Good price for an T5730???

[JohnODon]

Hey guys.

I know a few of you have (and really like) the HP T5730 TC. I am just curious what you consider a good price...or what you have bought them for?

The reason I ask is that I found a local Asset Recovery company that has a few and they want $250 (guaranteed against DOA and 30 day warranty). These have 2BG flash and 1GB RAM. The cheapest ones I found online were up in the $450 range (and that was for 1gb/512mb).

Right now I don't have that much of a practical reason to buy one since my T5700 is working just fine. However, if the price is "that good" I may get one and eventually use it as a NAS.

Thanks for the input.

John

[stroths]

$250 seems like a decent price, but its overkill for a NAS. You can easily run FreeNAS on a 5700 or 5710. I run monowall which FreeNAS is based on for my firewall/gateway router and it doesn't break a sweat.

If you have the money to throw around, you could just for the coolness or geek factor. Seeing that you are a MJ user though, I doubt you would want to throw the money away though.

[JohnODon]

$250 seems like a decent price, but its overkill for a NAS. You can easily run FreeNAS on a 5700 or 5710.

My main conideration here was the gigabit. I guess I could just get the expansion module for the 5700 and put the gigabit card in it.

If you have the money to throw around, you could just for the coolness or geek factor. Seeing that you are a MJ user though, I doubt you would want to throw the money away though.

Good point. Although I do like the idea of saving the $$$, I do this more for the geek factor.

[PTravel]

The best I've found the t5730 for, used on eBay, was $250, so the price you've got is very good. As for why use a t5730 over an earlier HP thin client, it has a 1 gigabit NIC and a DVI output. The gigabit NIC makes it a better choice for a NAS, as you don't have to waste the single PCI/PCIe slot on a gigabit card. I'm still struggling to get a PCIe RAID card working on a t5730 but, once I do, I'll have a nice, fast
RAID-based NAS that can easily support my home network.

[HolmanGT]

Gentlemen,

I use the above term in hopes that it will keep the flack to a minimum over my excesses.

I have three of the T5730s. One I paid $250 for, one I paid $130 for and one I don't remember what is paid for it but I think it was somewhere in the middle of the other two. All three were factory demo units but all three didn't look like the had ever seen the light of day. The keyboards and mice were still sealed so if they were ever demoed by a salesman he just lifted it out of the box said "look here this is cool" and put it back in the box.

There was on however same pristine condition but it was shipped to me in the salesman demo shipping crate. It was a giant Plastic Corrugated box with Velcro fasteners and a big label that said "Pleas don't throw away". It was so heavy you couldn't tell it there was anything on the inside. The inside had the black high density foam cut out for the unit, mouse, keyboard and Power block. The guy I purchased it from must have spent a fortune in shipping just for the salesman's carrying case-box.

Why three you ask. Sounds like a fair question but I don't even know why one. It is most likely as Mr. Stroths puts it the "Geek Factor".

I have heard Stroths mention this FreeNAS so I am off to find out just what it does for you. I am using one as an NAS and am not sure what I need additional software for. It does what I need it to do as is and I get about 30 megabytes per second thru put to a WD USB 500 GB drive.

PS - this is in the vain of and "Oh by the way" It has Six USB ports and two more hiding in a secret compartment (that sound cool doesn't it) just underneath the top escutcheon. I have not found out exactly what they are yet but there is mention in the manual and the bios has configuration options for "protected USB ports". There is also in this same area a place designed to plug in a 802.11x module and the top edge plate is already configured to accept a rubber ducky antenna for the wireless.

He with the most toys is still just dead !!!

[PTravel]

HolmanGT, please let me know if you come across any more t5730s for $130.

I've finally gotten one of my t5730s running as a RAID 1 NAS (it could easily be RAID 5, but I don't have the money for more drives at the moment.) I also don't understand the purpose of NAS software. I'm using a RocketRAID 2304 4-port eSATA card and 2 Calvary 1 terabyte eSATA drives. The card manages the RAID (and very nicely, too!) and the standard XP user/group security hierarchy is more than sufficient to manage the NAS aspects.

Details of NAS creation, including what has to be done to get the RocketRAID card to run on a t5730 are here:

http://www.thinclientforum.com/nas.htm

Currently, I have 2 t5730s and 4 t5720s. All but one t5730 are in use, and that last t5730 will shortly begin duty as a video server for my second television.