Dedicated low-power hardware

[Luca72]

Good morning everyone, I'm new and inexperienced, I've been repairing and installing photocopiers and printers for 35 years.
I wanted to experiment with opnsense at home to learn how to use it, but I'm struggling to find hardware with the features I'm looking for, even from the supplier of the company I work for.
I'm looking for:
-Fully compatible with opnsense
-very low energy consumption (since it will always be on)
-without fans
-and that it also only has two LAN ports (I can put a switch or use the wind modem ports)
-ideal if you can buy it on Amazon (so I have less hassle)
-that costs as little as possible (80-150 euros)

any solution are accepted

If anyone can help me I would be very grateful

Best regards

[Maurice]

If your budget allows it: https://shop.opnsense.com/product/dec675-opnsense-desktop-security-appliance/

Cheers
Maurice

[Luca72]

If your budget allows it: https://shop.opnsense.com/product/dec675-opnsense-desktop-security-appliance/

Cheers
Maurice

thank you very much Maurice, they look wonderful!...but it's way out of budget, I corrected my request, because I realized I forgot to write "that costs as little as possible 80-150 euros")...in the end it's a experiment, then maybe later on, if I feel good, I could invest much more

[meyergru]

For a real productive OpnSense, depending on your internet bandwidth and potential applications (zenarmor, VPN or any of that), you need a little processing power. I doubt will find anything useful for <150€ that also is power-efficient. The bare minimum to get would be ~350€ new, so the Deciso models are not overly priced considering they have support and work out-of-the-box.

If you want to experiment first and have a decent NAS or server box with virtualisation, you could probably test with a VM.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Between 200 and 250€ you can get a new APU4D4 which would be very energy efficient, guaranteed compatible, but not very powerful. Enough for 100 Mbit/s DSL even with PPPoE but not for Gigabit range speed.

https://www.apu-board.de/produkte/apu4d4.html

Alternatively look for something used on eBay - feel free to come back with a link and ask about compatibility.

[cookiemonster]

I have an APU4D4 that I used for about a year for OPN. Worked wonderfully and the low power is just amazing. Then wanted to use IPS and at that point that took my 500 Mbps connection down to about 400 Mbps. Without intrusion detection it handled that half gig connection with aplomb. No PPOoE but full fiber using IPoE.
I replaced it with something more powerful and been put in the "spares" box.

[Luca72]

Between 200 and 250€ you can get a new APU4D4 which would be very energy efficient, guaranteed compatible, but not very powerful. Enough for 100 Mbit/s DSL even with PPPoE but not for Gigabit range speed.

https://www.apu-board.de/produkte/apu4d4.html

Alternatively look for something used on eBay - feel free to come back with a link and ask about compatibility.

Thanks Patrik, I had seen something similar, but I couldn't understand the external case, should it be purchased elsewhere?

[Luca72]

For a real productive OpnSense, depending on your internet bandwidth and potential applications (zenarmor, VPN or any of that), you need a little processing power. I doubt will find anything useful for <150€ that also is power-efficient. The bare minimum to get would be ~350€ new, so the Deciso models are not overly priced considering they have support and work out-of-the-box.

If you want to experiment first and have a decent NAS or server box with virtualisation, you could probably test with a VM.

thanks, I understand, now I have a clearer picture of the situation, however I wanted to use it as a firewall and anti-intrusion

[passeri]

https://www.amazon.de/Firewall-Appliance-pFsense-Mikrotik-OPNsense-Celeron-J4105/dp/B0BJQ5JHXR/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2B5ADB26DWW1B&keywords=hunsn%2Brj12&qid=1700256564&sprefix=hunsn%2Brj12%2Caps%2C771&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

199€ with two Intel NICs, 4GB/128GB, fanless, with an adequate processor for a firewall and for testing, or did "two LAN" mean 3+ ports total?

[cookiemonster]

Between 200 and 250€ you can get a new APU4D4 which would be very energy efficient, guaranteed compatible, but not very powerful. Enough for 100 Mbit/s DSL even with PPPoE but not for Gigabit range speed.

https://www.apu-board.de/produkte/apu4d4.html

Alternatively look for something used on eBay - feel free to come back with a link and ask about compatibility.

Thanks Patrik, I had seen something similar, but I couldn't understand the external case, should it be purchased elsewhere?

The APU boards are normally sold without the case and without the power adapter, but the resellers/distributors normally stock all so people can purchase the bundle. See in UK: https://linitx.com/category/pc-engines-systems/176

[CJ]

This won't satisfy your need for low power, but if you're looking for cheap, old desktops are a great solution.  You can pick them up cheaply and just toss in a PCIe NIC or two.

[Splodge]

I used to have a Wyse 5070 Extended from eBay, with I350 4 port card.
9w idle at the wall with a kill-a-watt - has a small CPU fan but it was virtually silent in use

Cost me 150ukp

[sleepyal]

these are awesome, will need to possibly upgrade RAM and Storage if you need that.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196092518422?hash=item2da8066016:g:5uwAAOSwm-9lXb6P&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4Cjt5z7XxXzLkldKPWKm9uFgQvj9Cbw18Q9K5yiixiKUhvyxtCjLbqznJfw6KQa%2BWXBwJqOgcqHNZFZ03IcZToYey0mssqhiOyFKmpuVofC2sA0ev7wPPEQruBPEYECaDcO5vTALXQ1KbrItERvKMLjE%2BPNIRYht9sJ%2FFaAZdHM2JQ%2B0gSba%2Fp0XJEjeihJ6rvsnb3wF5Pgqw6UhO5dKQffm%2BMDnNSxu52JllNGYfWNm%2BnALYvMpRp5TZ%2BGi%2FfKpWjqPF7pi4iMOKLE91Z7Qinxe8jkzUALjAI5%2F9ClsV506%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5jv9saHYw