Best review yet on this type of box, you included the proxmox and opnsense caveats. Love the additional info. Thank you.

I have been binge watching all the STH videos and you were not joking about the forums. It's a great resource. It does need some sort of user curated Wiki to help distill down threads like the 130 page one for the N5105. Then it can link back to the thread discussing it

These latest gen fanless 2.5E mini/router get-ups are pushing the envelope rather quickly. Gotta love that.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

The speed of iteration is wild.

Thanks for the review - it was very interesting :)

Great review as usual, Patrick. Thanks a bunch for testing these fanless Mini PCs. Also, I entirely agree that this i5-1235U system is a little bit too much to be used just as a router, the much lower priced N5105 units do fine for this application. Personally, for ProxMox, I prefer the AMD Rizen 7 5825U unit that you reviewed some time ago, it handles 16 threads vs 12 for this i5-1235U box. But indeed, it needs two fans to handle the heat whenever it is not idle. Choices, choices... :)

All we need now is a rackmount case option like the one you can get with a Qotom and you have a pretty good small Proxmox cluster

@ServeTheHome I purchased the i5-1235u with your link. Thank you for doing the video on this hardware. -- Amazingly it was my first time purchasing from Aliexpress and I ordered the device Friday evening and it was on my doorstep Monday! I was shocked it came that quickly from China.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

8 ай бұрын

Wow! That is CRAZY fast for Ali.

@brandonwisenburg8899

8 ай бұрын

I know. I couldn't believe it

Proxmox 7.4 can be installed out of the box with no issues apart from display migrating from HDMI (default for bios and early boot) to type-c output, and after installing 6.2 kernel - all display outputs will be working once again.

Tried 8505 w 6xI226 and it's really good. Works with anything - Suse, Proxmox, DSM. Number of ports is insane, tons of internal and external ports. You can have 2 RAMs, 2 NVMEs and 2 SSDs, say what. SD card, type C with 4K video, RST, internal USB, WiFi 6 also works. CPU is pasted well, no manufacturing issues, no crashes. Performance is fantastic, easily outperforms Alderlake i5(!) in single. With QAT, what else do you need for a VPN router? Update: so the best feature - QAT - is not possible with the AMI BIOS there:(

Great intro to this box. Very interesting platform.

I bought one of these a little while ago. Been using it as a small Proxmox system running OPNsense and home assistant. Proxmox sees all the NICs and bridges them all into one "switch" with no issues. Rock solid a month in. My PSU was generic and didn't have a UL label... But they're pretty common PSUs, so you might even have one from a spare laptop sitting around. Mine came with a A+E key to B+M key adapter board, so you can have two SSDs (albeit one at x1 PCIe) instead of one SSD and wifi. The small, 10mm thick fans suck. Don't even bother with them. I have dual SSDs in mine and a 40x10mm Noctua keeps them both cool. I also run a splitter on the fan to aa loose fan on top of the heatsink because I'm weird. The design means the fan on the underside DOES NOT COOL THE CPU. All the CPU heat is going to the top heatsink. Stick a fan on it and it'll be fine. The fan connector is 5v only! So I suggest just using a 12v fan and setting it to max speed. I really, really wish they had that fancy "turn normal RAM into ECC by storing ECC data in RAM" thing which has been on some Alder Lake embedded systems. There was a BIOS update for mine. If you track down the info on the board itself, you can find links (on a dodgy Chinese manufacturer site) to working BIOS updates.

@jcarman

9 ай бұрын

Did you have to drill out holes on the bottom of the cover for the 40x40x10 pattern? Any thoughts on a fan wise to use for the top? I'm assuming I'll just have to jerry rig some sort of ziptie mount, lol.

@PeterBrockie

9 ай бұрын

@@jcarman I just put one screw in, the fan isn't going anywhere even with just one screw.

Awesome video, very good information. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Have an awesome day

I kind of want one for my lancache, it looks perfect

I dunno if they still do it but last year pfsense plus had some free licenses for certain use cases.. I grabbed like 8 or something at the time lol.. so might be an option for the i226 for some not wanting to wait for pfce to have support

I am trying to install Proxmox on a fanless PC that has a 12th-generation processor (N200), and I am having the same compatibility issues causing the installer to fail. I tried following the same installation procedure you laid out in the video, but proxmox 7.1 is not available for download anymore. Only. 6.4, 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4. I assume the installation procedure would be the same for my 12th-generation Intel N200 right? Any thoughts or suggestions on how I can get the installer to not fail? I believe a graphics compatibility issue is causing the GUI installer to fail.

