Starting a new hardware build (on the cheap)

[dwasifar]

For few years I've been using repurposed Watchguard XTM5 boxes, first with pfSense and then switched to OPNsense about two years ago.  I did upgrade the Watchguard processor from a Celeron to a Pentium, but lately I'm feeling like the hardware is bottlenecking my connection.  I'm actually not sure if an upgrade will help; it may be that just owning a three-letter domain makes me so much of a target that the internet connection is getting saturated with attempts.  But I'm going to try a hardware upgrade anyway.

I'm doing this on the cheap, with a mix of used and new pieces, and I'm waiting for the final part to arrive tomorrow.  The components are:

• SuperMicro X8SIE-LN4F ATX motherboard
• Xeon X3460
• 12GB DDR3
• Crucial SSD
• iStar 2U rack case
• Antec 450W supply

The motherboard has four gigabit ports and came loaded with the CPU and RAM for $51 with tax.  The SSD is nearly new, has only been in service in the Watchguard for a couple of months.  The supply came from a previous build, sitting in my parts closet.  I was hoping to use the case I pulled the supply from, but the SuperMicro board won't fit in it, so I had to order the iStar case, and an I/O shield which I didn't notice was missing from the eBay listing for the motherboard.

The case is the last thing I'm waiting for, so the build will begin tomorrow when it arrives.  I'll post pictures.

[banym]

Have fun with your new build and keep us up to date if everything works fine :-)

[dwasifar]

Pictures, I have pictures!

Here is the case right out of the box.  It's heavy and robust.






Here's the inside layout.  This case takes ATX-format motherboards.  It allows for expansion cards set horizontally on a riser, which I won't need right now.  It uses a standard desktop/laptop power supply, mounted in the front part of the case, with an extension cable to bring the power connection to the back panel.  You'll see as we go.




Here's the loaded motherboard, exactly as it came from the eBay seller.  Nice and clean, which is a bonus.  The case conveniently included a little bag of screws and standoffs, which you see in the little bowl.  The pencil is to mark the places that need standoffs, by marking through the mounting holes in the motherboard.




Standoffs installed.




New I/O shield.




Motherboard test fit looks good.




This is how the power supply goes in.  The "back" of the supply vents out the front panel of the case.  Look close and you can see the extension cable plugged in; it runs to the back of the case.




Roughed-in cable routing.  I installed an optical drive in case I needed it for installation.  I didn't, and I'll probably remove it later.  The SSD is under the optical drive.  It's not the final SSD; that's still in the Watchguard.  It was a backup copy of that.  I was curious if it would just run when installed in the new hardware, or whether I'd have to do a clean install.




Always a good idea to replace the CMOS battery when repurposing old hardware.




It lives!




And the Watchguard's backup drive did, in fact, Just Run on the new hardware.  Crummy picture because the OPNsense screen washed everything out, but you get the idea.




Final cable routing, and support struts reinstalled.  Installing the SSD under the optical drive left the HDD cage empty, so I tied up all the extra power supply connectors there. 




I put it in production use, upgraded to 20.7, and applied a backup from the Watchguard. It appears to be 100% functional.  I'll let it "burn in" (if you can say that about a probably 9-year-old motherboard) and if it's stable in a week I'll yank the SSD from the Watchguard and swap it in. 

This seems overengineered, doesn't it?    But it's basically just because of the massive case.  One thing I've noticed about the case is that the lip at the bottom of the back panel makes it hard to get your finger underneath to unclip a network cable.  I might switch to using the other two ports.

That's it.  Comments are welcome, even if it's just to poke fun at this giant firewall.

[dwasifar]

One hiccup.

On first startup, the BIOS said it couldn't read the SATA0 SMART information, press F1 to continue.  I can't have it requiring a keypress to start up every time.  So I disabled SMART in BIOS for that drive, and that got past the problem.

I already had smartmontools installed in OPNsense, so after everything was all stable I ran a SMART test; it said drive I/O error.  Ruh-roh!  Fortunately this was only the development drive, a Kingston SSD; I had planned to swap in the newish Crucial SSD from the Watchguard next week, so instead I just went ahead and swapped it in right away.  Removed the optical drive while I was in there.

The Crucial SSD worked, but smartmontools also couldn't read it; it reported SMART was disabled.  So I re-enabled SMART in BIOS and everything was fine after that.  No "F1 to continue" from the BIOS.

I've never had to enable SMART in BIOS to make it work before.  My understanding was that the BIOS SMART setting is just so the BIOS itself will watch the drive, not to provide or deny SMART access to the OS. 

Checking the Kingston SSD on another system, there was nothing wrong with that either.  The test I initiated had actually run; the problem emerged when I asked it to report its results.  But it's got over 30,000 power-on hours on it, so it might be time to retire it anyway.  Although... it is a clone of the current firewall, so maybe I'll just label it and store it as a backup.

Anyone have any suggestions where I might sell the Watchguard boxes?  I mean, other than the obvious eBay and CL.