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Hello again everyone,

I just found the fitlet2 from Compulab and I am really liking this box. Any thoughts?
https://fit-iot.com/web/products/fitlet2/fitlet2-specifications/

I know it only has the 2 Ethernet ports and that's alright with me. Whether I have 4, 3, or 2 everything goes to through a switch anyway.

There is also the SBC-FLT, which I am not totally sure I like that much.
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fitlet/sbc-flt/

On a side note, while you are at the fit-iot website, you should check out the Airtop2 if you haven't seen it before. Built to order box of awesome!
https://fit-iot.com/web/products/airtop2/airtop2-specifications/

Still searching,

TWB

[Beware and think twice about choosing high performance & high TDP wattage CPU options on allowing POnDesk HW (Products On Desk (Winston Marriot - London UK based) - pondesk.com) if it might happen to stumble upon it!!!]

Even if I clearly saw what happened when @ricsip stated a warning against a specific product based on it's feelings/ emotions, I can't refrain myself from saying Beware and think twice about choosing high performance & high TDP wattage CPU options on allowing POnDesk HW (Products On Desk (Winston Marriot - London UK based) - pondesk.com) if it might happen to stumble upon it!!!

Honestly I don't think any of the PONDESK units will work for me. The only one that looks remotely close to what I am after is the PONDESK PICO PC. Unfortunately, they are a far cry from inside my current budget.

Thank you for the suggestion though,

TWB

Thanks again for the responses. I am struggling with a final decision. The Qotom seems like the obvious solution at this point. Regardless of power consumption. It really is a nice box.

I have to ask myself: Can I hold out for freeBSD 12.0 in hopes of getting support for these other boards? I guess only I can honestly answer that question. I feel like I have this dream of creating a cluster of Grapeboards https://www.grapeboard.com/ or maybe some ESPRESSObin 1GB boards http://espressobin.net/ for this project. I can always keep dreaming.

OP is concerned about energy usage, The Qotom when used without the usual energy saving turned on will use approx 16W, that costs about £15 PA at our prices, plus I also have AC Infinity fans on mine, so add a few cents for that too.

Why do you have fans on your rig? Is that something I might have to consider in the future?

Still searching,

TWB

Many thanks to you all for the great suggestions. I am still unsure of which route I want to take. Regardless, the experience of others in this area is priceless.

I do like the QOTOM rig, I'm not sure I need that much processing power though. Also, I am not totally thrilled with the 15W of power consumption on that box. Not that the "about 6 to 12W depending on CPU load" for the APU2 board is a huge difference in power consumption. Although, anything to save on the power bill each month is a huge bonus for a potential board.

All of that being said, to me, the APU2 boards are looking pretty cool. especially with the red case.  8)
It might actually work for me because I am not even close to gigabit speeds. More like 65Mbps, heh!

I do also like the DECISO Netboard A10. It looks like I can buy one with OPNsense already installed and in a desktop enclosure. However, that is well outside the constraints of my budget. Can I just buy the board and make an enclosure? I didn't find an option to just purchase a single board.

I am still open and interested in other suggestions though (without breaking the bank).

Any thoughts on the MinnowBoard Turbot Dual Ethernet Family?
https://minnowboard.org/minnowboard-turbot-dual-e/

or

The UP Squared board?
https://up-shop.org/28-up-squared

or

Marvell ESPRESSObin? (I know it is not X86_64, still seems somewhat promising)
http://espressobin.net/

Enlightened to new possibilities,

TWB

Moved post...

While it's possible to build armv6/7 for a single device the effort is currently steep, but not impossible given the open source nature.

I had a feeling this was the scenario. I suppose if it was easy we would already have support for these boards. I might still look into the process a bit more. For now, however, it looks like buying a board that is already compatible with the current build will be more time efficient.

Greatly appreciative for the information,

TWB

Awesome information! thank you for all the responses.

You need to say what the budget is. :)

As it stands, my budget for this project must not exceed 300 USD, however, I would like to spend much less than that.

The problem is the availability of freebsd/hw drivers for the most sbc. Even if the cpu (i.e. ARM-Core) is supported by freebsd that doesn't mean that the whole sbc is running with freebsd!

Since my original post, some personal research has revealed exactly this. Simply put, I need a x86-sbc to be successful with this project. I will definitely be checking out the APU-Series as a viable option. Any other suggestions are welcomed and would be greatly appreciated.

On a side note and, maybe, an unrelated tangent for a different discussion board all together. Is it worth trying to compile a custom freeBSD kernel to support some of these ARM boards? What would it take to create the drivers for different hardware?

I have done this with Linux and some obscure hardware setups, however, I am definitely a newbie to the BSD world.

Thanks again for the feedback,

TWB

Greetings all,

I am currently running my firewall on a netbook and I am looking to get something with a smaller form factor. I have been looking at the Asus Tinker Board with the Rockchip RK3288 CPU. My main question is: Has anyone had success running OPNsense on this board?

I hope this finds you all well,

TWB

UPDATE 8/14/2018:

The Tinker Board is out of the scope of options for me. However, I am still looking for a single board computer to use for my firewall.

Any suggestions on my best possible options would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

TWB