I have the 2x2.5Gbe N4000 version of this thing and I am definitely not happy with it. I bought it to use it as a simple firewall running OPNsense. However, the device would randomly reboot itself once every 24 to 36 hours. I thought maybe it was some hardware issue since I purchased the barebones version and installed my own RAM and SSD. I tried changing out the RAM to some "higher quality" SO-DIMM but after doing that the device won't even boot anymore. It appears to only accept 2133 spec memory. I could probably send a bunch of time trying to figure out which memory is the most stable in the unit but I don't really have the time or money to do that. I really wanted to like the product I bought but so far it's been nothing but a headache. I hope the newer version are better.

I would love one of these with an additional sfp+ !

@ServeTheHome - great vids, not too intimidating for a noob like me. Could you run Proxmox and with that: Jellyfin media, pfSense and TrueNAS on there? If so, what's a recommended way to attach SATA drives to this thing in an organized fashion (external of course)

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

You could, but the challenge is the SATA side. There are two SATA connectors but they use an uncommon data + power connector. This is probably not the ideal NAS just due to the form factor limitations.

Great review and a really interesting product. So if I wanted to just run this as a bare metal OPNsense firewall router with IDS features and rules plus a 10Gb USB nic for a server or switch uplink with up to 1Gb internet connection on the WAN side would the i5 still be overkill? Would I be better saving some funds and going for the i3 version? Or would it really be better going for the i5 to process all those functions after all?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

The 10G USB NIC will perform poorly (likely under 7Gbps.)

@JaguarInfinity

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo yep I would have expected that, but still double to triple the base 2.5gb speed which is good for adding some bandwidth. It would still be great to hear your thoughts on the i3 Vs i5 thought with the IDS overheads though :)

I'm getting a similar one but with four 2.5 GbE ports and an Intel i3-N305 cpu that was released Q1'23, in a couple of weeks....it will be interesting to see how cumbersome that will be.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

We have had multiple orders for the N305 cancelled. It looks like ours should be here in 3 weeks or so.

Regarding the iGPU options, there's actually a similar stepping from the i5 to i7 as from the i3 to i5. The i7 has 96 EUs to the i5's 80. The i3 has 64 and thus doesn't meet the "Iris Xe" threshold, but it's still 16 extra EUs per model number. But then it's supposed to be a router ...

Are there any videos comparing and recommending products by task or price category? I guess six ethernet ports may be good for router, but two may be sufficient with external (maybe managed) switch, but CPU might be a bit overkill. On the other hand some proxmox with virtual servers may benefit from RAM and some may be good if you want to run some demanding tasks and even raspberry pi or something with celeron has some use for monitoring and logging as something that consumes little power.

@jusia80

Жыл бұрын

I haven’t seen such videos, it’s not usual in the format. It’s always best to get a device that exceeds your absolute needs today so you can fit tomorrow into it as well. If you aren’t looking to cram tons of things into a single node, the weaker nodes suffice for quite a lot. There’s also value in redundancy so you won’t lose all your services if you need to service one node. You can always also try one kind of node and sell it off if you find it doesn’t match your performance expectations

@pavelperina7629

Жыл бұрын

@@jusia80 Thanks. Yes, I understand. I just started with home server. So far it's USFF Fujitsu with i5-6500t running nextcloud and clouflared, next might be syncthing and some photo gallery (but nextcloud is suffient for that). Reason is sharing data with friends and family and maybe replacing onedrive. I quickly learned that Celeron with 2GB RAM is far better than Raspberry3, but not good enough.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

We tried doing a 2.5GbE switch round-up (Video here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/lKaFt9muk62ypMo.html ) but that was VERY tough. We might do something on the main site like this. The RPi is good, until you need more than one.

@jusia80

Жыл бұрын

@@pavelperina7629 For your use cases I would say peak single-thread throughput and RAM for caching are both going to strongly effect your user experience. That 6500t is most likely very good for you unless you are ready to shell out for a 12th gen box. I have one 9400t lenovo one-liter unit for its NVMe slot, but unless you run VMs you probably won't need 6 cores. Look out for good deals on memory modules and reach for 16GB total, unused memory will be used for cache speeding up your repeated filesystem operations

So, does the entire P and E core work on FreeBSD-based firewalls? Never used a CPU like that on pfSense or Opensens .

@gowinfanless

Жыл бұрын

@@Clobercow1 If that comes with 32GB ram, then it's perfect!

