A customized form factor for openwrt/pfsense(only web link + pictures)

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newabc

Active Member
Jan 20, 2019
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Just saw a customized form factor for openwrt/pfsense ( google translate link; original Chinese post )
Basically an intel compute element + customized mother board + the user's low profile pcie card + fanless case.

By the way, the passmark of the 8th gen i7 laptop cpu can reach over 10000.

My comment: A better and lower TDP form factor than trandictional Qotom one and allowing a m.2 22110. But the ram is soldered on board, so it is not good for hypervisor.

Information links: Intel NUC 8 Compute Element (U-Series)

The pictures from koolshare.cn:
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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This with 4x 10Gbit LAN, 16GB RAM and a Ryzen 4700GE APU please! It would be amazing as a game server or to quickly test/deploy a Windows image in my case.
 

thigobr

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Apr 29, 2020
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It looks perfect! I hope it doesn't come out very expensive. An i5 module with vpro sells for around $600
 

newabc

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Jan 20, 2019
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From Intel's specs of NUC 8 compute elements, it is uncleared that the PCIe x4 is the ver 2.0 or ver 3.0. PCIe x4 ver2 has 4 Gbit/s per lane, or 2 GByte/s totally. PCIe x4 ver3 is 3.94 GByte/s.
 

newabc

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Jan 20, 2019
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If considered other products, not this item, the final unit price of the consumers can get on the 2nd hand market hugely depends on how many units are over-produced.
 

TXAG26

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Aug 2, 2016
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How will the 10GbE PCIe card be cooled? The ones I've used have all needed decent airflow to keep them at a reasonable temperature. The form factor looks great though if it can work thermally!
 

newabc

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Jan 20, 2019
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If considered power consumsion to prevent overheating, and your system support these nics, I will recommand SFN5122F and SFN6122F, one is lower than 5 watts and the other is 6 watts.
 

newabc

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Jan 20, 2019
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Cooling is an issue for fanless cases. I put a USB powered fan on my Qotom fanless box. And many users put such fans on their asus wireless routers.
 
Jul 14, 2017
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I need to replace my father's old netgear router as it has a vulnerability that they won't be patching.

So I was thinking of replacing it with a pfsense box and probably some Ruckus R600 for the wireless.

What would people recommend in terms of a fanless PFsense box? They don't have a particularly fast internet connection or any demanding needs. So I doubt I need anything powerful, I'm just uncertain exactly what is sufficient/insufficient. Most of the <$200 fanless boxes don't seem to support AES-NI, while PFsense no longer requires that it still seems like a good idea to have it.
 
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Jul 14, 2017
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I am using pfsense on a HP t740 / 32GB RAM / 1Tb ssd / Quad port 1GBE card with vmware esxi. Working fine, and it is almost silent.
Well, I probably should have been clearer, but a $600-1000 box is vastly more than they need. It's just going to run PFsense.
 

newabc

Active Member
Jan 20, 2019
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I need to replace my father's old netgear router as it has a vulnerability that they won't be patching.

So I was thinking of replacing it with a pfsense box and probably some Ruckus R600 for the wireless.

What would people recommend in terms of a fanless PFsense box? They don't have a particularly fast internet connection or any demanding needs. So I doubt I need anything powerful, I'm just uncertain exactly what is sufficient/insufficient. Most of the <$200 fanless boxes don't seem to support AES-NI, while PFsense no longer requires that it still seems like a good idea to have it.
A qotom box or a 2nd hand HP T730 will be good. But qotom limited its boxes equiped with laptop cpus on a single ram slot, both ddr3 and ddr4. HP T730 has a cpu fan(similar as the laptop ones) inside.
 
Jul 14, 2017
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A qotom box or a 2nd hand HP T730 will be good. But qotom limited its boxes equiped with laptop cpus on a single ram slot, both ddr3 and ddr4. HP T730 has a cpu fan(similar as the laptop ones) inside.
A limited box is fine. Their internet connection is something like 75mb/sec. They don't do anything demanding high performance and the box doesn't need to do anything other than PFsense. The simpler the better.

For simplicity's sake, they'll probably just wind up with a consumer mesh system, but my experience with my pfsense box and ruckus wifi have been positive enough, that it's something worth considering.
 

newabc

Active Member
Jan 20, 2019
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A limited box is fine. Their internet connection is something like 75mb/sec. They don't do anything demanding high performance and the box doesn't need to do anything other than PFsense. The simpler the better.

For simplicity's sake, they'll probably just wind up with a consumer mesh system, but my experience with my pfsense box and ruckus wifi have been positive enough, that it's something worth considering.
75Mbyte/s or 75Mbit/s ?

But I think i3 or i5 u-series laptop cpu can do NAT and routing only on 75Mbyte/s without some heavy load jobs like IDS/IPS and VPN. Please check their passmarks and AES-NI feature before purchasing.

Qotom store front:

Or a HP T730 with a 4-port NIC on passmark >3000, will work well. WANg on this forum has a very detailed introduction on T730.

If the job is just NAT and routing, for linux box, Mikrotik rb4011 will work too.
 

Vesalius

Active Member
Nov 25, 2019
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all of the below would be overkill for your parents connection but still pretty cheap.

 
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