SOHO hardware recomendations: Economic, 5(+?) Lan ports & Wifi hardware rec's

[thepodger]

Is there a low power device similar to the Mikrotik Routerboard RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN that will do router & Wifi AP double duty with 5 or more Lan ports? I do not need the LCD screen and the budget can be closer to $200. I would rather not go with a OpenWRT solution if I can avoid it. I have been using OPNSense and other *Sense versions going back to M0n0wall days and would love to find a solution that scratches this itch. Any recommendations welcome. It will be protecting small installations with cable/DSL modems. I will be sure to share my findings and performance notes with the group.  Thank you for all your work in the community.
-Forgive me if I missed a previously answered version of this question

[elektroinside]

Since this is a forum dedicated to OPNsense, it would just be polite to recommend you a $200 second hand PC with 5+ LAN ports, install OPNsense on it and get an AP to connect it to one of those LAN ports :-)

[thepodger]

Thank you for your response. I had been looking at the PCEngines (APU*, etc) and others, but have not found anything with enough ports plus Wifi that will boot OPNSense. Never hurts to ask.

[monstermania]

Hi,
i suggest you to choose an external AP for WiFi (i.e. Unifi AP Pro).
Do you need really 5+ physical LAN Ports?
A possibility to do it using an mPCIe2LAN-Board (i.E. https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01NBRA4IX/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
An APU2C4 Board has 3 mPCI-e Slots so you can add up to 6 physical LAN Ports. So you can get 9 LAN Ports.
But you have t build a case for that configuration by yourself. 

Also you can use vLAN with OPNsense. If you don't need the fully bandwith vLAN ist a very suitable solution to use.

best regards
Dirk

[marjohn56]

The best VFM option around IMHO at present is one of the Qotom i5 units. 4 Intel NICs  can take SSD and mSata and a wireless card.

However, as has been pointed out already, you are better off with an external WAP and if you really need all those ports then an external  8 port switch is a far better option, and they are dirt cheap. Although you can bridge all the unused ports into a switch it's not recommended where there is a heavy load on the 'switch' as it's all handled by the CPU itself. Switches are designed to do just that, switch.

However, to find something new and off the shelf with 6 ports and wifi and decent performance for $200 will be a challenge, let me know if you find something, I'll get one myself.

[Tubs]

The cheapest I could find with 6 NIC is the MINISYS IBOX-501 N13 with celeron 3865u (Kaby Lake). But this slightly is higher in price.

[marjohn56]

The key is what do you intend to use the device for,  by that I mean what is the load likely to be?