Pls note IRIS graphics only activated if you have dual channel ram. Singe Ram it will show up as UHD 630. So that box with the I5 Iris you need to verify it has dual channel ram (2 ram slots)

I like your testing and reports on these items. I'm looking at replacing my Netgate 2100 with something more powerful and that doesn't have upgrade problems. I'm on FiOS and while I'm not at the top tier if I was the 2100 couldn't handle that either. Are you planning on a video covering what level of performance is needed for a simple firewall? I know of a few that cover pfSense and similar installations but a guide, even if you just have links in the description to good guides that is enough. I'm not a big Linux person but Windows Pro and such is my comfort level. In national security related work the separation of duties doesn't let me get the experience of sys admin stuff. I'm used to just RDP into a Linux VM that is running so I never set that up, just install development tools and code away. The various SW options on these things isn't so obvious. I have seen individual guides but not ones suggesting various combinations or packages (think of buying a vehicle and what goes with what), and what to install in Etsy order. I am one of the consumers that wants simple is better when it comes to stability. I don't care if logging goes on a 128GB thumb drive I swap out with a clean one from time to time, that's what I mean by simple. Again, thanks for the HW info I'm trying to sort out the SW side now that the HW is looking like a commodity (RAM, NIC, SSD, USB).

@ServeTheHomeVideo

7 ай бұрын

Great feedback. I am sending this to the team.

Are there any good solutions (rack or otherwise) for organizing the external power adapters that come with these sorts of systems? Will it always devolve into zip ties and velcro?

While I dont have the particular one in the video, I do have a PC in storage with a similar style case (HYSTOU). Only a 4200U with two gigabit ports. Guess I should check out pfsense and opensense over the weekend then. Didnt seem to hard if you just want a router for your cable modem. While it goes against any advice on the channel I currently have my PC connected directly to the cable modem, as I wanted to see just how much of a bottleneck my router really was. About 80-90MBps with a router between and upto 112MBps directly connected (both wired). The download speed also have a tendency to slow down if I dont regulary reboot my router.

Wondering if you guys could take a look at the Yanling N3161 and its ilk -- also 6x 2.5G LAN (4 of which POE!) and powerful 12th gen mobile processor. I'm wondering how reliable it would be.

I have the i7-1265U version and added my own ssd and RAM and it's been working great, I am using Proxmox + OPNSense VM and UniFi controller LXC

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Mind sharing the RAM you used either here or in the forums? I think we should start documenting that for folks

@user-tm2vz5wf1m

11 ай бұрын

Could you please tell about temps and throttling under load?

@xan590

11 ай бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo G.Skill F4-3200C22S-32GRS

10mm thickness for the fan that’s just a stupid choice by the manufacturer they should have allowed 25mm thickness fans. Then one could buy a Noctua fan. So very good that you mentioned that..

Thanks for the review. Do you have any plans to review a n100 unit? Passmark performance is pretty good and I'd be interested to see how it fares

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Hoping the N100 arrives soon. N305 I should be getting one of the first ones ETA 5/10. Hopefully before I leave for ISC and Computex

@c0p0n

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo grand, looking forward to it 👍👍👍

Yate-Loon D12SL-12, held in by two screws into that giant heatsink on top, plugged into a 5V USB socket..... I'm curious how much of a difference that could make performance-wise?

Looking forward to reviews of N100 and N305 systems.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

N305's should start shipping in the next 2 weeks. We had orders cancelled from multiple sellers :-(

@MarcDoughty

Жыл бұрын

Came here to say this. I don't need P-core performance (or price) on the infrastructure, but the n-series seem like they'd be great to host a virtualized/containerized router, firewall, VPN, and a few other lightweight services.

@NetBandit70

Жыл бұрын

@@MarcDoughty I really want a containerized linux router. While I could try to DIY it, I'd rather have someone build up a UI and what not. Those Beelink S12 with dual 2.5G interfaces are pretty cheap and would totally get the job done.

I bought the 1265U version barebones. One big difference I don't think you mentioned is that it comes with 2 SATA ports whilst previous Gens had just 1. NOTE: Oddly it only comes with one SATA cable; I had to order another one for 15 bucks from the vendor. Right now I'm running it with 2 NGFF drives w/SATA adapter boards, one drive has Proxmox, the other for VMs. It does get quite hot so I have 140 mm fan sitting on top of it, fits great and keeps it cool, no noise. Reason I'm doing that is to free up the 3.0x4 m.2 slot, I believe previous Gens had a 3.0x2 slot. I would like to try buying a M.2 -> PCIe adapter and running a dual 10Gbe NIC with it. Do you think this would work? Also: What is that 4 pin power adapter on the board near the power button for?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Ours came with 0 SATA cables :-(

@solomonhilliard5357

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo That's not good😑. Any idea what the 4-pin connector next to the power button is? I assume it's there to draw power from...

@justinth83

Жыл бұрын

Just posted about the same thing essentially: have one of these and would like to free up the PCIE3.0x4 slot in order to run a 10G SFP+ NIC. Would probably need to fabricate an expansion to provide the IO, unless you know a better way?

