Taking a look inside HP T730 thin client | internal overview

Today, I want to introduce you to the HP T730 thin client machine. This is the next generation from the T620 Plus that I've shown you in previous videos. It has a more powerful processor and slightly different internal airflow design. With the half height PCIe slot, this thin client can be transformed into a firewall/router, NAS, of even light-weight virtualization hypervisor.
If you'd like to buy a HP T730, or the previously mentioned HP T630 Plus already setup as a firewall, check it out in my store here: ebay.to/3eG2C4j
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[@markganzer]

These are great little boxes for running pfSense. I bought one a few months ago, added a quad port Intel NIC, and easily handles my ATT Gigabit connection.

[@ArtofServer]

Agreed, but I think T620 Plus can also handle that job so I feel like this T730 and the extra power consumption are a bit overkill for that purpose.

[@markganzer]

I had trouble finding any pfSense performance numbers for the 620 plus vs the 730, so I went with the 730 as I wanted some additional power in order to run Snort/Surricata, or tinker with Netflow, with a symmetrical gigabit connection. And I found a REALLY good deal on the 730 :-)

[@ArtofServer]

@@markganzer ok. if you're using snort or suricata, then definitely the extra compute power should help (and perhaps more ram too)! I use my T620 Plus with symmetrical 1Gbps internet, a backup cable modem internet connection, and 3x 1Gbps LANs with about 200 rules and it barely loads the T620 Plus even when I'm uploading my videos to youtube, but I don't use any IDS/IPS at the firewall. I'm not using pfsense though... I'm curious how the newer Ryzen based T740 units compare to these older models. The design is uglier in my opinion, but it still has the PCIe slot and I wonder how the Ryzen cpu compares in terms of power/compute vs these older CPUs.

[@terminalvelocity4858]

@@markganzer Thinking of doing this exact same setup, any chance you can share what Quad Intel NIC model # and by chance do you know what kind of throughput you can get through OpenVPN? Many thanks!

[@terminalvelocity4858]

@@markganzer Also, any issues with freezing using the 4 port Intel NIC? I have read some of those issues using Intel multi-port NIC with a T730.

[@Yandarval]

Addendum to this video. The PCIe slot is fixed to have a max of 35 watts power delivery. Not the standard 75 watts of the normal slot. So be aware of this, if you do put a GPU in with the intention of gaming. As the 85/90 watt power bricks cannot handle the power draw, and shuts down the machine, once a game has started. I tried a Quadro K1200 HHHL card. Shut down within 5-10 seconds of any game loading. The T620 Pluses have the same PCIe limitation.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for sharing this additional information! :-)

[@dorinxtg]

Great video! Regarding the internal USB - the SanDisk 256GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 would perfectly fit there and will give great speed (up to around 100MB/s)

[@ArtofServer]

Actually, you don't even need something as small as the Ultra Fit... you can use the Ultra Flair USB flash drives too... however, that mSATA-USB adapter with UASP support can do almost 400MB/sec! Would have been nice if it could fit!

[@NM-vw6xq]

@@ArtofServer What about a solution that pairs a right angle USB 3.0 extension cable with a USB to SATA adapter to use with a 2.5" drive? I think im leaning towards that route for cheap internal storage.

[@jabbawok944]

The power button behaviour is a manufacturing defect. there is a standard tactile switch behind it, but the actuating rod is too long so just rests on the button slightly pushing it. I filed the rod on the back of the button down and normal tactile feel returns.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for the tip!

[@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse]

Just had mine arrive and note ther is a small clipped access panel below the PCI plate, I see its listed as "Fiber Optic NIC expansion slot".

[@ArtofServer]

indeed!

[@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse]

Very nice overview thanks, Im looking to run pfsense and its was between this and the T720 plus which looks to be around the same used price at the moment.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this helped. However, I don't know what the T720 Plus is? Or do you mean T620 Plus? Personally, for firewall/router duty, I prefer the T620 Plus for the really low power consumption over this T730. If I needed more compute power than the T620 Plus or wanted the IOMMU capability are the only reasons I would choose the T730.

