expired
$88 Quad Core Celeron J4125 Desktop for Pfsense, NAS, Plex, etc. for $87.99
$88
$330
73% off
eBay
Missed This Deal? Get alerts when similar deals are posted.
eBayDeal Details
Deal Live again. Previously posted here - https://slickdeals.net/f/15938788-in-stock-again-88-celeron-with-fs-for-pfsense-project-and-other-general-shenanigans-87-99?v=1&src=Site
Placed an order last night. Plan is to somehow add two 3.5" HDD to turn this box into a low power yet efficient NAS. Will be looking for deals on WD Red Plus 6-12TB drives. Currently running a 2 SSDs NAS on a raspberry pi 4B using hardware raid switch on the USB enclosure, and drives about to be full. Plus running 7 docker containers, including NextCloud which can sometimes become unbearably slow. Hence looking at a faster NAS setup. I looked at Synology, QNAP and bunch of other NAS systems, but price and performance wise this looked like the best option, though those NAS systems look quite appealing.
Placed an order last night. Plan is to somehow add two 3.5" HDD to turn this box into a low power yet efficient NAS. Will be looking for deals on WD Red Plus 6-12TB drives. Currently running a 2 SSDs NAS on a raspberry pi 4B using hardware raid switch on the USB enclosure, and drives about to be full. Plus running 7 docker containers, including NextCloud which can sometimes become unbearably slow. Hence looking at a faster NAS setup. I looked at Synology, QNAP and bunch of other NAS systems, but price and performance wise this looked like the best option, though those NAS systems look quite appealing.
|
Quote
:
In stock again, $88 Celeron with FS for Pfsense, project, and other general shenanigans $87.99Front page deal Alive again. Not sure how many are available but shows in stock for me to buy another one. Multiple discussions here (over 800 comments) available for your pursual pleasures. Specs Intel Celeron J4125 2.00 GHz Quad-Core Processor 4GB RAM 256GB Solid State Drive Intel UHD Graphics 600 Includes Keyboard & Mouse Windows 10 Home https://www.ebay.com/itm/255186968611 WIki: * The motherboard size is likely mini ITX. Meaning if you are adventurous, you can relocate the motherboard to another case, and get more bays in the process. * System has 2 SODIMM slots. One is empty, another is occupied with 4Gig. It is possible to install 2x8Gig for a total of 16 Gigs. Regardless what Intel and Acer says, 16 Gigs (2x8) appears to work fine. This is the 8 Gig I used in mine. 8 Gig Team Memory [amazon.com] *The system has a single SATA full length power connector. If you wish to connect a second drive that needs a full SATA power port, you will need a splicer, something like this. SATA Power Splitter [ebay.com] * Depends on how drives you install and what type of drives you install, the temperature in the case could be higher than desired. I modded the case to take a 140mm and spliced the 3 pin CPU fan connector. It would be useful to disable fan control in BIOS so it runs at high speed at all times. *spliced fan header [ebay.com]140mm fan [amazon.com] * The system as shipped accommodates 1x3.5 above and beyond the DVD drive installed. If you want to change the DVD bay to accept 2.5 inch HDD< you will need something like this *a DVD caddy 3.5 9.7mm bay [amazon.com]. With all above modification, my system draws about 25Ws at peak. Copied suggestions below for various uses. ================================= Desktop replacement, Rating: Medicore This is a mediocre use case as a desktop replacement because the limited CPU capability and memory. The system comes with 4Gig standard which will mean a lot of swapping on Windows 10 in default configuration. If you can up the memory to 8Gig, I think the use case becomes fair. It is a reasonable system for lite web page browsing, spreadsheets, email, YouTube and Netflix at 1080P. ie, this is a good system for your grandparents if usage case isn't aggressive. Gaming setup, Rating: Poor Expansion slot is half height, power supply is 65W, there is only a CPU fan. ie, if you want to game other than minesweeper, you should look for a beefier system, such as the one with I3 and 250W power?. Again, if you go that route, maybe Acer small form factor shouldn't be what you should consider. For reference, my current game setup has a 850w ps and about 7 fans. NAS, Rating: Good This thing draws less power and is quieter than my Synology 2 bay. CPU will be more powerful than my Synology with more possibility of expanding via standard PC peripherals. A two bay Synology is about $200 right now which means you can use this thing at about half the cost. With this said, there are only 2 SATA ports and no additional cooling fans and will only