4 ports mini PC recommendations

chudak

I’m thinking to upgrade my pfS box.
I’ve been using QOTOM-Q355G4 for 8 years and it feels the time has come.

Fanless, 4 ports

Please suggest
TIA

johnpoz

@chudak my 4860 is getting long in the tooth as well. If I had to replace it today I would go with either the 4200 or 6100 from netgate. Prob lean towards the 6100 because it comes with more ports mostly.. Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

chudak

@johnpoz said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

@chudak my 4860 is getting long in the tooth as well. If I had to replace it today I would go with either the 4200 or 6100 from netgate. Prob lean towards the 6100 because it comes with more ports mostly.. Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

Will a netgate router be able to not pfS?

I’m understanding that it won’t.
I’m not suggesting I will stop using pfS, not all is possible and I don’t want to be limited

And it’s they are pricey

johnpoz

@chudak well more than likely it would run that other distro I don't name.. But I have no plans of moving away from pfsense. But interesting that you could leverage the hardware for a different distro.. But to be honest, the hardware isn't some sort of proprietary hardware that only the pfsense distro runs on..

You could prob more than likely run some linux based distro on it pretty sure - the guy I would ask that sort of question would be @stephenw10

He would prob know..

patient0

@chudak said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

Will a netgate router be able to not pfS?

It does run TNSR which is Linux based and someone benchmarked it: Debian and VPP on Netgate 6100 (back in 2021).

provels

I run mine on a used Adlink MXE-5401 industrial PC from Ebay ($2000 new, got mine for $65). I love these boxes. Used in manufacturing, transportation, etc. Cast chassis, fanless, all solid caps, ton o' ports. They even tack the SODIMMs in with a spot of glue. Meant to be set/forget.

link

Love these units so much, I bought 3 more of an older series with i5s just to mess around with, $45/each! Got one running as a 5G AP, another running KVM and the third, Openmediavault.

There's a new, current production MXE-5500 with i3 on the 'Bay for $150 now, no affiliation. Would love that instead of the i7 I'm using now.

dennypage

FWIW, I've run Linux on every Netgate box I've had after it stopped being my principal firewall. I haven't tried with a 6100 yet, because it's still in use as my primary firewall, but I have no reason to believe it would not work as the prior generations did.

The biggest issue is that you have to specify the console via the command line (console=ttyS1,115200) when booting the install medium, but you have to do this with any device that doesn't have a frame buffer.

stephenw10

Indeed the 6100 can be purchased with TNSR so it definitely can run Linux. I would expect anything Debian based to run fine. Or just about any OS really.

AndyRH

@chudak There is a newer version: Qotom Q20332G9-S10

AndyRH

@johnpoz said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

On my 7100, I only use the 2 10Gb ports. 1 fiber in from the ISP and 1 DAC out to my switch. The switch in the 7100 is my emergency in for when I screw up the config.

johnpoz

@AndyRH just had to rub it in huh ;) heheheh

AndyRH

@johnpoz Just encouraging the use of 10Gb ports and Netgate devices. Also having only 2 cables in the FW is kinda cool.