Hi All,
Was thinking about purchasing this little unit (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004361978660.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000013.7.72592285M2Lx3j&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller&scm=1007.13339.291025.0&scm_id=1007.13339.291025.0&scm-url=1007.13339.291025.0&pvid=78f96608-5dad-4e2c-a785-f240ef1b05e6&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller,scm-url:1007.13339.291025.0,pvid:78f96608-5dad-4e2c-a785-f240ef1b05e6,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238113%231998&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000028908687820%22%2C%22sceneId%22%3A%223339%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%21456.65%21296.82%21%21%21%21%21%40210312ea16673461929756572ec9c1%2112000028908687820%21rec) and was wondering if anyone has experience with the intel nic's inside?
I have seen tons of posts on reddit about the intel i225 being complete garbage but not sure if peoples experience is on windows. Makes me wonder if the experience is the same on freebsd or even linux? I have seen the i226 but it seems like a rehash of the i225.
If anyone has a recommendation for a regular gigabit unit with 6 ports I am all ears.
Thanks in advance.
I purchased a 4 port Celeron j4125 appliance using the 2.5gb Intel nice. No issues at all with it. I have a lan, wan and a trunked in terrace with multiple vlans.
Wan interface connects directly to a Motorola cable modem with a 2.5gb Nic. Lan and trunk interfaces are connected into a Ubiquiti 2.5gb switch.
I work from home full-time, and push a lot of data through this. Works well, and I'm happy with it.
Did opnsense automatically detect the ports or did you have to install the driver for it?
it auto detected them.
There's a mega-thread (80+ page) on Serve The Home forum about this family of device. OPNsense seems to work quite well on all of them. My conclusions (which may be different from yours! read the thread) from following that thread almost from the beginning are:
- 5105 devices seem to be the sweet spot, balancing CPU power, wall power and price. But, if you need more power (running box as a NAS or VM-host), then move up the Intel CPU stack.
- Assembly of these devices is hit-or-miss, make sure to check the thermals if you get one as you may need to repaste (or even shorten the standoffs) to get them working as designed.
- There are many models and revisions to choose from older J4s, newer N5, N6 and J6 CPUs, and a mix of 2x, 4x or 6x I225 and I226 NICs, so shop around.
- Get them "barebones" and supply your own SSD and SODIMMs, the packaged ones are both expensive and from sketchy sources.
- Topton (and others?) are having a sale right now (early Nov 2022), so prices are the best I've seen them.
I have a Topton with ChangWang CW-N11 motherboard with 6 i225-V3 NICs. Did not try 2.5 GbE connection. All GbE devices connect and working fine with no issues. One 100 MbE connection is working at full speed, but another one (from old LTE router) goes up only as 10BASE-T. So only 10 Mbit.
I'm waiting to get this one (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804597242866.html) which is slightly more powerful and is with 4*Intel i226-V 2.5G
I'll also try to put OPNSense on it and see if it works.
Works ?