[@marcg1043]

Nice overview. Have you ever managed to boot any of your T620, 630 or 730 from the internal 3.0 USB port? It seems a great purpose but I can never get it to boot from there while booting from external USB is no problem.

[@ArtofServer]

Yes for T620, no for T730.

[@marcg1043]

Thanks. I can't get 620 to boot from internal. Oh sorry. Just noticed its a 630. Any experience there? And what bios settings I might have to use ?

[@ThomasTomchak]

Another great video. I see that (again) you’re stepping up some of your camera shots. Did you buy a slider for some of those beauty shots? It’s also very well lit.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for noticing! Yeah, I'm trying to level up my production quality.... I did buy a "slider" type of device... it's not an expensive unit, but it's versatile and able to do various configurations (circular rolling, vertical/horizontal slide, 9 levels of speed on the motor, etc.) so I thought it would be a good "learning" device for an amateur like myself. And yes, I added a LED ring light around the overhead camera, in addition to the other lighting from the sides. Glad to hear my efforts are being noticed and having an effect! As always, thanks for your support! :-)

[@NM-vw6xq]

Wow great video, thanks for the very indepth explanation. What perfect timing, just picked one of these up for a pfSense install. Some questions: 1) Is the M.2 slot SATA or NVMe? 2) Looks like there is ample room for a 2.5" drive, anyway to adapt that here? Didn't the T620 plus come with a SATA port? 3) You mentioned lack of airflow .. any 5/12V headers on there that can be used for a fan (e.g. like a tiny Noctua 40x40x10)? I also agree the T620 plus is enough for most that would use this for a firewall but I'm finding much better deals on the T730 at the moment, FWIW.

[@ArtofServer]

Hey, thanks!! Glad this was helpful for you.... as to your questions: 1) The M.2 is SATA only 2) No, I don't know of any available SATA ports on this nor the T620 Plus. 3) Not sure, but I suppose you might be able to splice into the fan wires to run another fan as long as it doesn't draw much power. yeah... T620 Plus got popular for a while there... and the T730 are starting to get retired from corporate offices...

[@Steamworkers]

I think there are some USB fans you could buy for this and put them inside.

[@Vadinaka]

Hi, Great video as always. One thing I think would help a lot is a video showing how you clean it. To answer your question the Hypervisor will be great. May I also ask which firewall you are using please? Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching! :-) That's a great suggestion and I might do that the next time there's an opportunity to do so. I built a firewall OS about 20yrs ago for a company I worked for at the time. I've been privately maintaining it and using it at home.

[@Vadinaka]

Art of Server ok. And if you were to suggest one, what would you say? Already have a T730

[@ArtofServer]

@@Vadinaka I'd be the wrong person to make a suggestion as I don't use any other firewall os. I hear a lot of people using pfsense or opnsense, so I would say take a look at those.

[@atulmalhotra2303]

I like these designs very much. I just need a medium specced home PC. Should I go for it ? No gaming or UHD videos needed.

[@ArtofServer]

I think so! they make for a great little light weight PC.

[@rudyleplane727]

Great tutorial! Was going to use for a pfsense box but was rethinking...Do you think I could pull off a 'daily driver' ?? I have 16gb of Gforce Ram and a WD 500gb hardrive m.2 will one that big fit? ...Installing Fedora or Arch Linux on it. May run 1 VM at a time on it. No games, well maybe MAME but nothing else really except some audio editing software. Adobe Creative cloud maybe too... Thoughts? Super interested in trying 32gb if RAM! Excellent video!

[@confessionsofatechnofile8831]

I know this video is a bit old, but, I had purchased one of these from you some time ago. It has been working like a charm. Up until I tried to update the BIOS. I can get into the BIOS setup. I can see some of the options. Most are greyed out. After looking at some of the boot up screens, I don't think the BIOS actually updated. Do you know how to unlock the "Setup" menu so I can try another flash? Thanks for all the great videos.

[@ArtofServer]

I've never encountered that issue. However, I update the BIOS via the UEFI method rather than through the BIOS menu.

