Looking for a mini pc with dual 10G RJ45 port

[maxpayne]

Hello, I would like to run Opnsense as my main router on a low power mini pc. I am planning something using Intel N100/N150/N200 processor. This router minipc will be connected to a 10G RJ45 L3 switch as the main switch with support to LA.

Please suggest me some mini pcs with dual 10G RJ45 ports. I dont want to use optical ports.

 

[DavidWJohnston]

There are lots of people here running the Minisforum MS-01, one of those might work well for you.

You could also try one of these Chinese "Topton"/"Qotom" fanless industrial PCs: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008464534327.html

Neither are "low power" though, and thermals/power can be tricky.

I don't think using 10G NICs with an N200 or similar "low power" CPU would work well because it would be CPU-bottlenecked really bad. Especially if you're using Opnsense with single-threaded PPPoE, even with a fast clock speed high-power CPU you'd be limited to about 3 Gbps max. And the TDP of the N-series CPUs is ~ 6W.

I used to run pfSense like this, on a PC with an overclocked water-cooled i7 3.6Ghz CPU and one core would max out delivering just under 3 Gbps. Nowadays I use this only for incoming traffic. For browsing, I have an ASUS router with an ASIC capable of hardware-accelerated PPPoE which can saturate my FTTH.

I hope this helps, good luck with your project.

Edit: And for RJ-45 you might be stuck with using these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006875162404.html

 

[acquacow]

Grab a supermicro ITX Xeon-D board, it has onboard dual-port 10gig in either RJ45 or SFP+ plus a full x16 slot to add a quad 10gig for additional ports.

 

[maxpayne]

@acquacow , Appreciate your suggestion. I would prefer a mini pc due to low power consumption and simplicity.

@DavidWJohnston, My internet speed is1Gbps and its coming from an ONU and will go to the opnsense minipc. i.e. the mini pc will sit between the incoming internet line and the 10GL3 switch. will it still bottleneck for the local data transfer between NAS, PC, laptop in the locally collected to the 10G switch) ?

 

[cesmith9999]

If those machines are on the same subnet, there should not be any speed degradation.

Chris

 

[DavidWJohnston]

Your locally-connected 10G devices on the L3 switch ("East-west" traffic) will still communicate at the full 10G - Even if they are on different subnets, assuming your inter-VLAN routing is occurring inside the L3 switch (which is what you should do if you have one) - Only internet traffic ("North-south" traffic) will be limited to 1G.

With an Intel N200 I would expect it to saturate a 1G NIC with pure routing. If you're also doing NAT, it might come close too. But if you need PPPoE I think you may lose quite a bit of your 1G pipe.

When you say "coming from the ONU" - How are you planning to connect to the internet? Depending on your ISP and if your ONU is also a router, generally the possibilities are:

- Get a real public IP directly from DHCP when you plug an Ethernet into your ONU without doing any config
- Get a private IP (ex. 192.168.x.x) from your ONU's DHCP, then use PPPoE over that to get a real public IP
- Get a private IP but have the ability to create a static route in your ONU/ISP router to get return traffic back through your Opnsense
- Get a private IP and just do double-NAT

For a low-power mini PC, the worst option is PPPoE, for all the others I think you can get close to 1G.

 

[joeribl]

Qotom has these relatively new boxes: https://www.qotom.com/products/show/Mini-PC-Q10900H6-S13-Series

Twinlake with 2x AQC113 10Gb UTP and 4 x 2.5 gebit i226.

 

[pimposh]

N100 + 2x 10GBit ? WTH.
Even if it would have QAT...

If one would like to play with such traffic... one would not want N100 as very limiting factor.
Cannot see any logical reason for such a setup.
Wonder how 9 lanes are utilized there...

Long-term reliability of these brands also seems to be in contradiction to 24/7 rock solid router operations...

 

[maxpayne]

Qotom has these relatively new boxes: https://www.qotom.com/products/show/Mini-PC-Q10900H6-S13-Series

Twinlake with 2x AQC113 10Gb UTP and 4 x 2.5 gebit i226.

Marvell AQC113 is not supported in PFsense I guess

 

[maxpayne]

Your locally-connected 10G devices on the L3 switch ("East-west" traffic) will still communicate at the full 10G - Even if they are on different subnets, assuming your inter-VLAN routing is occurring inside the L3 switch (which is what you should do if you have one) - Only internet traffic ("North-south" traffic) will be limited to 1G.

With an Intel N200 I would expect it to saturate a 1G NIC with pure routing. If you're also doing NAT, it might come close too. But if you need PPPoE I think you may lose quite a bit of your 1G pipe.

When you say "coming from the ONU" - How are you planning to connect to the internet? Depending on your ISP and if your ONU is also a router, generally the possibilities are:

- Get a real public IP directly from DHCP when you plug an Ethernet into your ONU without doing any config
- Get a private IP (ex. 192.168.x.x) from your ONU's DHCP, then use PPPoE over that to get a real public IP
- Get a private IP but have the ability to create a static route in your ONU/ISP router to get return traffic back through your Opnsense
- Get a private IP and just do double-NAT

For a low-power mini PC, the worst option is PPPoE, for all the others I think you can get close to 1G.

The ONU is acting just as media converter i.e. converting incoming fiber optic line to Ethernet interface that goes to the WAN port of router. Yes I am using PPPoE.

Should I go for N305 based pc ?

 

[DavidWJohnston]

What matters with PPPoE is single-threaded performance, which isn't that different between the N200 vs. N305 according to this page:

Intel i3-N305 vs N200 vs N100 vs Celeron N5105 [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

You might get acceptable/good PPPoE performance at 1G from the N200, I can't say for sure you won't. There are a few anecdotes online about people getting 1G from Celerons with slower CPUs, so maybe you'd be good.

The N305 has more than double the multi-core performance of the N200, and has more cache, so if you want to use it for additional workloads later, it might be worth it. But for PPPoE, the N200 vs. N305 might not be that different.

 

[louie1961]

Just for frame of reference, my N100 based fan-less firewall (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZJB9KX5?th=1) draws 17 watts, running pfSense, using dual WAN, and dual links to my switch (LACP link aggregation). I just build a new pfSense box, with the intention of having 10gbe capability. Using this Asrock embedded Ryzen motherboard (ASRock IMB-V2000M Mini-ITX Motherboard - AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 SoC processors | eBay) and an intel X520-AD clone NIC I am running at 26 watts.

All of which is to say, you may be able to build something with an embedded CPU motherboard that may meet your needs better than any of the currently available mini-PCs, while still being low power. My concern with the units with SFP+ ports is that the NIC needs PCI 3.0X8 connectivity, and all the data I can find suggests that these boxes have a X8 sized PCI slot, but only an X4 electrical connection. So do your research before going with any of the low power CPUs that only have 9 PCI lanes. They likely will bottleneck your 10gbe connections.