@solomonhilliard5357

Жыл бұрын

@@justinth83 I'm not totally sure what you mean, my plan was to use one of the riser cables (ASIN: B07Z4RC273) which will convert an m.2 into a standard PCIe 3.0x4 bus. The riser cable should fit underneath where the optional hole is, I already have the hole punched to route the fan cable for the 140mm I have on top of the unit. I will use gorilla tape to hold the card in place next to the unit. A 3D printed bracket to lay the card flat under the unit would look a lot better. My main concern is that the riser requires additional power from a SATA connector that I do not have free in the unit, both sata connections are in use. I hope the 4pin connector next to the power button could be used but I don't know what it's for yet.

@solomonhilliard5357

Жыл бұрын

After thinking about it some more; I believe the 4 pin connector near the DC power in (not the power button like I previously said) is probably for supplying power to the board, if for whatever reason you can't use the DC power in. A SATA power splitter and data extension cable will probably work.

Waiting for these processors to be on those itx nas boards like the 5105 and i225 is currently

Oh boy, the stubbornness of my mind vs the reality of what is in the box...I have the older Qotom with the i5 7200 running PFSense bare bones. Been several years no issues but bug bit me... want a newer one with i226 nics. Gotta be an i5 like what I have now... finally a little birdie talked me out of it, get the 8505 instead. i5 Kaby lake is nothing like 12th gen i5... Even that 8505 runs circles around the old 7200, probably could have gone lower. Simple edit of exported setting file then apply to the new box and I was back up and running. Did slap a 120 fan on top to help those fins and it did cool the proc some 4~5c more. Agree on the WD Blue- 26 bucks got me a 500gig one - I couldn't find a new 250gig on Amazon... no biggie, zfs supports trim so the wear leveling has lots of room LOL. Thanks for your review, I was waffling for a bit but glad I jumped on one. Put my vlans on the nics, now just need a new managed 2.5gig switch...

which router would you recommend for home use? What is a good authorized seller in the USA? My ER-X stopped working

good as a nas and security all in one box

I have a very similar Topton I5-1135G7 with V226. I wish I did not have to jump through hoops to get pfsense plus to work. I have to add pfsense ce with a usb NIC and then upgrade to pfsense plus.

I was looking at one of these on amazon because it would be a good way to upgrade to 2.5 gig. as i can use it as a firewall and switch in one.

Hey, just want to ask, is the M.2 PCIe slot for SSD gen 3 or gen 4? The official website just says M.2 NVMe x4 but idk which gen this slot uses. Also I want to ask if the USB type C is USB 3.2 gen 1 or gen 2. I think it would be weird if the USB-C supports only up to 10Gbps(gen 1) as it has 2xUSB-A that can do 20Gbps(red colored ports)

@marcoschirrmeister

5 ай бұрын

This is PCIe 3.0. Gen 4 would not make any sense. PCIe 4.0x4 would be insane speed. It is Gen 3 with 4 lanes. For the devices with 1 NVMe slots that has 4 lanes, I think those are the ones where they make this advertisement with the splitter card/board to get 4 NVMe slots. Thats all good and nice, but whoever is doing this should be aware you have then PCIe 3.0x1 for one NVMe disk. A high speed NVMe drive will then no longer make sense. Unfortunately, nobody who creates these videos really goes into the details that matter. Nobody ever provided how the 6 network interfaces are for example connected. If each is connected to one pcie lane or if something is shared. Which is pretty important for some folks.

I have a question. I've been trying to go through a lot of your videos, but for some of these mini-pcs, I don't see any section on networking throughput. Can this (and other devices that do not have a network section) actually push, say 80% 2.5*6 (or 2.5*4) Gbps? What about when using a lot of firewall rules? Can it do 2.5Gbps when 1in-1out? I don't find this review helpful if there is no section on network throughput. Especially when the device under test has CPUs like the J3710 (the protectli) - they seem weak, and some reviews do say they aren't strong enough. I really hoped you'd cover this in some of the other recent and past reviews I've been binge-watching.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

5 ай бұрын

This is in a completely different class. N5105/ N6005 can do simple 3 in 3 out 2.5Gbps NAT. Adding firewall rules it depends on how big you go there. Still, this is in another class since it has P-cores. Since the barrier to 2.5Gbps throughput is so much lower than what these offer, you can even virtualize and do 2.5Gbps NAT + firewall on two ports without issue.

@dexterman6361

5 ай бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Thank you for the info! This really helps. I was looking out for some open source-ish hardware, and the protectli came to mind. I wanted to the low-tier 2.5G ones (The VP2420), but was unsure if I can push 2.5G through at least 3 ports close to their peak bandwidth with average amount of rules etc. Protectli has some benchmarks but that seems to stress only one interface. Also, these alibaba ones have good hardware, but what about bios updates? Since this is going to face the public internet, I don't want mine hopping into a botnet due to security issues from lack of firmware updates. Should I be worried about that? Thank you for your time!

