@pjsayers.anotherit do you have any models in mind that I could look into?
Supermicro seems to be going big data and big AI boxes, they don’t seem to have the selection they once did for smaller 1u servers… You’re going to have to build your own config by the looks of things.
You might start with this chassis and build upwards:
There are several X11, X12, and X13 main boards that claim to have the correct form factor (E-ATX) and all of them take an Intel Scalable processor which is going to add a bit of cost and probably give you more CPU than you need.
I’d guess that going this direction, you will end up at $2000usd or more by the time you are done. With current pricing, the Netgate and OPNsense hardware is looking better every day. I was hoping to buy a DEC2770 this budget year, but it looks like it got cut. I was also needing to buy some new storage servers, but again looks like those were cut too.
You may need to look into used/recertified servers to keep the cost down, just about every country has some businesses that do this, often only a year old on some stuff. I have a few we bought this way that are almost 10 years old, no problems aside from one that has a BIOS reboot issue, cold boot and it works. But that one is out of production now so not a big deal anymore.
Chassis looks good, but it starts at $500… 
I looked at other SM options with a front IO - wouldn’t CSE-505-203B be a good options as well?
(assuming a mini-itx suitable board exists)
That’s the problem with their new site, I didn’t see that in the search. I think I have that one with an Atom 27xx processor that was my old firewall. I think they still offer an Atom 3xxx processor that should be able to do 10gbps. But again, I bet you end up over $1000usd with just about any of their choices.
What if I give up on the 2 drives?
I haven’t used that device specifically. I wouldn’t know about performance and throughput. I’m not sure about the price of that device either.
I’d hate to say that is ok to do when I haven’t ran it through its paces.
Does it have to be new?
SUPERMICRO CSE-512 1U mini chassis E3-1220 V3 4gb ram no
I have a device similar to this, with E3-1230 v6 CPU and 64 GB RAM.
You can add 2x SATA devices, 1 Nvme, with PCI-E, and even some SFP+ (2 or 4 port card). You can upgrade the RAM to 64 GB.
this looks like a really nice option, but it has the IO in the back, right?
Yes, but I think Supermicro has some purpose-built devices that has the port at the front.
LINK or LINK
Something like this, maybe from the older generation or without the motherboard.
You should look for SYS-50XX-F (50 is the cheaper, compact series, F is from facing)
exactly!
I see 2 downsides:
- no dual disk
- hard (to impossible) to expand in the future…
I will bring up this one again for two reasons. You mentioned not being able to find it on ebay:
Also, I was having some difficulty with the realtek NICs on this board and the BSD kernel. I tried both OPNsense and pfSense, and would have random drops. I have since decided to run Proxmox on this and it has made an absolute world of difference. I loaded up the actual Realtek driver using the DKMS process and it works perfectly. Rock solid. Also, I have virtualized pfSense in Proxmox and it is running much cooler. The CPU on this board is a 8 core/16 thread CPU, and the board does support ECC memory. So I have given pfSense six cores (a bit of overkill, but whatever) and it runs great even with pfblockerNG and Suricata enabled. In Proxmox, I have to LXC containers running: one with cloudflared for my Cloudflare tunnels and one for Crowdsec. I also have a Debian 13 VM set up as a docker host, and I am running Pi Hole, Uptime Kuma, Librespeed, Nginx Proxy manager, Vaultwarden and Watchtower in docker containers. I have turned this into a sort of “edge” server for my homelab, and put everything that I think would benefit from being on the same host as pfSense onto this device. I have to say I am super happy with the setup. I am sure you could put this board into a 1U chassis, but you will likely need a better cpu cooler than the one it comes with as well as you will need to ensure good airflow in a 1U case. Even with the shipping from Los Angeles, I bet you can stay within your $300-$400 budget.
1 Like