Spotted: Quanmax NWA-6300 network security computer
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I was looking in to options to get a low-cost non-VPN routing appliance and ran in to the just-released Quanmax NWA-6300. Quanmax is some sort of industrial PC manufacturer, they seem to be high quality and on the market for quite a while. Probably one of those Foxconn/Compal type of companies with a bit more 'own design' hardware.
Press release: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/quanmax-introduces-fanless-network-security-appliance-ensure-network-continuity
Device page: http://www.quanmax.com/en/products-detail.php?num=154
Tech specs: http://www.quanmax.com/~quanmax/cmsAdmin/uploads/nwa-6300_20150206.pdfCPU options: Atom or Celeron, E3845 - E3825 - J1900
Has DDR3L SO-DIMM support (4GB on the low-end Atom, 8GB on the other two CPU options)
UEFI with CSM support
I210-AT Ethernet controllers (4 ports!)
Some sort of bypass thingy (LAN1 and LAN2 - probably a relay between the two that connects them if power fails, can be turned off with a hardware switch)
Has SATA and mSATA
USB 2 and 3, VGA and RS232
Seems to have indicators on the front for the network ports, but all connections are on the back - mehOh, and did I mention it's a fanless deal?
It also seems to have a TPM, but I don't really care for that and I don't think anything useful can be done with that from a pfSense perspective. Besides, TPM security isn't all as awesome as it's advertised.
It also seems to do GPIO for two front LED's, the bypass relay, the watchdog and a switch on the back, which probably has some nice options to let pfSense tell us things like "hey, someone is logged in!", or, 'DDoS detected! Oh noes!'.
The PDF says something about LCM support, but I don't really know what that is.
Anyway, the CPU support has the E3845 and E3825 with AES-NI support, so that's nice in case someone wants to do VPN and choses a setup that benefits from AES-NI.
Now, the CPU's aren't exactly fresh, looks like a year old at least, but since Quanmax does lots of industrial systems, I guess they use 'proven' hardware instead of 'newest' hardware. It has official Windows and Linux support, so I guess BSD will work as well, and since it's not built around some exotic setup but a rather 'normal' x86 layout, it should just boot like any other PC.
I'm thinking about getting a box, just to check it out, but if there is anyone out there that already has experience with Quanmax hardware + FreeBSD (or pfSense, hah), any information on performance would be nice.
Edit:
Finally found a reseller: http://linewize.com/products/lwg-20d seems to cost $600 USD :( but that thing is re-sold as a LWG-20D, so maybe the actual price is a bit lower. The manual on the Quanmax site also says "no logo", probably because they have it as a white-label unit as well for resellers. I hope a bare unit costs less than $600 :p that would make it interesting. For $600 you can get a haswell i5 setup…
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No prices announced… So let's wait and see how expensive this machine is going to be.