Do you (or can you) have a video segment regarding SOHO/SMB 10Gbe ssd/flash iSCSI solutions? I have a pair of HP DL360 G9 servers I run vmware on and would like to have shared VM storage to enable running a VM on either node.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Interesting idea. Will give it to the team to see if they can do it.

Kinda new to all this but would it be advisable to use this for VMs as a router, NAS and simultaneously for hosting a small website with like almost no traffic? What are the downsides of having just 1 box for that?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

That would be fairly easy for a system like this. The only challenge is that the NAS you would likely want more drives for.

Can you advice inexpensive model for a pfsense or opensense based router? Just with a few 2.5 Gbit intel ports and a processor that will work around a few firewall rules and ad blockers.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

10 ай бұрын

We have some great, low power, and pretty inexpensive, fanless unit reviews with 4x 2.5GbE Intel ports if you look at our previous videos.

So I've been thinking for a while about retiring my poweredge iii 2950.. think it has dual xeon e5450 or something.. quick Google for 1235u vs xeon e5450 shows most benchmarks are 1.75 to 4x, anything under 2x might be a slight loss due to the server being dual proc but most benchmarks i see are 3 to 4x, geekbench4 is like 3.75x.. and under 30w for a whole system, silent versus loud server at probably like 300w idle.. I lose spinning rust raid for nvme (but I can keep server for some nas backup stuff and boot as needed) and lose ipmi (which is probably one of the biggest hesitations for me but while its nice to have I've rarely used it) .. this stuff getting so damn tempting.. originally I figured if I made the switch that whatever new mini would only run pf but if the benchmarks don't lie then I can easily setup xen or whatever and have basically the same setup but way quieter and faster in most scenarios and way more power efficient. My only gripe is I wish these had 10gbe ethernet ports but I'm an impatient weirdo that finds even 10gbe slow for certain things (setup 20gbe tbolt between my pc and Mac) .. I get that we're not at the point where 6x10gbe would be cheap yet but wish it at least had 1 or 2 10gbe then I could add a 10gbe switch.. I'm still damn tempted though and I'm moving soon and I can say 100% if I end up in a place where power isn't included then I'm gonna pull the trigger cuz I can't justify 300w minimum (and thats being generous since it has 2 cpu and fbdimms and 2psu) 24/7 for pf and some vms..and if I move somewhere that has fiber support then also yes for 2.5gb (fiber here is 2.5gb symmetric, my cable is 1gb/100mb but my building doesn't have fiber so fiber company will only do 50mbps/15mbps dsl and yeah no)..plus my server doesn't have vtd and often my lacp nics like to chug and max out the server randomly on low traffic (ugh, tried everything from different virtual nics to disabling offloading for every different possible setting both on xen and in pf, ovs still likes to have queues max out randomly, it's not consistent, it's totally random and it's annoying af but not quite deal breaking) Crazy that a mini passive thing almost destroys a server from 2009 now in like almost every category except maybe expandability and ipmi although other than the loss of SAS RAID, the other expandability would be mostly for NICs and when you have 6x2.5gb on board that's the same number of ports I already have but 2.5x faster.

@forbiddenera

Жыл бұрын

I think I might just say f it and order one of these or similar on payday anyway. Included win pro license helps offset too. I'm sick of my servers fan noise. For years and years I didn't care but last couple years I must be getting old and get off my lawn wait I don't have one. But seriously I was just waiting for something small cheap and low power than wouldn't be a huge decrease in performance and benches says its an increase sooo.. ❤ Patrick and sth team for covering this shit and not just beast server noisy homelabs like I currently have. Time to green up i guess

@forbiddenera

Жыл бұрын

Yeah 12w idle vs like 350w idle.. 3% of the power usage idle.. and probably max 5 to 10% pegged for more performance in most cases. I know my server is old but still..there's a time you just know to upgrade.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Yea, it saves a lot over time doing a NAS + then these smaller nodes. The higher-end Project TinyMiniMicro nodes are starting to be ~ dual E5-2670 V1 servers in CPU performance but with

ooh, Hi Patrick! I spotted the link to the video over on the article at the main site, though the video doesn't show up for me without the direct link just yet. so First I guess?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Yea the main site article went a few minutes earlier. Just trying timing out.

@bru2al1tyusa82

Жыл бұрын

I got a notification on mobile but the youtube desktop site doesn't show the link.

If I remember correctly the i7-1265U has intel vPRO support, so if that model is shipped with an i226-LM nic, then it has the chance that it has AMT support (I doubt that tbh). I would not say that the possibility of a non-confirmed AMT support justifies the price difference, but for me, that is the key difference between the i5 and i7, since the clock speed difference almost negligible... :)

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

That version is all i226-V. Also, for vPro support you not only need hardware (CPU, NIC, PCH) that supports it, but the actual system needs to as well. There are TinyMiniMicro nodes from Dell, HP, and Lenovo out there that have the i219-LM and a CPU/ PCH that should support vPro, but do not have vPro enabled.

