Reviving this old but great thread … what are the current x86 good buys on ebay? Cheap retired hardware, low power, dual NIC 1G or 2.5G?
Budget and location ?
US, under $100. Looks like there are brand new Dell 610 for $100 or open box under $50. I don’t want something that’s beat up as it will sit on my desk. 610 is fanless which is also important for noise. Good buy? How hard is it to get OpenWrt going on the 610? Do I need to mess with BIOS, etc.?
I'd get the 620 instead, it's quiet too.
Not sure if the 610 got the watch dog, or not, in the past there was no VEP1400 BIOS for it, and you couldn't get rid of it, but it might have been solved/worked around since then.
Sophos SG/XG rev 3 devices are cheap too (rev 1 and 2 even cheaper) they've been EOLed by the vendor, AFAIK.
If you want to gamble - no Openwrt support just yet - https://www.ebay.com/itm/197800202533 - Quantum Fiber W1700k support.
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This Quantum Fiber looks very interesting! 
support is coming. Does it work wired for now, 1G ports should be enough? I can wait on wifi and even if it never arrives, it’s fine, I’ve got APs.
I prefer a box with ports in the back, easier to wire on a desk.
10G is also partially working.
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Why is it that many of these boxes do not come with a power adapter? A quality PSU is important and those are not cheap it seems, in particular with what looks like these proprietary screw lock connectors (or are they standard?).
Between Sophos XG 115 Rev 3 and Dell Edge 620, which one is the better box for x86?
(I'm guessing) because they're pulled from server racks, and the power adapter is located on the other side of the rack.
it's a standard 5,5/2,5 DC plug, the screw is only there to secure the plug.
haven't tried the Sophos, but I liked the 620, it requires reflashing though, and it's a PITA - Dell Edge E42W VEP1400 620/640/680 HW discovery.
skip the NCA-1510 I posted (and now removed) earlier, it's an Arctic Wolf, they're password protected.
since you only need 2 Ethernet ports, consider the ARK-1123 too, it's also fan less:
used: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256797110659
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Or perhaps a Wyse 5070 Extended, currently available for $75? You’ll have to add a PCIe card for a second port (or several more ports), and it has a fan, but you’ll end up with a much more powerful system, albeit for about twice as much as the ARK–1123 linked to above (although TBF, the ARK needs an added PSU and an SSD, which will add to the cost if you don’t have them available).
I have a Dell Wyse 5070 Extended. It’s ancient but still gets bios updates 
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The Dell/VMware Edge 610 is a dead end. It’s limited to a subscription. Do not buy. 620 is OK. 640 is the sweet spot with 32GB ECC DDR4. 680 only adds cores. They all have 1 or 2 fans and there's currently no way to dynamically adjust speed. There ARE ways to read temperature and adjust speed. Somebody just needs to write some code.
If you want pretty for your desk, buy a 610 just for the pristine case and OEM power adapter. I'm pretty sure the cases are all the same.
I just got 7x 680s for $58 each with shipping. The original eBay BIN was $500 each. I’d guess you'd call that a low-ball offer. I recently got a 640 for $39 with shipping. No power adapters and the cases are scratched up. All were sold ‘as is’, so I took a chance, but all have tested good.
These are older, but reliable. The back plate is plastered with real certifications. It's a complete system with CPU and name-brand memory and SATA SSD. Except for some ‘N’ suffix, you also get a mini-PCIe slot with 2x2 Wi-Fi module and internal antennas. I've been able to swap Wi-Fi for an NVMe drive (only 1x).
The 620/640/680 have 2x 10Gb SFP+ and 6x 1Gb Ethernet. All 8 ports are independent. There is no overlap. There is no internal switch. I’ve been unable to get the SFP+ ports to work with 1Gb on the other end.
That's a steal, if you need 7 of them 
I definitely have too many. My plan is to test and update and then resell on some forum. I despise eBay for selling.
Any number of reasons. Sometimes, people want to keep the PSUs as spares for the new devices (or, as is the case with Sophos dual-intake devices, use the old one as a redundancy for the new one). Sometimes, the IT department makes an effort to hold on to old PSUs to make a “parts bank”. Sometimes, time passes between the decommissioning and listing, and the PSU gets lost, given away, or repurposed.
They are at least quasi-standard. There are a few companies (APD, Adapter Tech, FSP, Great Wall Technology, am I forgetting anyone?) that supply the entire market. Since you mentioned being in the U.S., I can recommend a great place to buy those power supplies:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/pwk2015
I’ve bought from them I don’t know how many times, they are great. They have both bricks and wall warts.
Also, you can use a power supply with a regular 5.5-mm barrel. There’s a small chance that the barrel won’t be long enough (happened to me once or twice), but generally, the standard 5.5-mm connector works.
I don’t know what to say…
In terms or networking specs, the Dell box (incidentally, am I hallucinating or does it look like a Silicom product?) seems to win hands down (dual 10-gig SFP+, at least on some units; Dell lists it as an option), but getting it to work might be an adventure.
Sophos is more basic: plain old Gigabit all around, four ports (yes, four; the SFP is “twinned” with the rightmost RJ-45, so you can use one or the other, but not both), but it’s oh-so-friendly. Nothing is locked, you can boot from USB all you want, so the initial installation is a breeze. Also, connectivity; Sophos has dual (RJ-45 and micro-USB) console output, as well as HDMI and two USB type A (so you can hook up a monitor, a keyboard, and a USB stick for installation).
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AFAIK this applies to the Dell Edge too.
Re Sophos, what can it do in terms of performance? I assume Gigabit routing is no problem. What about SQM, Wireguard? Just curious at this point.
The 4 ports I assume are independent NICs, though one could put 3 of them in a LAN bridge without any significant switching performance for the switch traffic going through the CPU?
WG performance tests for misc SoCs and CPUs are posted in A Wireguard comparison DB.
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With stock OS, it was rated for 4 Gbps firewall throughput. OpenWrt probably can do a little better, just because there are fewer services running out of the box.
SQM runs single-threaded, so you’re limited to what a single core can do. I run SQM on an older SG 115 Rev 1, and it’s just right for my 500 Mbps Internet connection (I intermittently max out one core when running a bufferbloat test).
Wireguard… Just guessing: you could get reasonably close to Gigabit. The 115 Rev 3 is the only passively cooled device in the lineup that runs on a quad-core processor (105, 106, and earlier revisions of 115 all run on dual-core processors). Cooling, as I said, is passive, but reasonably well done; the processor is on the bottom of the system board, there’s a decent-size heat spreader, which in turn adheres to the bottom of the case.
The ports are independently configured (Intel i210). Yes, you can bridge them, although using a dedicated switch will probably yield much higher local traffic throughput.
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Maybe bridger can help the software switch.
Every time this comes up, I feel compelled to say thank you to @fakemanhk who came up with the idea and put together the initial sample.
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