Qotom Denverton fanless system with 4 SFP+

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is39

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Qotom has new series of fan-less Denverton systems with 4 x SFP+ (now, only some of those are 10G, with 0-2-4 options (and corresponding versions of CPU); the rest is 1G SFP+ (!?)), plus 5 x 2.5G:

Qotom Router PC 5 NIC 4 SFP+ X86 Mini Computer Fanless firewall PC

Integrated processor, 5 Gigabit Intel network cards, Type C, Mini SAS, DDR4 memory, 4x10G SFP+
www.qotom.net www.qotom.net
No detailed information on motherboard yet, but it's all quite new.

Prices look attractive, i.e.

This product is no longer available.

This product is no longer available.
www.alibaba.com
It seems the system also has 2 x M.2 and 2 x SATA for storage and SFF8087 (miniSAS) for something.
AST2400 for video tells me it has BMC, though i do not see dedicated port; could be just for serial console.

Looks like a nice router/VPN platform (may be a bit underpowered for VPN).
 
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blunden

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Nov 29, 2019
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They don't say what NICs they use for the SFP+ ports unfortunately.

I wonder what the routing performance is like.
 
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is39

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Well, i've ordered one, ETA next week (!?).
That SFF8087 is for SATA indeed, and can be split into 4 x SATA interfaces.
Motherboard model is MB4C911-0331 (the photo shows MB4C911-0332); but i can't find either on Qotom sites.
This system reminds me of SuperMicro E302-9A / E302-12D, but noticeably cheaper (and corresponding downgrades to save the money).
 
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Jorge Perez

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Dec 8, 2019
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Goddamnit, I was waiting for some decent Denverton 10G routing hardware, but I just started setting up a Wyse 5070 with PFSense.
 
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newabc

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is39 said:
Well, i've ordered one, ETA next week (!?).
That SFF8087 is for SATA indeed, and can be split into 4 x SATA interfaces.
Motherboard model is MB4C911-0331 (the photo shows MB4C911-0332); but i can't find either on Qotom sites.
This system reminds me of SuperMicro E302-9A / E302-12D, but noticeably cheaper (and corresponding downgrades to save the money).
Click to expand...
I am wondering the shipping fee to cons US.
 
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tozmo

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This isn't a facetious question, so don't read it in a sarcastic tone:

How does one use these? I have a 2015 era Qotom 4x that I used for PFSense. I retired it and went with a used HP low-power tower where I added a 4x intel NIC, again with PFSense for a router.

How would you use the 4x SFP+ and the 2.5g's? Long ago I read how these types of boxes aren't meant as a switch, they don't have the ASIC that makes it natural, and all packets end up going through the CPU which, even if it's a Xeon, isn't really designed to manage packet-handling well.

Have things changed?
 
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is39

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Right, this is what've ordered (c3558r). Look at other Qotom selections on Amazon, they have c3338/c3558/c3758 CPU options for this platform.
 
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is39

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I plan to use it as firewall/router. I do not really need that many 2.5g ethernets, even 1..3 would be enough (IPMI and 1-2 copper);
there is still no clarity if those boxes do have IPMI/KVM, but the video board gives a hint; if it does, it would be a shared port.

This box would replace 4 x GigE Qotom fan-less system. It's connected to a switch which is doing switching; those are cheap-ish now,
even with 10G support.
I cannot use systems with a fan in the target environment (well, i can, but then i end up swapping fans or even systems too often; sticky dust :( ).
 
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blunden

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Nov 29, 2019
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tozmo said:
This isn't a facetious question, so don't read it in a sarcastic tone:

How does one use these? I have a 2015 era Qotom 4x that I used for PFSense. I retired it and went with a used HP low-power tower where I added a 4x intel NIC, again with PFSense for a router.

How would you use the 4x SFP+ and the 2.5g's? Long ago I read how these types of boxes aren't meant as a switch, they don't have the ASIC that makes it natural, and all packets end up going through the CPU which, even if it's a Xeon, isn't really designed to manage packet-handling well.

Have things changed?
Click to expand...
The intended way to use these are as routers. You would probably only use a small number of the ports, in a simple setup probably just one as WAN and one as LAN. In some cases, you might want to aggregate some of them or have multiple WAN ports if you have redundant internet connections. If you don't want to use vlans for some reason, you could also use some of the ports for different network segments.

No, things have not changed, nor are they likely to do so in the future. Switches exist for good reasons. :)
 
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newabc

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Jan 20, 2019
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is39 said:
I've found same item on Amazon, shipping $42.
I'm more concerned about quality and availability of BIOS updates.
I've one Qotom box which had initial issues, but eventually worked out ok - years later, once BIOS fix was available.
Click to expand...
For Qotom, probably they will only update the BIOS for 2 or 3 years only.
Probably I was 1 of the users for the 1st batch of Qotom 5th gen i5 quad-port mini PCs(which were so popular in reddit, netgate user forum and STH forum at that moment), but they removed this product from their website around 2 years.
 
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blunden

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Nov 29, 2019
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The Atom C3758R based model looks very similar to the Netgate 8200 router based on the same SoC.

pfSense Plus How to buy

Purchase pfSense Plus software on a Netgate Appliance, on AWS or Azure as a cloud instance , or as a virtual machine
www.netgate.com www.netgate.com

TNSR How to buy

Purchase TNSR software on a Netgate Appliance, on AWS or Azure as a cloud instance , as a virtual machine, or bare metal image
www.netgate.com www.netgate.com

A good example of the performance difference between pfsense and TNSR on the same hardware. :D
 
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NablaSquaredG

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Aug 17, 2020
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Just be aware that if you use transceivers on those SFP+ ports, they might overheat depending on the exact type (some depend on the airflow over them they'll have in usual switches / servers).
 
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blunden

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Nov 29, 2019
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NablaSquaredG said:
Just be aware that if you use transceivers on those SFP+ ports, they might overheat depending on the exact type (some depend on the airflow over them they'll have in usual switches / servers).
Click to expand...
True. In my case I would be using DAC cables though, which should presumably be fine without it.
 
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is39

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I've received Q20321G9-S10 system (w/C3558R) and it's pretty much as described.
Did not test it much yet, but both SFP+ interfaces are functional at 10G; the other two (1G SFP+?) are reported by FreeBSD 12.x as 1000BASE-KX ;-)
 
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