Finally reviewing something with horsepower :)

@servethehome Why nobody is speaking about N100 cpu? Is that bad? I just ordered one and I would love to see STH doing a review about one. Appreciate and keep up the good work THC :D

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Still waiting for ours to arrive. The N305 is going to be the killer one of that generation IMO. We've had multiple N305 orders cancelled but hope to have a unit in ~2 weeks.

@xSniper_LoL

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo i order it my self the n100 is a 5w beast. I would love to see a review of that one. N305 for my lab is a bit overkill and overpriced comparing with i5 1135g7 (barebone). Just my opinion. I am waiting for your review for n305 and hope you will make soon for that 5w beast of n100. :)

Could a usb device be added to this to use it a an access point as well and if so how would you do it?

Vulnerable to Spectre or Meltdown attacks?

Should i wait for the 6 port i3-N305 systems or go for the higher priced i3-1215U of this model ?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

11 ай бұрын

Even the 4-port i3-N305 systems were delayed a bit so are just hitting the market. The i3-N305 is much faster than expected. We have a N305 mini PC (not a fan less one) video likely going live this week, then we have the N100/N200 fanless video next in queue.

So exactly, what type of memory can we buy for this unit? The memory shown is from the EU.

Hi Patric do you know if this unit has a sim card slot installed if not which of these boxes has one. I need a travel router with 4G or even 5G and VPN or WireGuard. Can you recommend something knowing your knowledge.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

I think they have a solution for this that we do not have. The listings say you can get LTE for example, but we did not get that option.

@mariuszfuchs2010

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo I believe the only option is an add-on card for PCIe

Hey Patrick, any plans on checking the units with the N95 up to N300 in it?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

The N305 orders from two vendors got cancelled :-( CWWK told me they would have a new one in the next week or two.

@cleitonalves1103

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo seria muito interessante se adicionar Sfps 10gb conector

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Someone is working on 10GbE in the forum thread

@cleitonalves1103

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo with slot nvme x4 using adapter ?

Who is making these SBC mother boards? Does anyone know? I'm trying to find the manufacture. I can't even find anyone on alibaba doing white label SBC boards. If anyone know it would be greatly appreciated!

@ServeTheHomeVideo

9 ай бұрын

CWWK

Personally, I am not a fan of integrated WiFi in these devices and prefer a multi antenna USB solution (that can be easily updated as standards change). This way I can position the antenna in an optimal position.

Do any of these small units have 10g copper or SFP+ ports?

@ooHotcooleRoo

Жыл бұрын

You can put a copper port into this one via something like Innodisk EGPL-T101, and STH reviewed R86S which had two SFP+ ports via Connect-X3 card inside.

@solomonhilliard5357

Жыл бұрын

My idea is to take a ADT-LINK Riser PCIe X4 3.0 and slap a dual 10Gbe card in the PCIe slot. There is a small hole underneath the unit for cable routing.

i have 2 similar mini PCs one with intel and one with amd ryzen. I am kinda worried about the Network ports appearing to be ON when PC is off, and I do not see any BIOS setting to disable this. Anyone has any guide how to install Coreboot or some other opensource bios on these mini pcs from china?

I still love the intros! 🤣

@4.17 it says Note: These are *VERY* picky on RAM, and then it says DDR4 3200 SODIMMs. Does that mean they need to be DDR4 3200 SODIMMs, or they need to be a specific brand? A link to the RAM would be useful, thanks.

This will make an awesome home-lab esxi server! Can you put a smaller boot SSD into the WiFi slot?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Some of these come with an adapter for a second slow M.2 SSD.

@TheDesertsweeper

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo that would do just fine for an esxi v8 boot drive!

I bought this unit a few months ago and added 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD, using proxmox and opnsense, the device gets very hot to the point I can't touch it, not sure if this is normal, CPU temperature most of the time around 77 degrees

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

It may be worth looking at the folks in the forums tuning power on these.

@knofi7052

8 ай бұрын

Is it possible to reduce the PL2 in Bios to reduce the power draw?

I could install Proxmox 7.4 with DP (HDMI didn't worked)

Compare to used M920q or newer model one with PCIe slot, the pricing on those units never make sense to me.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

We lookd at the M920q Tiny some time ago as part of Project TinyMiniMicro. It is hard to compare new versus used pricing directly. This is faster than the Core i5-8500T M920q, lower power, has 15x the networking speed built-in, a newer AV1 supporting GPU, and is fanless.

Using this as a firewall - many people have plus 1 gig connection and need something powerful. They should release a 5 gig Ethernet version.

I would love if they started ditching the barrel plug for power and would isntead use USB-C or at least allow it. Because I doubt this goes above 100w

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Fair. I think USB PD adapters are more expensive.

