Micro Firewall Appliance, Mini PC, OPNsense, Untangle, VPN, Router PC, Intel N5105, HUNSN RJ03, AES-NI, 4 x Intel 2.5GbE I226-V LAN, Type-C, TF, M.2 WiFi 6 Slot, 8G RAM, 64G SSD

Received the first unit, had some issues installing an OS on the system. Crashed during boot, crashed during install, never would complete install. During troubleshooting it was found that the RAM was bad. Reseating the RAM didnt help, unit was received DOA.

Apparently there are two models of this same device one with a dingle DIMM slot and a newer one with a dual DIMM slot. I received the 2 slot unit. The RAM specs dont say that we need 1GB packages on the module, but the seller warned me of this as I bought a barebones unit and they reached out to me before it shipped. Apparently it wont post with some 512MB package DIMMS. However, I ordered A-Tech 16G (2x8GB kit) which advertises it ships with 1Rx8 and 2Rx8, so I took the gamble as I couldnt find anything else that ships quick and was cheap without looking too shady. Well, it posted fine and pfSense recognized the 16GB of RAM and the i225V NICs without any drama.

So far everything is working great with this unit. I have it setup with pfsense, adblocker, and intrusion detection, and its been stable and fast. I pay for 200/10 Mbps internet and on my old router it would boost up to around 250-260 Mbps, now it boosts past 600 Mbps during speed tests. This could definitely handle a 1 gigabit connection with ease whereas most off the shelf routers probably cant. I like that its also future proof with the 2.5gbe ports, now I just need to find an affordable 2.5g switch to pair this with.

If youre looking for a future-proof firewall box with 2.5Gbe support and better CPU performance than branded box, this is a great budget option for home/small business.

I was surprised to see that PFSense 2.6.0 was installed, but I wiped the drive and did a fresh install of PFSense. Setup was easy and getting it online just took minutes. My old router needed to be rebooted every couple of weeks, Im hopeful this firewall setup will be more stable!

Update: The seller made everything right. They sent me a pre-paid label to ship the DOA unit back and shipped me a new unit. The new unit worked perfectly.

I have been running a QOTOM-Q355G4 24/7x365 as my OPNsense router since 2017 and it has never gone down. Thats going to be a hard act to follow, but its getting old so I used 2.5Gbe as an excuse to upgrade to this box.

Came loaded with pfSense, but I did a fresh install to set my base level of trust. It’s quiet and has plenty of performance to support VPNs back to my Netgate 6100.

Updated!

These are really good for what they are, dedicated hardware to runFreeBSD/linux etc. based firewall/router oss