Intel J4125 CPU and 4x 2.5g NICs; I'm running OPNsense on it directly. I did the virtualized router thing a few years ago on my NAS and ran away from it pretty quick. It was too much of a pain when I had to do maintenance on the NAS.
@@TommyPeel what kind of a pain you are talking about? Prefer to consider my life choices before the pain :)
My plan is to have the router VM on a separated disk so it can be moved quickly to any other device in case of some kind of disaster.
Do you have any model numbers for the ones with N300 and i226v NICs please?
Could you do a video setting up dual internet connections for people out in the sticks still having to use adsl connections still 😤😤
I bought from AliExpress Awesome mini PC with n5015 cpu, 6 2.5GbE running Proxmox with pfsense virtualized, uptime kuma, Adguard home, Home Assistant all in one small box
Wendall!
I turned a refurbished sff Dell Optiplex into a blu ray ripper / player recently.
I sort of accidentally ordered some fanless industrial thingie off aliexpress recently...it has four 2.5gbit ports on the likely buggy i-226 controller and runs an intel i3-n305 cpu...probably comes with malware and stuff but I was hoping I could maybe run some pfsense or opensense or similar, maybe in proxmox...I don't know much about any of this stuff yet except the words.
Still think M720q/M920q is a better option. With PCIe x8 option and cheaper than the M920X/P330.
I hear a lot of bad things about the reliability of i225v though, and I've had a rlt8125b just kick the bucket with an internal dead short.
Woot!
So almost all SFP+ 10bT gbics support 5gb. I’ve been using the ATT 5gb port for 4 years in various Mikrotik boxes with router OS. Best performance I’ve seen was about 1.1gbit back when I was the only person with it. Now it’s pretty lame, most days I’m lucky to get 650gb. I do like that the fiber option is 1g up and down.
The Intel NICs are only able to do offload for certain scenarios, if you can get away with the setup the work with sure.
I gave up fighting with a X710 and 82599ES that seem to refuse to pass vlans to a bridge interface when bonded (vlan works directly off of interface and bridge receives untagged packets fine). I have turned off every offload feature I could find. Some solutions demand Intel hardware but my experience is those are some of our worst performing kit so I have come to assume if its demanding Intel NICs / offload then the software isn't properly optimized).
Hey, any chance you can do a video about dual actuator HDDs like the Seagate Exos 2x18? I have a lot of questions that I've not had a lot of luck finding answers to. An 18TB enterprise HDD that is faster than a mid tier SATA SSD is appealing.
I had imagined they could make dual actuator drives but I didn't know they actually do that now. Unfortunately I looked it up and it's two independently addressable 9TB units. So basically two smaller drives sharing a spindle motor, not as exciting as I hoped.
@@eDoc2020 If you buy the SATA variants it's just one drive. It only shows up as two addressable units if you get the SAS drives. But, I still am not sure if it just works, or if there is more to it.
Where do you find the old tech to reuse? You said corporate surplus but I can't find if that's a specific company or if you just search for companies going out of business or something
Either eBay or a local computer recycler. The eBay sellers typically get their equipment from a local shop.
Other option is government auctions but you have to buy a pallet of hardware at times and resell the stuff you don't use/need. More work but you can break even or even turn a slight profit.
I225/6 v3 carda are fine for 2 5gbe. Use 10gbe for the network
Here in Australia fastest speeds we have is 1000/50
Internetspeed 1 GBit/s or more...ok, I'll make a reminder to watch the video in 10 years 😛
Bookmark
But Wendell my X550-T2 is all I have, it's my lifeline who would I be without it?!
So why this device was only one ethernet port when there are atom minis with two or more 2.5 or five gig nics that can be had for under $200 shipped?
I don't use old small form factor machines, but I have a backup server based on the internals of a 2003 HP d530 SFF. It has a Pentium 4 HT (3.0GHz); 1GB DDR and 4 leftover HDDs (2x IDE 3.5" 250+320GB and 2x SATA-1 2.5" 320+320GB). It is in a Compaq Evo Tower with a Win 98SE activation sticker. It runs FreeBSD 13.1 on OpenZFS. My network is 1 Gbps, but I only reach ~200 Mbps (ZFS send | ssh receive) due to a 95% load on one CPU thread :(
If you keep stuff, you can reuse it some day even after 20 years :)
Man thats cool!
Especially the FreeBSD thing.