Его можно использовать как компьютер?

They must be getting some CPU discounts, because Intel lists the /1000 price of the 1215U as $309 while CWWK is selling the 1215U box for $370.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Yes.

So small yet so strong ;)

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Very strong... but very quirky.

Hi Patrick. This video is not showing up when you go direct to the channel

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Hi Rene - it was unlisted when the STH main site piece went live for a few minutes. Then we changed it to public.

I am super surprised: you maxed out the CPU and it goes to 75W. My system - AMD Ryzen 7 5800H - maxed out is 65W. Yet the CPU benchmark of Intel i5-1235U is 13706 vs 21287 for Ryzen 7 5800H. And mine is with fan (fully on when maxing it out), 1x nvme, 1x ssd. Where is the logic here?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

As mentioned, that is only for a few seconds, then the entire system, including 6x 1.3W TDP i226-V NICs uses like 30W constant. The 5800H uses more power after those first few seconds.

@zyghom

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo the 5800H in the form or Beelink SER 5 when I start stress test it stays at around 65W until test is finished - once I tested it for 1h and it stayed like this. In idle mode ... no, there is no idle mode - it is always doing something since I have there lots of VMs

You always mention USB-C, what do you see of interesting use cases for this port ?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

I think folks will use this as a desktop, so one easy use case is as a third display output with DP alt-mode

@gowinfanless

Жыл бұрын

good question,I'm thinking for this too!

I have this exact unit but while trying to install proxmox the display turns off just after the installation has started. Patrick is there any solution you may suggest?

@akwenyuhopekins9755

Жыл бұрын

Got the workaround after watching the whole video. Thank you so much - I was one of the folks cursing @ the dang box

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Glad it helped. That thread in the forums is also great.

@bwm9637

Жыл бұрын

With hdmi yes but with displayport no problems

Install fan to outside and you can install how thick fan as you want.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

True, but then you also need to make larger stand-offs for the system.

Does anyone know if it's possible to add an SFP+ NIC to this device? Obviously would need to find a creative solution for the IO plate...

@justinth83

Жыл бұрын

Unless I'm mistaken it has 1x M.2 PCIE3.0x4 slot and 1x M.2 PCIE3.0x1 slot. So in theory it's possible to run SFP+ to the x4 slot, and run an SSD at slower speed in the x1 slot. I currently have this device in a router-on-a-stick configuration with 2x2.5GbT ports in a LAG configuration acting as a trunk, but this takes 2x SFP+ slots on the switch and only provides up to (theoretical max) 5Gbps if multiple devices are pushing traffic concurrently. So a single 10G link to the switch with a DAC cable seems like it would be much more elegant solution as it would provide greater bandwidth, all bandwidth is available to a single device (no LAG limitations), use only 1 port on the switch and consume less power. Would be great to hear insight from anyone knowledgeable about this?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Someone is adding 10g in the forum thread linked

Has anyone been able to source the SATA cables for this?

What power supply should I look for to replace the one I got?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

I usually do Mean Well units if I replace them, but if you can find this Delta it is not bad. The linked and mentiond forum thread also has some information.

@ordor

Жыл бұрын

I'm trying to find a good power adapter but could not find a good one. Maybe someone can share a link to a good product?

I think that the fanless ecosystem is asking for sfp and sfp+ port units. As home and enterprise network speed grows, rj45 becomes completely obsolete.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

The thing keeping RJ45 in use is billions of dollars of cabling in walls.

@OKuusava

9 ай бұрын

Yes, on 20 years timeline.

How safe and reliable are these chinese units? Component quality, solder quality etc? Ever have one burst in flames i.e. would you feel safe leaving the house with this running?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

I mean I have had the J4125 one running 24x7 in my home for over a year and it passed 365 days of uptime. We have 2 of almost all of these fanless units on at all times.

@bakakafka4428

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Thanks for the info. I hope you'll follow up with a video if such a unit after a while fails.

@zyghom

Жыл бұрын

it will work until it dies.

@brotatobrosaurus5411

Жыл бұрын

You have no idea what's running on them because even if you flash the firmware, you can't trust the bootloader, and even if you manage to flash your own bootloader, you can't trust there's not a hidden partition on the ROM with code that will mangle whatever you flash to it. So, IMO: not safe at all. I would never run something like this at the most security-critical place in my network.

@zyghom

Жыл бұрын

@@brotatobrosaurus5411 and there is no firewall in your critical place?

10:11 In short -- lots of ethernet inputs, cpu power but "in the real world" you can only use less than half of its potential unless you spend more money on some serious cooling solutions.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Well, to be fair, there are folks in the forum thread who are changing power levels and throttle points and getting much better performance by using the temperature as the throttle metric. This chassis has more cooling than is being used with its defaults.