accommodate 1 3.5" and 1 2.5" drive without additional engineering. If you are okay dropping in a 10TB 3.5 WD Red Plus and call it good, you have an excellent use case here. If you are desperate, I suppose you can always use external USB 3.0 enclosures for additional drives. Hardware transcoding via Plex for a single 4K stream shouldn't be a huge issue since this Celeron has a UHD600 onboard. pFsense, Gateway replacement, VPN server, PiHole etc, Rating: Excellent What this system really excels is as an always on, minimal power, minimal noise internet relay device. I listed a couple use cases above. I am thinking moving my VPN server (both up and down streams), PiHole, and Firewall server into this thing. As given the system has more than enough resource to run Debian or BSD, never sipes more than 15Ws, generates no heat, and is virtually silent, I can see this thing sitting next to my cable modem and be the consolidating gateway machine that is currently being taken up by a Synology, a number of Rasperberri Pis. For $100, this is just a bargain you can't find equivalent elsewhere. Now the only decision is to buy another one as a backup in case this breaks. :-) Store: eBay |
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Live again. Previously posted here - https://slickdeals.net/f/15938788-in-stock-again-88-celeron-with-fs-for-pfsense-project-and-other-general-shenanigans-87-99?v=1&src=Site
Placed an order last night. Plan is to somehow add two 3.5" HDD to turn this box into a low power yet efficient NAS. Will be looking for deals on WD Red Plus 6-12TB drives. Currently running a 2 SSDs NAS on a raspberry pi 4B using hardware raid switch on the USB enclosure, and drives about to be full. Plus running 7 docker containers, including NextCloud which can sometimes become unbearably slow. Hence looking at a faster NAS setup. I looked at Synology, QNAP and bunch of other NAS systems, but price and performance wise this looked like the best option, though those NAS systems look quite appealing.
Placed an order last night. Plan is to somehow add two 3.5" HDD to turn this box into a low power yet efficient NAS. Will be looking for deals on WD Red Plus 6-12TB drives. Currently running a 2 SSDs NAS on a raspberry pi 4B using hardware raid switch on the USB enclosure, and drives about to be full. Plus running 7 docker containers, including NextCloud which can sometimes become unbearably slow. Hence looking at a faster NAS setup. I looked at Synology, QNAP and bunch of other NAS systems, but price and performance wise this looked like the best option, though those NAS systems look quite appealing.
|
Quote
:
In stock again, $88 Celeron with FS for Pfsense, project, and other general shenanigans $87.99Front page deal Alive again. Not sure how many are available but shows in stock for me to buy another one. Multiple discussions here (over 800 comments) available for your pursual pleasures. Specs Intel Celeron J4125 2.00 GHz Quad-Core Processor 4GB RAM 256GB Solid State Drive Intel UHD Graphics 600 Includes Keyboard & Mouse Windows 10 Home https://www.ebay.com/itm/255186968611 WIki: * The motherboard size is likely mini ITX. Meaning if you are adventurous, you can relocate the motherboard to another case, and get more bays in the process. * System has 2 SODIMM slots. One is empty, another is occupied with 4Gig. It is possible to install 2x8Gig for a total of 16 Gigs. Regardless what Intel and Acer says, 16 Gigs (2x8) appears to work fine. This is the 8 Gig I used in mine. 8 Gig Team Memory [amazon.com] *The system has a single SATA full length power connector. If you wish to connect a second drive that needs a full SATA power port, you will need a splicer, something like this. SATA Power Splitter [ebay.com] * Depends on how drives you install and what type of drives you install, the temperature in the case could be higher than desired. I modded the case to take a 140mm and spliced the 3 pin CPU fan connector. It would be useful to disable fan control in BIOS so it runs at high speed at all times. *spliced fan header [ebay.com]140mm fan [amazon.com] * The system as shipped accommodates 1x3.5 above and beyond the DVD drive installed. If you want to change the DVD bay to accept 2.5 inch HDD< you will need something like this *a DVD caddy 3.5 9.7mm bay [amazon.com]. With all above modification, my system draws about 25Ws at peak. Copied suggestions below for various uses. ================================= Desktop replacement, Rating: Medicore This is a mediocre use case as a desktop replacement because the limited CPU capability and memory. The system comes with 4Gig standard which will mean a lot of swapping on Windows 10 in default