[@powermi2804]

Nice video.. I have a question for you about what equipment to use. Initially I was hosting my data using ZFS on my desktop computer, that I only use it for web navigation. No Im purchasing an HBA SAS card and as I have to buy another motherboard I would like to hear from you what motherboard + cpu would yo recommed for general usage but with certain reliability for using it with ZFS and HBAs cards. Thanks a lot.

[@ArtofServer]

That's a pretty big question, as there are many factors that can influence your choices. Generally speaking, I prefer server motherboards and lean towards dual sockets. But, there are some really great single socket or SoC server motherboards too. I've made a few videos on my channel about Supermicro server motherboards. Perhaps check those out to see if they help you? I definitely avoid "consumer" or "gamer" motherboards; too many restrictions on PCIe lanes, etc. and I like ECC.

[@demanuDJ]

Are you sure about PCI-e passthrougn? I cannot find information that this CPU support for passthrough

[@emericaCircamcchicke]

Thanks for the breakdown!! Do you know how to get pfSense to boost the CPU to 3.6ghz?

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, I do not.

[@alfredosaquinog2681]

About m.2 replacing, seems t730 only accepts MLC, or could I install any ssd m.2, thanks

[@ArtofServer]

The M.2 slot in this is SATA only. So you need to use a SATA m.2 SSD, not a PCIe or NVMe.

[@alfredosaquinog2681]

Wondering to install Linux Ubuntu on this machine, ...or windows 10 x64 pro, is it possible to use this one as a standalone machine ?

[@ArtofServer]

yes, absolutely. as long as the OS has good driver support, it should not be hard to install it on this machine. this is just a compact PC.

[@yumpchrisiscooltoo]

Would you happen to know if 10gb will be running smooth and run relatively cool? I want to pull a trigger on purchase and installing a x550 but not sure if I should.

[@ArtofServer]

I've never tried that so I don't know. Do you know how many watts the X550 will require?

[@yumpchrisiscooltoo]

@@ArtofServer Reading the spec sheet looks like minimum wattage is typically 11.2w with max draw being 13w

[@syedmuhammadahsanali8349]

Sorry for late comment. Can we use latest TB M2 with this? I can buy this with 256 GB but I need 1TB or above (gamer) And any new model you can recommend. Thanks.

[@stuarttener6194]

Question: I am wondering, do you know what the maximum RAM the T620 Thin Client can accept? I read by specification it is 16GB, but do you know if it can be pumped up to 32GB?

[@ArtofServer]

Yup kzbin.info/www/bejne/poeUmoOAa9ugnqc

[@RobsonWilliam82]

Have you tried it with 32gigs of ram? Thanx!

[@ArtofServer]

I have. but the modules are expensive.

[@darrenb1367]

I want to replace the crappy router my ISP gave me 6 years. I can get one if these units for a decent price. Much cheaper than getting a 620plus here in Australia. I want to put a 4 port card in there and run OpenWRT or PFSense. But what are the options, if any for having wifi access? I want something that will be seamless for my wife.

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

How did I miss this one ?

[@MRMichaelDeaver]

you can use a Rx 6300 gpu in these thin clients.

[@ArtofServer]

thanks for sharing!

[@gametek7551]

Question - I've seen some of these listed on ebay that say they are BIOS locked and can't be cleared. What is that about?

[@ArtofServer]

There's a password that can be set to lock the BIOS settings.

[@gametek7551]

@@ArtofServer Yes I am aware of that but the seller is saying that it can't be removed. I've never heard of that so I'm asking if that's true. I thought if you did a normal password reset that it would clear that as well.

[@JaimeZX]

It may be that the vendor is selling stuff they picked up surplus; so the original owner's IT dept. put a BIOS password on there and didn't clear it before disposal. Now the vendor you're looking at has no idea what the password is, so they just sell it as-is. I got a used Thinkpad that way and spent many hours of Googling to figure out how to reset the password by jumpering two pins on a chip on the motherboard with a screwdriver while booting into the BIOS and resetting the PW with the other hand. That was stressful!