Is this superior to Protectli units?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

10 ай бұрын

This uses a two generation newer CPU.

I beg to differ. At 6W TDP, Alder Lake N100/N200 are the new N51505 therefore the kings right now. Hope you cover N100 AND N200 as i would love to see the difference on those. N95 is a 15W part so its not as attractive.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Alder Lake N is in progress. Lower power but lower performance and capabilities compared to this.

You can fit 1 nvme + 2 ssd in this little machine,, right?🤔

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Ours did not come with the SATA data + power cables.

@bwm9637

Жыл бұрын

It has 2 sata ports and 1 sata cable in the box and of course pci-e ( it is not a normal sata cable but a miniature connector for connecting the motherboard)

@bwm9637

Жыл бұрын

Thats providing power and data to the connector

I'd like to see a review of this running Windows 11 Pro. No problems, or no?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

We have screenshots of it running Win 11 Pro, show the license activation, discuss how it works in Windows versus other OSes, and even show it opening MS Edge and the STH main site on Win 11 Pro in this video. I am not sure what else we can do?

@ooHotcooleRoo

Жыл бұрын

Also I've run 3dMark on it if that strikes your fancy, results are in the mentioned forum thread.

greetings, what is the chance that in future videos you will also pay attention to the compatibility of those machines with mikrotik router-os, not all install proxmox and pfsense on such machines

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Interesting idea. I will have someone on our team looking at licensing. Usually we have this set because we have free OS images.

@ooHotcooleRoo

Жыл бұрын

AFAIK their x86 bare metal images are kinda abandon ware at this point and last I checked had serious issues with drivers. But their CHR images run just fine in a VM on pretty much any hardware.

@ooHotcooleRoo

Жыл бұрын

@@ServeTheHomeVideo AFAIK for CHR it's just a code you put in, 1G is 50$, 10G is 100$. 10mbps is free to play with.

About 2/3 of the price only 3 months after this review.

“We really haven’t had issues with i226” - have you tried installing Pfsense? Apparently not.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

We called that out specifically in the OS section.

@mph8759

10 ай бұрын

You’re right. I ended up going with OPNSense and it’s a great system. I’m running an older box with a J6413 with 64GB RAM and m.SATA - would be completely unnecessary but now I want to upgrade to this one! Perhaps I’ll order it as a desktop box I can take when travelling as an excuse 😂

they assumed so many Ethernet ports no ones gonna use wifi

Here I am with a 1060 and a 7th gen i5 watching these and pretending like I’m trying to decide which one to upgrade to someday when I actually have money 😭

Despite the form factor and the included i226 LANs, these Alder Lake variants are a bit overpriced... I can almost build an ITX with more performance cores and proper PCIe slot and avoid the issues surrounding efficiency core support.

@andrebalsa203

Жыл бұрын

Your ITX system will be 3x the volume, have at least two fans and will probably cost a lot more.

I’d run Windows Server on this thing.

Why not review the Banana Pi BPI-R3 router!???

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Fair, but this is a VERY different class of device.

@RobertoCarlos-tn1iq

Жыл бұрын

hey great review . . . now do what i want. lol

Does Esxi work?

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

VMware does not support heterogeneous cores out of the box and does not plan to soon. There is a workaround to enable it but that is a challenge with ESXi on these.

@jasper221176

Жыл бұрын

@ServeTheHome thanks for your time, I really looking forward to the next review/test. Keep your enthusiasm, it makes my day!

Hand on the box something something gom jabbar something something. TLDR don't remove your hand from the box!

need a single 10gbps port.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Agree.

I don't feel comfortable using these Aliexpress devices as routers/firewalls just because of the possibility of a malware placed on their firmware/BIOS

@ryutenmen

Жыл бұрын

you have no valid argument except for the american anti-propaganda.

Does anyone else have an unbearably loud and obnoxious coil whine going on with their device? Also, fun fact, they are now shipping the devices with fans. I got mine off of Amazon (shipped from China), and was surprised when it came with a fan on the bare bones model.

I have this one with the Pentium Gold 8505, and its a crap. Totally unstable and crashing all the time. Doesn´t matter if Windows, Proxmox or ESX. CPU is in idle around 50°C so you need active cooling if you want to have this device for longer than 1 year....

@donativool

Жыл бұрын

Regarding cooling, I put a 120mm fan on top of the case. As the case works as a big passive cooler, the CPU is going down now to 25 °C. Only the NVMW is still hot. So I am also going for the 8010 fan inside.

@ServeTheHomeVideo

Жыл бұрын

Super interesting. We have this running Windows 11 and doing video playback right now and it is at 39C.

@ooHotcooleRoo

Жыл бұрын

You might need to check the thermal paste on it I'm guessing. That does not sound right.