Intel Celeron N5105 Fanless Firewall and Router Units

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djtech2k

New Member
May 18, 2022
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What NetGate system would you compare these N6005/N5105 systems to in terms of performance? The Netgate devices seem to have lower hardware specs and much higher prices so unless reliability or performance is a major difference, it seems hard to justify the big difference in $$.
 
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oneplane

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Jul 23, 2021
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What NetGate system would you compare these N6005/N5105 systems to in terms of performance? The Netgate devices seem to have lower hardware specs and much higher prices so unless reliability or performance is a major difference, it seems hard to justify the big difference in $$.
None of them really. There are a few devices that overshoot performance by a big margin but you're not really buying NetGate for just a device, you're buying them for the same reason you'd buy ZyXel or SonicWall: hope that a local commercial vendor delivers better guarantees, availability and consistency so you don't have to deal with it yourself.

The irony in that is that if you really value that, you'd be buying PaloAlto, Cisco and Aruba etc. or even FortiSomething :rolleyes: (the product line is rather big; also: yuck). And if you're running pfSense or OpnSense you're either aware of your needs and skills, which means the other options and commercial support don't matter as much, or you're not in which case commercial sales of devices that run that won't save your bacon either and what you really need is an MSP.

It also very strongly depends on where you are in the world. Some markets have a huge domestic range of available options where others only have top-tier vendors or consumer-grade vendors and nothing in the middle (which is where your average FreeBSD appliance would sit). Importing from anywhere at that point becomes a matter of raw specs and NetGate loses in that case.

Edit: a flowchart for what you might want to use and when would be a nice to have thing :cool:
 
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djtech2k

New Member
May 18, 2022
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While I agree with what you are saying, you did leave one part out. That is the quality/durability of the hardware. No matter what kind of support you do or do not have, the quality of the hardware is important. Now of course there is a chance that the boards in all of these devices could be made at the same plant in China, there can also be many variations in build quality.

So even if you go with a self-support kind of model and save some $$ on the initial purchase, if the quality is bad then you will inevitably have to buy/replace new hardware sooner which then makes the price benefit not much better.

For me, I don't mind doing some work but I also do not want to have to work on it constantly OR have to worry about when the device will go bad. I have not used pfsense before but have other open source firewall/routing software. I have had other software in the past that had a lot of customization so upgrades were often rebuilds, which I do not want to go back to doing. Buying a super expensive commercial device like Cisco, Forti, or any other is definitely a no-go for me as well. I do not need anything that complex nor do I need 24/7 support from anyone.

My plan is to get some kind of pfsense hardware and a good wifi/AP system and call it a day.
 

oneplane

Well-Known Member
Jul 23, 2021
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While I agree with what you are saying, you did leave one part out. That is the quality/durability of the hardware. No matter what kind of support you do or do not have, the quality of the hardware is important. Now of course there is a chance that the boards in all of these devices could be made at the same plant in China, there can also be many variations in build quality.

So even if you go with a self-support kind of model and save some $$ on the initial purchase, if the quality is bad then you will inevitably have to buy/replace new hardware sooner which then makes the price benefit not much better.

For me, I don't mind doing some work but I also do not want to have to work on it constantly OR have to worry about when the device will go bad. I have not used pfsense before but have other open source firewall/routing software. I have had other software in the past that had a lot of customization so upgrades were often rebuilds, which I do not want to go back to doing. Buying a super expensive commercial device like Cisco, Forti, or any other is definitely a no-go for me as well. I do not need anything that complex nor do I need 24/7 support from anyone.

My plan is to get some kind of pfsense hardware and a good wifi/AP system and call it a day.
To be honest, if brand reputation and its derived quality indication is important, just get a device from a local reputable brand and install OpnSense (or pfSense) on that. The software really doesn't care what hardware it runs on, as long as the hardware isn't broken. Depending on your needs, even a single Mini/Micro/Nano box from Lenovo/HP/Dell would be enough with 2 network ports. If those aren't what you are looking for, Gigabyte and other manufacturers have small form factor/NGFF/NUC style devices with low-power SoCs and enough network processing as well. Which one would work for you will depend on where in the world you are.

If you can get them cheap and are in need of more power, a C3000-based device like a Dell VEP 14xx series device gets you 10GbE networking and more.
 

joeribl

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Jun 6, 2021
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What NetGate system would you compare these N6005/N5105 systems to in terms of performance? The Netgate devices seem to have lower hardware specs and much higher prices so unless reliability or performance is a major difference, it seems hard to justify the big difference in $$.
The N5105 should be almost twice as fast as the Atom C3558 if i must believe passmark scores. Single thread 849 vs 1522, multi 2405 vs 4101. But obviously the C3558 has some enterprise features like Random Number generator, ECC memory and the posibility to use integrated LAN up to 10Gbit.
 

oneplane

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Jul 23, 2021
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The N5105 should be almost twice as fast as the Atom C3558 if i must believe passmark scores. Single thread 849 vs 1522, multi 2405 vs 4101. But obviously the C3558 has some enterprise features like Random Number generator, ECC memory and the posibility to use integrated LAN up to 10Gbit.
Yeah, core-for-core the C3000 isn't all that amazing anymore but it's the extra features that get you the additional bandwidth. Would interesting if they had their Pentium line (which also support ECC) with 10G networking, but that would eat into their C-series segment.