Current popular QOTOM or similar hardware for home UTM-9?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Qotom-Q355G4-Fanless-Mini-PC-Broadwell-Core-i5-5250U-HD-Graphics-HD-Video-VGA-Pocket-PC/32799580496.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.2.v45kqz&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_5_10152_10065_10151_10344_10068_10130_10345_10324_10342_10547_10343_10340_10341_10548_10545_10541_10084_10083_10307_5640015_10178_10060_10155_10154_10056_10055_10539_10538_5370015_10537_10312_10536_10059_10313_10314_10534_10533_100031_10103_10073_10102_5630015_10142_10107,searchweb201603_1,ppcSwitch_5&btsid=760af3f2-8542-4429-890f-cbdb2fa4774b&algo_expid=cd00b238-ba0c-4fa8-8c46-eec9a32c0be1-0&algo_pvid=cd00b238-ba0c-4fa8-8c46-eec9a32c0be1

Slightly over your budget but probably best bang for the buck.  Been running this for the last 2 months with no issues.  Only gotcha is the port arrangement.  Physical ports don't correspond to the way software identifies the ports.  They are 1, 3, 4, 2 instead of 1 2 3 4.  I run utm under esxi which allows me to remap the ports and make better use of the box by running other servers (freepbx).

There's a lengthy thread on the pfsense forum discussing this box - https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=132528 .

Overall, I think money well spent considering processing power and power consumed.

Thanks Jay Jay, I appreciate your input.

I've gone from running ASL 0.8 (I think), on a 486, to higher performance hardware,

ASG, UTM, ESXi vm and now I'm looking for low power and quiet.

The best price I can find on a QOTOM Q355G4 Mini PC w/ 8GB RAM + 16GB SSD - Core i5, AES-NI, 4 Intel LAN, 15Watts,

Industrial Mini PC Firewall Gateway Router (Q355G4-8R-16S) is CDN$500. + 13% VAT.

Slightly off topic, did you ever consider RPIPBX on a PI 3?

Mike

Hi Jevin,

I didn't get the qotom box, i got the aliexpress 4 port device that jay jay refers to earlier in this thread.

ian

^^The box I referenced is the qotom box.  The q355g4.

Edit: Q355g4, not q335g4.

Sorry.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Pfsense-fanless-X86-mini-pc-VGA-with-ATOM-E3845-CPU-4-Lan-router-barebone-nano-itx/32825994238.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.oFoGF0

Ian

Looks like there's countless of these mini pc's on aliexpress.  How does the atom e3845 compare to an i5-5250u?

Looking at some of these other minipc's, the big drawback are the NIC's used..  Many are realtek, few and far between are intel.  For a firewall/router appliance I wouldn't use anything but intel. Of course, the fastest cpu available is also high on the criteria list.

I'm pretty happy with my set up.  Handles the 350mbps isp without issue.  If all goes well, will have gigabit fiber by the end of the week. Will see how well the 5250u handles that.

Hi Jay Jay,

it has 4 genuine Intel NICs which are supported by the UTM software. The processors a quad core but i can't stress it due to ISP link speed limitations. Sometime this year I might get access to a 50/20 link. It is more powerful than most of the lower end SG/XG hardware.

I bought the box to replace my XG (the XG handles dual links very well), but instead put it in front of the XG to provide IPv6 connectivity. When t he link upgrade happens I will be back to one  link and have to decide whether the XG or UTM. Hopefully by then the XG will have improved the IPv6 handling.

Ian

Here's a comparison of the Atom e3845 vs. the i5-5250U.

Intel Core i5 5250U vs. Intel Atom E3845

This qotom mini pc has the Intel I211-T nic which works.

Q350G4

If I was to buy again, I'd get this one.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Industrial-PC-Gateway-Firewall-Router-for-pfSense-Core-I7-5500U-AES-NI-4-Gigabit-NICs-QOTOM/32855356778.html

This processor is somewhat faster than the 5250u, supports vt-d (for virtualization). 

https://ark.intel.com/compare/85214,75460,84984,75459

Higher base freq (2.4ghz vs 1.6ghz for the i5 5250u), and 4mb cache vs 3mb.  Realistically negligible differences, but unfortunately the 5250u is no longer available.  I paid $335 USD for mine last september.  Looks like this new one is around $420 USD.  Demand went up, prices went up.  Or buy with no ram and get the ram at newegg/amazon.

Ram prices went up too!@#  $65-80 for the 8gb of ram these days.

Hi Jay Jay,

thank you for those links. If the new box is not capable of handling the load I will continue to use my existing XG.

Ian

The issue with that one, according to some people from the community, is that it doesn't have a VGA port (Only HDMI) which makes the Sophos ISO fail and get stucked at "Detecting Hardware". It might've been fixed now but I am not sure. Need someone from Sophos to confirm.

I can't recall with 100% certainty but I don't recall having issues installing when connected via hdmi.  Ultimately I installed it under exsi so I could run other services on the box - freepbx and and a small ups monitoring linux install (cyberpower systems). 

I can't recall with 100% certainty but I don't recall having issues installing when connected via hdmi.  Ultimately I installed it under exsi so I could run other services on the box - freepbx and and a small ups monitoring linux install (cyberpower systems).