Is this Topton mini PCs a good choice?

[alozzy]

My client currently is using a Sophos UTM firewall which hardware support is ending on. Rather than having to purchase new Sophos hardware and continue to pay Sophos for annual licenses, I'm wanting to switch them over to Opnsense. The client only has a dozen people in the office and their network throughput is low because they work all day long within Cloud PCs. So, they don't need powerful hardware and they just need a basic firewall with one IPSEC VPN tunnel (used for management, very little traffic).

I'm considering this Topton unit because I'm pretty confident that the N5105 process will be fast enough for their needs and because the $300 CAD price tag is about right too :-)

https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005003111113672.html (8GB DDR4 128GB NVMe)

It's nice to see Intel i226 NICs on this unit as I anticipate having no driver issues with those NIC (bad assumption?)...

A short list of pros and cons would be appreciated!

[Greg_E]

You should also consider one of the OPNsense hardware devices.

I have not used those fanless PCs, but I've heard that they may not last as long as things like a Netgate or OPNsense appliance. They are built to a price point and that might cause skipping so longevity.

[alozzy]

Unfortunately, this client is a school and, as usual, they have a very limited budget. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Greg_E]

Have you checked to see if OPNsense gives educational discounts on the hardware?

Does the school have any old servers they aren't using, or that you can move the functions to another server?

If not, then the choice is made, tell them that this might only last for 2-3 years which gives them time to build a better device into the budget.

I would go with at least an n100 processor and try to get at least 16gb of ram. I used up 6gb of ram with Suricata and Zenarmor on my test box, glad I increased it from the 8 it cam with. No idea what will happen when I start throwing real traffic at it, installing for real testing this week. I think an n100 with 16gb and a 128 or 256GB SSD should fit within $300usd on these devices, especially if you only need 4 ethernet ports.

[yourfriendarmando]

I got one of the types of mini pcs, with the weird Chinese brand names, something like Topton. I had a lot of network continuity issues with it. It had 4 ports of some lower quality Intel NIC Phys. Ever since I get Protecli, repurpose a 1U pizza box server, or if one day possible, shell out for a Deciso box.

[qarkhs]

There are Taiwanese options if you are looking for better manufacturing, quality control, and support e.g. AAEON and Jetway (both Asus companies). GigaIPC (Gigabyte) sells a barebone box with a J6412 and two Intel I211 that can be had for as little as $225.

[planetf1]

I’ve had a similar n100 4x226 16GB unit for a couple of months at home and it’s working brilliantly for a 500Mbps connection. Low cpu.

That being said in a business environment I Easter wonder if I’d prefer a unit with fans to improve cooling, and probably a high availability pair….


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