[@MingYuanYu]

What do you think about Dell Wyse 5070 Extended? It also has a low-profile PCIe slot and the power consumption seems to be much lower.

[@ArtofServer]

Can't really give an opinion as I've never used one of those. Looks interesting except for the Intel J5005 cpu... Very bad experience with those Intel CPUs I will probably not touch them again.

[@MingYuanYu]

@@ArtofServer What bad experience did you have? I'm considering this unit for a pfSense build so I want it to be stable. I have another Wyse with J4105 running Proxmox and it's pretty solid, so I hope the one with J5005 is, too.

[@si4632]

Blimey it has 512 shader cores which would be wasted if just using a router, bearing that in mind the 35w tdp is very impressive

[@grocerylist]

I'm getting very slow inter-vlan traffic (~20MBps) using pfSense. Is that typical performance for these thin clients?

[@ArtofServer]

Is that inter-vlan on the same interface or across physical interfaces? I don't know why you are having such issues. I think more diagnostics are needed to figure out the cause.

[@grocerylist]

@@ArtofServer it's over a 2gb lagg. I've tried troubleshooting, tracing the traffic. Pfsense CPU doesn't spike during a transfer. I can't figure it out.

[@JaimeZX]

Has anyone run a speed test on these while running Suricata/Snort? Lots of comments that it works great without IDS/IPS... what kind of speeds can we expect WITH IDS/IPS?

[@ArtofServer]

I don't have an answer, but I suspect it will highly vary based on the number of rulesets and type of rules used.

[@MrDrewseph]

Hiya, do you know if there's a list of compatible GPUs anywhere? Just the gt1030 and the optional hp ones, like with the 620 plus?

[@ArtofServer]

no idea...

[@fredmesser7849]

Can you install a second SSD in the spot reserved for the wireless card? The mini PCI slot that you start describing around 18:49? Also, do you know if you can use the M.2 NVME drives in tne M.2 slot? Thanks in advance and nice vid!

[@MrsGussDoughboys]

Would like to see if it runs pfsence with the proper 4 port NIC, also processor seems to support AES-NI for PFS 2.5

[@markganzer]

Yes it does. Easily handles my ATT gigabit fiber connection.

[@ArtofServer]

Well, like I said, The T620 Plus easily runs pfsense and can route 1Gbps speeds easily and supports AES-NI. The same goes for this T730 as well.

[@terminalvelocity4858]

@@ArtofServer How about the throughput of the T620 vs T730 when using OpenVPN?

[@terminalvelocity4858]

@@markganzer How about the throughput of the T620 vs T730 when using OpenVPN?

[@pwood6446]

My T730 will not boot from internal USB port. The guys over at ServetheHome forum also concur. Something we should know? You pull stuff out of the hat sometimes, maybe you know a way?

[@ArtofServer]

I'll have to look into that. However, I'm pretty sure I booted the T730 with my CentOS7 USB drive that I use for testing everything.

[@pwood6446]

@@ArtofServer I have CentOs7 on USB as well, and will boot fine from ext usb ports, just not the internal. Guys on the t730 thread at STH told me it will not work at all. This video was part of my buying decision, so I thought I would check with you. If you could confirm one way or the other, it would be a help. Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

@@pwood6446 yeah, you are right. I can boot USB off external ports, but the USB drive disappears from the boot menu when it is on the internal port! How odd...

[@nastronomical]

Good for emulation?

[@ArtofServer]

That might depend on the emulator you want to run, but I can imagine any emulator that can run on RPi4 would work even better on this machine.

[@rottenfist220]

Realtek NICs are no go for all software firewalls. Go for Broadcom or Intel PRO cards.

[@ArtofServer]

That's only true if your firewall OS of choice has poorly implemented drivers for Realtek nics. I've used Linux kernel based firewalls with realtek NICs on a heavily used 1Gbps fiber link for several years straight without any problems.

[@omerameen5900]

CAN IT RUN HEVC?

[@ArtofServer]

in software? no idea... probably not at high res.

[@Muskara4242]

geforce now does is work

[@billdegener8105]

FreePBX

[@ArtofServer]

Probably overkill, but should work...