Sadly with high european power prices spending money to get more energy efficient ARM based hardware is just worth it so much more in the long run for me :/
Is there any possibility of this going for 10gbit? Or any similar setup with similar form factor that could handle 10gbit?
I think there are M.2 10gig cards, so the second port should be capable of this.
Can I run Pfsense in vm? I want to upgrade from my old Chinese apu system
Why didn’t you mention the GK41, TH50, or Beelink EQ12? The last two are dual 2.5G.
Those don’t require any extra hardware.
DO NOT get cards or even mainboards with the early versions of the Intel i225-v controller. They can cause massive problems, even with the latest drivers. V3 might be fine - tho I haven't tested it personally.
Do we have a SFF that can stop video ghosts?!
Using a different 6E wifi ap from engenus myself and been really happy with it. Get about 2x the throughout of my previous ubiquity ac ap. Couldn't be much happier.
Been using OpnSense on a N6005 box with 4x 2.5gb adapters. My uplink is only 1GB though, it's been doing great and sips power.
Can you still run the NVME with that other network card?
It does not look like. Just look it up. Google is your friend you shall find an answer.
Me in Germany, sitting on 100/30 VDSL: Mhm, interesting...
speaking of things that freak out if you block them at the firewall, AMD video card software...
How do you find corporate surplus?
Easiest way is eBay.
Where can I get that gigabit internet? Somewhere over the ocean? Sadly in my area 50mbit is top notch performance….
Is that Australia?
@@repairman2be250 no, a small town in Germany near the edge of the world disk. 1 step to far and you drop off the into abyss.
How do you use this with fiber internet?
You still need a modem.
100 Mb is a stretch goal in the country that invented wifi… go NBN
The UM450's not available in the UK but there are other options with dual gigabit or 1 x 1gbe and 1 x 2.5gbe (yeah, weird combination) available from Minisforum for those that don't need more than gigabit routing on the WAN side. Also, that 3D print is ugly as and having the ethernet port on the outside of the case is just asking for trouble especially if you have kids. Oh, and I don't know anyone with a 3D printer 😢
"The Stuff that your ISP gives you is Junk"
Yes, but not my ISP ;) They give you nothing, or they sell you for cheap the right transceivers (1GBit, 10GBit, 25GBit), and a Media converter. They also sell some Mikrotik Routers, but you can use what ever you want, as long as it is compatible, obviously.
Honestly, this is just silly. Not repurposing ewaste sff Dells (which I wholly support), but buying a $400 box that you then have to hack together to get 2.5G LAN. Qotom makes fanless boxes with 5x2.5G Intel NICs for under $200, and they're perfectly competent for single-platform IPS/IDS, OpenVPN concentration, and firewall.
Probably sponsored by minisforum
Can confirm Samsung TVs really like phoning home... Definitely block it and use a Chromecast/AppleTV/Shield/HTPC
I always thought it would be cool to build a dual-node, all-in-one box (router, storage, VMs) with something like Proxmox's HA Cluster.
Too Smooth brain to undertsand the Nity gritty but apreciate the explanation.
lol, $20-30. These are $100-$300 in Australia.
Dear Level One.
I am depressed and have decided to write inline-assembly.
Please help//
oh, im on the wrong video for that speed i would have to give them a liver.... AU here, still on 250mbps
"A lot of these ISP offer greater than gigabit speeds"
*cries in German*
Australia is lagging behind I think on those speeds. If available will cost an arm and a leg.
don't mention the speeds we have computers with 100mbit/s at work >< 100...I don 't think I have anything that slow not even my usb keys
I don't like the latest WiFi 5 and 6 devices, I have recently added an extra WiFi router to my network because my ISP's router only has the older 2.6GHz connection but when I have my devices connected to the older WiFi 2.6GHz instead of the 5GHz I never get disconnected without any reason and when I have the same devices connected to the 5GHz network I get disconnected from the network way too often and there's nothing I can do about it because it's too congested with too many WiFi networks around that's what I think is the reason of the 5GHz WiFi getting disconnected all the time. It's just way too unreliable to my honest opinion.
You're not allowed to wear that shirt anymore 🤣🤣, It's messing with the Camera, like lines on a monitor. 😛😛
You say, "... at corporate surplus..." as if it were a known company/entity/store, somewhere that we should all know about. Mr. Google thinks that "corporate surplus" is an idea, not a place. Please clarify.