CWWK/Topton/... Nxxx quad NIC router

[mack]

I'm thinking, Odroid h4+ or h4 ultra are practically the same constructions as cwwk, do you think that the bios from h4 will work on cwwk boards?

Look at the power consumption, Odroid h4 ultra with n305 with ASPM enabled. With CWWK boards it is unattainable

 

[Drabon]

Not sure which CWWK product is supposed to be similar to the Odruid h4, but no. It will have a lower power consumption though... being bricked and all.

 

[mack]

Not sure which CWWK product is supposed to be similar to the Odruid h4, but no. It will have a lower power consumption though... being bricked and all.

Is same as Pionieer Edition or x86-p5, but probably you're right, besides I think it's not a BIOS problem but a construction problem, it's broken.

 

[Drabon]

That is a definite no to similarity, too. The ports and layout are different. Cross flashing a BIOS is always risky and only done with almost identical hardware in order to keep close to 100% functionality. So having a different product (ports, layout, vendor) will almost certainly result in a bricked non booting device (insert explained joke about reduced power consumption here).

 

[slybunda]

Just fyi, if anyone is thinking of picking up one of these with active cooling, the fan on mine lasted about 9 months of continuous use before the bearings started dying, causing it to overheat and services to crash. $30 for them to send me a replacement fan (though I care more about the waste of my time to tear it down and replace).

Kind of annoying for a router. I don't think I've ever seen a fan die that fast. I won't buy one of these with active cooling again unless the fan is a standard size I can easily replace.

thought it was a given that people should use their own higher quality fans. iv got a old scythe fdb fan on my one doing very well.
if i didnt have a spare fan lying around and needed to buy a new one id have gone with the arctic cooling 12cm slim fan which is fdb and keeps overall profile low.

 

[DRW]

I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about the Topton with the 8505 chip. It has a laptop-style blower fan with what appears to be proprietary mounting holes attached to a copper heatsink.
Edit: this thing

 

[eldee]

Hi all, I have four of the Topton N305 variation A, and I am struggling to figure out how to enable the use of a SATA 2.5 SSD.
I have the right SATA data cable paired with the 4pin connector for power, but the bios does not seem to recognize the SSDs out of the box. Also I don’t see the he when I try to install Ubuntu.

Are there specific bios settings I would need to enable? Anyone with the same router that successfully had it running with an attached SSD?

Thank you in advance.

 

[audit13]

Hi all, I have four of the Topton N305 variation A, and I am struggling to figure out how to enable the use of a SATA 2.5 SSD.
I have the right SATA data cable paired with the 4pin connector for power, but the bios does not seem to recognize the SSDs out of the box. Also I don’t see the he when I try to install Ubuntu.

Are there specific bios settings I would need to enable? Anyone with the same router that successfully had it running with an attached SSD?

Thank you in advance.

I do not have the same Topton unit but my Topton came with the cable as show in the picture. It worked with an old sata3 OCZ Vertex SSD without any changes to the bios for a bare metal install of opnsense.

 

[eldee]

Thank you for the answer!
Interesting, in my case I had to buy cables and found them in Ali express , but now I a doubting my purchase. Is there anyone on this king thread (which I tried to parse all) that has success with a cable they bought and could recommend a link?

 

[audit13]

Thank you for the answer!
Interesting, in my case I had to buy cables and found them in Ali express , but now I a doubting my purchase. Is there anyone on this king thread (which I tried to parse all) that has success with a cable they bought and could recommend a link?

If you can connect a mechanical notebook drive and feel it spinning, at least you know the power part of the cable is probably good and it's the SATA part that doesn't seem to be working.

Have you emailed Topton to see if they can provide a suitable cable?

 

[eldee]

Not sure I have one of those drives around, but I might! I’ll look around.
i did not reach out to Topton after I read terrible experiences on this forum from people trying to connect with them.

 

[Chunks]

I just ordered a CWWK (no SSD no RAM, N100, type C I think) minipc for use as a proxmox/Opnsense machine.
I am wondering if, from a heat perspective, would an SSD make more sense than a NVME? Since I imagine the HDD usage would be pretty low, maybe I'm just over thinking things. But my googling hasn't yielded any answers to this..

 

[RuckusVol]

I'm looking to upgrade my router/firewall hardware and after hours and hours I'm still not sure what to do. I'm about to have access to fiber at up to 8GbE symmetrical, although I'll probably start at 3 or 5GbE.

I plan to run Opnsense but I've had a Firewalla Gold SE so I'm not very familiar with hardware requirements to do recommended security stuff like Zenarmor, Suricata, etc.

The things I'm most unclear about are CPU and SFP. It seems clear to want the i226-v Ethernet and DDR5 RAM, probably 16GB. But I could probably max out an 8GbE connection and would like to not upgrade for a few years.

Is the U300E or 13th gen i5 a worthwhile upgrade over the n305? I'm guessing the improved single core performance would be worth it. The x520 SFP nic is ancient, but I would prefer 2 SFP and 4 eth, since my switch is 10G/1G. But I don't see options with newer SFP.

I've sorted through the current options from CWWK, Topton, Qotom, etc but don't see much difference once you make sure you're getting the components you want. Is there anything I'm easily missing there?

Mainly, if anyone has any recommendations I'd be very appreciative. I was hoping to order during Cyber Monday deals if I can decide on a plan. Or would it be smart and cost effective to build my own?

 

[audit13]

I just ordered a CWWK (no SSD no RAM, N100, type C I think) minipc for use as a proxmox/Opnsense machine.
I am wondering if, from a heat perspective, would an SSD make more sense than a NVME? Since I imagine the HDD usage would be pretty low, maybe I'm just over thinking things. But my googling hasn't yielded any answers to this..

If you have a spare SATA3 SSD, use that to determine if the performance is suitable. If it isn't, then look into getting a NVMe drive.

I have a Topton n100 and wanted to keep power usage and heat to a minimum so I never considered using a NVMe drive for bare metal opnsense as I had a spare 60 GB SATA3 SSD that was just sitting in a drawer.

Without intensive read/writes to the SSD, I'm not sure there would be much difference in terms of heat and/or power usage.