configuration. If you can up the memory to 8Gig, I think the use case becomes fair. It is a reasonable system for lite web page browsing, spreadsheets, email, YouTube and Netflix at 1080P. ie, this is a good system for your grandparents if usage case isn't aggressive. Gaming setup, Rating: Poor Expansion slot is half height, power supply is 65W, there is only a CPU fan. ie, if you want to game other than minesweeper, you should look for a beefier system, such as the one with I3 and 250W power?. Again, if you go that route, maybe Acer small form factor shouldn't be what you should consider. For reference, my current game setup has a 850w ps and about 7 fans. NAS, Rating: Good This thing draws less power and is quieter than my Synology 2 bay. CPU will be more powerful than my Synology with more possibility of expanding via standard PC peripherals. A two bay Synology is about $200 right now which means you can use this thing at about half the cost. With this said, there are only 2 SATA ports and no additional cooling fans and will only accommodate 1 3.5" and 1 2.5" drive without additional engineering. If you are okay dropping in a 10TB 3.5 WD Red Plus and call it good, you have an excellent use case here. If you are desperate, I suppose you can always use external USB 3.0 enclosures for additional drives. Hardware transcoding via Plex for a single 4K stream shouldn't be a huge issue since this Celeron has a UHD600 onboard. pFsense, Gateway replacement, VPN server, PiHole etc, Rating: Excellent What this system really excels is as an always on, minimal power, minimal noise internet relay device. I listed a couple use cases above. I am thinking moving my VPN server (both up and down streams), PiHole, and Firewall server into this thing. As given the system has more than enough resource to run Debian or BSD, never sipes more than 15Ws, generates no heat, and is virtually silent, I can see this thing sitting next to my cable modem and be the consolidating gateway machine that is currently being taken up by a Synology, a number of Rasperberri Pis. For $100, this is just a bargain you can't find equivalent elsewhere. Now the only decision is to buy another one as a backup in case this breaks. :-) Store: eBay |
Community Voting
Deal
Score
+25
Good Deal
Bad Deal
Join The Conversation
Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!
50 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank
For reference, the mother board is ITX-ish as this is a somewhat proprietary form factor
where the front panel USB ports are actually integrated on the motherboard. In a sufficiently large case you might have no problem relocating this motherboard, though you'd likely lose easy access to those front panel ports. This is very typical for OEM systems from Acer, Dell, HP, etc.I've attached a picture of the motherboard from an Amazon review [amazon.com].Updated with a picture from a ServeTheHome forum post [servethehome.com] that is correct for this model. No integrated front panel USB!
(Can't figure out why SD keeps killing links to STH?)
forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/acer-j4125-desktop-88.37458
Good luck!
Jon
For reference, the mother board is ITX-ish as this is a proprietary form factor where the front panel USB ports are actually integrated on the motherboard. In a sufficiently large case you might have no problem relocating this motherboard, though you'd likely lose easy access to those front panel ports. This is very typical for OEM systems from Acer, Dell, HP, etc.
I've attached a picture of the motherboard from an Amazon review [amazon.com].
Good luck!
Jon
A commenter in the other thread said the WiFi chipset was Qualcomm QCA9377, but the drivers on Acer's site say Intel or Atheros so I dunno.
Edit: Ah, Atheros is a subsidiary of Qualcomm
Good luck!
Jon
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank
A Qnap or synology will cost double at least but will use less energy and you don't need to do any custom work
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
A Qnap or synology will cost double at least but will use less energy and you don't need to do any custom work
Zotac competes then at that price but afaik they still have all Realtek NIC ports which are a pita for opn/pf.
A Qnap or synology will cost double at least but will use less energy and you don't need to do any custom work
Can use 2 port or 4 port Intel nic.
Zotac competes then at that price but afaik they still have all Realtek NIC ports which are a pita for opn/pf.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
looking forward to digging into this!
Join The Conversation
Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!