Cybersecurity - basics only, hardware idea

[Meezor6]

First things first - I am a total newbie, please do not laugh no matter how silly my questions might be.

My goal is to learn basics of cybersecurity by exercise and theory. Its purely educational, I am not willing to become an expert. According to sources: VM require plenty of SSD, RAM and a CPU which has to be x86 minimum. I need the PC to be quiet, which is why I am interested in lenovo tiny series.

 

My idea: 16GBs of DDR3, external SSD for VM and a intel core i5 2.9GHz with integrated GPU.

1. I have no idea what x86 CPU is. Does i5 2.9GHz fall in this category?
2. Do you think this is enough for that type of activities?

[jaslion]

The tiny lenovo systems aren't quiet when the fans ramp up.

 

An i5 is a x86 cpu kinda important to know that when you go look at cybersecurity :p. But which i5 is it? i5 2.9ghz means nothing as there are heaps of those over the years.

 

What lenovo are you looking at?

 

Why not just keep it simple and use the internal drive? If it's a hdd you basically need to replace it with an ssd anyway.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Asrock x300 is abit bigger but also upgradable, they are sold as barebones or as kit but id suggest going for barebones to make sure you arent being screwed with single channel ram

 

5600g is equivalent to an i5 but far better igpu, not to mention they are also efficient and with the larger size you dont need a screeching blower fan to cool it down so more quiet. You can also get a 5700g which has 2 more cores and a slightly more powerful igpu

 

You can put upto 32gb ram but i dont think theres any use for that here so just stick to a 3200mhz 8x2 sodimm kit

 

Size wise it uses a mini stx board so abit smaller then itx, its def gonna be thiccer than a lenovo tiny but atleast youll have a quiet sff that doesnt screech or throttle to sht whenever you put a workload on it

[Meezor6]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

The tiny lenovo systems aren't quiet when the fans ramp up.

M93p tiny. I was told its almost silent, if properly cleaned and with thermal grease applied. Isnt that true? Its kind of a priority for me, regardless of anything.

[brob]

41 minutes ago, Meezor6 said:

M93p tiny. I was told its almost silent, if properly cleaned and with thermal grease applied. Isnt that true? Its kind of a priority for me, regardless of anything.

 

Which is the priority small size or low noise levels? The two are inversely correlated.

[Meezor6]

Low/no noise. I thought about m93p/92 tiny because of the low budget..

[jaslion]

4 hours ago, Meezor6 said:

M93p tiny. I was told its almost silent, if properly cleaned and with thermal grease applied. Isnt that true? Its kind of a priority for me, regardless of anything.

I have that exact one with the i7 4875t and let me tell you when it gets going it is far from quiet.

 

Get the normal sff one that one stays quiet almost always.

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Meezor6 said:

Low/no noise. I thought about m93p/92 tiny because of the low budget..

Whats the budget? Those usually still go for 250-350 which is basically in the range of a lower specced asrock a300 or x300 new thingy. Which is well FAR better.

[Meezor6]

16 hours ago, jaslion said:

I have that exact one with the i7 4875t and let me tell you when it gets going it is far from quiet.

The whole cybersecurity/VM is optional for me, it was supposed to be for internet/office/movies in the first place.

Can you tell me how loud do the fans get upon having a video played, document editor opened and web browser with a few tabs - is the fan that loud or maybe it is almost inaudible and only gets bad with multiple VMs running?

 

16 hours ago, jaslion said:

Whats the budget? Those usually still go for 250-350 which is basically in the range of a lower specced asrock a300 or x300 new thingy. Which is well FAR better.

Is this - the result what do you mean by asrock a300?

Do you think that they are that quiet?

 

[IPD]

My understanding of cyber is that VM's are used as honeypots.  Usually powered by a server, not a discreet machine.

[jaslion]

5 hours ago, Meezor6 said:

The whole cybersecurity/VM is optional for me, it was supposed to be for internet/office/movies in the first place.

Can you tell me how loud do the fans get upon having a video played, document editor opened and web browser with a few tabs - is the fan that loud or maybe it is almost inaudible and only gets bad with multiple VMs running?

 

Is this - the result what do you mean by asrock a300?

Do you think that they are that quiet?

 

Even with basic tasks it will spin up the fans from time to time. It's pretty fine but I still recommend the bigger one.

 

As for a300 that is it but that one is super overpriced and lacking a cpu, ram and ssd as that is just the barebones.

[Meezor6]

Okay.. Out of that a300 and x300 you suggested I only found barebones PC (which I understand is equal to "no CPU/other part") for around 300$ on ebay/amazon, with AMD Ryzen they go for 600$ and more..

 

..are you certain this is the silent PC on low budget?

 

 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Meezor6 said:

Okay.. Out of that a300 and x300 you suggested I only found barebones PC (which I understand is equal to "no CPU/other part") for around 300$ on ebay/amazon, with AMD Ryzen they go for 600$ and more..

 

..are you certain this is the silent PC on low budget?

 

 

This is a small and quite silent computer yes. But it's more expensive.

 

The smaller you go the more you'll pay ESPECIALLY if you want silence.

[Meezor6]

On 2/4/2022 at 8:21 PM, jaslion said:

I have that exact one with the i7 4875t and let me tell you when it gets going it is far from quiet.

 

Get the normal sff one that one stays quiet almost always.

Is there any quiet SFF on the budget equal to m93 tiny/any-tiny-lenovo that you could recommend or its going to be much more expensive?

[jaslion]

38 minutes ago, Meezor6 said:

Is there any quiet SFF on the budget equal to m93 tiny/any-tiny-lenovo that you could recommend or its going to be much more expensive?

Yeah the bigger version of them is one. The sff not the usff form factor the m93 tiny is.