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Comment by mikepurvis | Hacker News Reader

Another popular low-cost option is to run pfSense on an old thin client. The ideal hardware is something like the HP T610+ or T620+, which even have a PCIe slot for you to add a secondary ethernet interface if you don't want to get a VLAN switch and have to do a router-on-a-stick configuration. The form factor is nice because it's quiet, a lot smaller than a full PC, it's set up for wall/VESA mounting, and you don't need to muck about with buying specialty cases as you do for MiniITX motherboards or other SBCs.

Anyway, predictably these things are being constantly cycled out and can typically be had on ebay for $100-200.

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Which is about as much as more specialized, but brand new hardware, like the PCEngines APU2.

It uses a CPU from 2014 however:

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Puma/AMD-G-Series%20GX-412TC....

Yes, but it also super compact, draws very little power and it has multiple network interfaces. It's also fanless, which makes it ideal for long running set-up-and-forget scenarios that home routers typically are.

The HP T620+ is fanless, draws very little power, and has a PCIe slot so you can run multiple network interfaces. 4 cores, 25W TDP.

  model name      : AMD GX-420CA SOC with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics

So T620+ and APU2 have otherwise same CPU (quad Jaguar cores) but T620+ runs it at 2GHz/25W and APU2 at 1GHz/6W

GX-420CA also has a GPU which GX-412TC lacks. In headless operation the difference would not be that much. For reference, I have a t620 with GX-415GA (TDP 15W) which draws 12W at the wall in a CPU load scenario.

https://www.amd.com/en/system/files?file=2017-06/g-series-so...

$150 (roughly the cost of APU2+case+power brick+16GB SSD) for a t620 would be daylight robbery. I got the non-plus variant on the secondary market for $30 delivered and it works very well, uses roughly the same CPU as APU2 as well (4-core AMD Jaguar derivative, AES-NI & AVX extensions). Power usage is 6W idle (headless), 12W full-load. UEFI is basic but functional, I can boot Linux straight from the EFI boot entry.

t620 Plus has a PCIe riser so would be better suited for a network gateway.

The Wyse equivalents from that era would be Zx0Q/Dx0Q series although I don't think they had a PCIe version.

Another interesting option is something like Fujitsu Futro S9010/S940 (4-core Goldmont, you get SHA ISA extensions which is nice), has a PCIe riser as well, but there are fewer of these on the secondary market.

I recommend this charmingly old-fashioned site for reference on old thin clients https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

This might be a silly question, but would they be able to do 1gbps routing?

I think the general consensus is that it's fine if you're just doing routing/firewall:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/8ytqqn/hp_t620_plu...

The CPU is more of a limiter if you're trying to run a VPN or something.

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