OPNsense Forum

English Forums => Hardware and Performance => Topic started by: Heathy65 on December 05, 2020, 09:35:08 am

Title: Back to OPNsense - SOHO Hardware PC Engines vs Intel
Post by: Heathy65 on December 05, 2020, 09:35:08 am

I have previously used OPNsense in a home setting on a PC Engines board and am looking for recommendations, hardware wise this time around.  FYI, I moved from OPNsense to Mikrotik then to a Unifi USG, the latter being simply that it matched my LAN/APs them all being UniFi too.  Bottom line, the USG is all very pretty (fancy look in the controller GUI) but limited in actual functionality, IMO.

So my use case for OPNsense is a SOHO setting with 2 x VDSL WAN connections (Ethernet connectivity to upstream routers).  I expect to be using a wide range of feature and functions of OPNsense including inbound client VPN, IPS, Captive Portal, Proxy, monit etc.

Are the APU2E4/APU4D4 devices still fit for purpose and a good fit (and good value)?  I want something which is small and fanless.  I've seen mention of alternative Intel based boards and am wondering if I should go down that route.  For example, this, Jetway JNF692G6-420 or the many Celeron/Atom units on eBay (if you search for "pfsense Intel").

Thanks in advance.

Title: Re: Back to OPNsense - SOHO Hardware PC Engines vs Intel
Post by: Gary7 on December 06, 2020, 12:56:10 pm

I currently have an APU2D4 for my home network.
If I needed more performance, I would seriously consider the Fitlet2 with J3455 CPU.
https://fit-iot.com/web/products/fitlet2/ (https://fit-iot.com/web/products/fitlet2/)
Available through Amazon. Costs a little more that an APU2.

Title: Re: Back to OPNsense - SOHO Hardware PC Engines vs Intel
Post by: Heathy65 on March 27, 2021, 08:13:07 am

Just looping back on my post in case it's useful to anyone else.
In the end I went for a Pico PC (Intel® E3845 4 LAN 1 COM AES-NI 4G Fanless Firewall Router)
https://www.pondesk.com/product/Intel-E3845-4-LAN-1-COM-AESNI-4G-Fanless-Firewall-Router_MNHO-073
I used a spare 2.5" SSD I had and also added 8GB RAM.  I'm slowly adding services to the OPENsense configuration and it's been rock-solid.  Am impressed with the build quality of the Pico PC too.