Mini PC Intel Celeron J4125

[OpenMind]

Hi,

I'm new to OPNsense and in the process of setting up my server with OPNsense, my WAN port broke, and I guess it's simply time to upgrade the hardware.

My use case is a few devices (2 or max 3) behind the OPNsense and a OpenVPN/WireGuard VPN Client running on it. It would be nice if the hardware could handle gigabit speeds on the VPN client <=> WAN.

As it's one of my test networks (playground) I was looking for a cheap solution, so I went to AliExpress and found the following: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005003378019857.html

I would go for the J4125 CPU with 8 GB Ram and 64 GB SDD. They state that it got 4 network cards: Intel i225v 2,5g Net

I wonder if this box would handle the gigabit speed and if there is any know compatibility issues with the network cards ?

Any advice ? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[meyergru]

For 20 bucks more, you can get an N5105, for 40 bucks more an N100, which is nearly twice as fast as the J4125.  Those models also employ the I226V, which has a few bugfixes.

[OpenMind]

Thanks meyergru,

is it worth the 20 bucks extra ? I mean, I just need a decent hardware which can handle the speed at a small price. It's just a test net.

[meyergru]

40 bucks... I would guess that the J4125 is too slow for 1 Gbit/s VPN speed, at least with Wireguard. No guesses for OpenVPN. Considering the known problems with I225 and the rest of the components (RAM and NVME), I would take the N100 as a no-brainer. The N5105 has more power draw, which in the long run could outweigh the price premium on the N100.

[OpenMind]

Thanks, will check and also if there are other solutions too.

Thanks.

[cookiemonster]

You have two extreme requirements. 2-3 devices to route, you can do it with just about anything.
Then 1 Gb VPN, that is what requires some modern cpu that is not rock-bottom price.
Just look on the maker's hardware specs https://shop.opnsense.com/ for the hardware used to attain IPSec VPN throughput for an idea.

[OpenMind]

I ran some tests with my older Hardware uning WireGuard.
On 500 MBit I get around 80-90% CPU usage (see screenshot).

I compared the CPU with the N100 and was surprised to see that it's not that much faster.

Thanks for your input, I will see what I do now.