@@nargalda773 the CPU package power is only like 7W, you don't particularly need a lot of airflow to cool that. Heck, at this level you could passively cool it if it wasn't in the enclosure
@@DuyLeNguyen 7W its on idle/low load, if you give it rly hard work, it will rise almost to 30W and you will hear that A LOT, i have few of these mini mini pc, and their fan start spinning at 40degree to full spin and never go off (only on realy idle state, where you have just windows ), its does not matter if ouy have this mini pc somewhere where is noisy, but in quiet room at home, you will hear this about 4 meters away, you dont want sit with this mounted on monitor or near, i have nuc near 2 times in size, with 10cm fan, and even that under load is like jet plane starting
@@nargalda773 30 watts when Intel say is a 7 W processor? Nice you could forge it 4x more than rated by manufacturer... GG From Intel's site: "CPU Specifications Total Cores 8 Total Threads 8 Max Turbo Frequency 3.80 GHz Cache 6 MB Intel® Smart Cache TDP 7 W"
@@KiraSlithThe strange thing is that in their website, it states that "...supports PD protocol GaN charger for power supply...". Maybe Patrick can clarify this with them.
Love the idea of a fast modern pc i could fit in my pocket. The more i see of tiny capable machines like this the more i want to get my hands on one. 👍
My ideal pocket PC would be 20-30mm thick, and up to 100x150mm (with 2x sodimm and 2x nvme, also 8xZen 5c + 16 RDNA4 but the tdp needt to be lower, like upto 10w total system power
That power supply it comes with is absolutely insane and should not exist, it's just waiting for someone to plug in and fry their phone with an unexpected 12V. I can't believe they brought that over from the previous gen, that's the worst way they could have possibly chosen to power this thing.
look like they borrow that from the "upgraded" R86S, was trying to explain to my friend why he should bought my 1st gen R86S with the barrel jack, and not looking for the "upgraded" model with the USB-C, same killer power suppy, 12V USB-C
Even maniacs that are desperate for high performance nodes, can use a "witness node" in their proxmox cluster. I'm sure as heck no to get rid of my wyse-5070 ... those served me well, and allowed me to practice the failovers ... and just sip power. Thanks for another great review.
@@Chad_at_Big_CAT_Networking yeah it might be limited... but still very capable with just one TPU. especially considering the size and Power consumption
LOL the power button. Yep lost the power button for the n5105 version when I took it apart last night. No where to be found. Now I have to poke it with a stick to turn it on :(
I've gone the other way also... spend money on all those HDDs and disk and the board be underspecced and it not even work right... considering we are talking about what is essentially a miniPC , its the wrong tool for the job for everthing except a basic internet PC or HTPC. I mean thing has all these ports but at the end of the day you can't put all that much storage in it... because it physically won't fit, if they had this same design snuck into the corner of a box with a SATA expander then we'd be talking.
The Type C audio port changed my mind, I was going to buy it, very nicely built mini PC, (but) having a phone with Type C audio connector and the issues over the years I've had I must say never again. Great videos though. Greatful for your channel.
Good video as always! From a production point of view, I know you're still ironing out the kinks at the new studio but the sound change is super noticeable. Maybe try one of those square TH-camr mics for both segments until you get it sorted out so its consistent? Agree with you about more ram not being possible being a bummer - thanks for pointing out the processor limitation; makes much more sense. I didn't see any N95 benchmarks on your charts - perhaps you guys could find a mini PC with that processor and test so we could see exactly what we are missing? A portable Kubernetes cluster in a pelican briefcase and a Gaems screen (all connected over USB-C 10gbs in a mesh network or 2.5gb NICs) all powered off a battery bank would be super cool.
Yea we use a Sennheiser MKH 416 in the main set where I am sitting. For the new set, I need to move, so it has been trying combinations of lav mics and such. #11 a DPA 4071 just arrived this afternoon. Still lots of work to do.
I don't know why but i just watched the entire trailer for the new roadhouse movie that came up as the ad and totally forgot i was actually here for this video. LOL!
I wish they wouldn't use I226-V, it doesn't support any virtual functions or SR-IOV. But maybe that just means it doesn't suit a use case for me directly.
Right. Intel only shows 300-series and up on their SR-IOV FAQ. So no NIC passthrough support for hypervisors for the 200-series NICs. Maybe we'll see the small box vendors pivot to to better chips if enough people ask for it.
I got that same USB C external and it was a life saver on my last deployment. Only nit pick was it makes the most obnoxiously loud beep when you first turn it on. I agree that this tiny PC is likely way better of a homelab hypervisor than giant Xeon systems. I think we all just get caught up in the attractiveness of all of the pcie lanes available on Xeon systems. I think you could make a really interesting video showing the benefits of a super lightweight hypervisor box like this in a power out situation or a demonstration of how much heat those larger systems use. If nothing else it would work great as a VM fail-over for things like Home Assistant or any NVR in the event you need to power down your larger systems for any reason.
I like the size but because of the lack of storage space and the type of m.2 drive, I wouldn't use it for my home lab. I will though use it as a CNC controller as it is small and I can easily place it in the CNC controller box. Since it has WiFi I can send designs remotely or edit/design something quick while there. I'm on the fence on this one.
It's worth noting that while it's an "8 core", they're 8 12th gen e-cores and are fractionally as capable as Zen 3/4 cores. Still capable of most things you'd actually want a mini pc like this for, but don't go thinking it can actually compete with 5800u, 6800u or 7840u systems for performance. What I don't know is how it stacks up to similar Athlon/r3 parts. That would be a more interesting competition. The latest of those use Zen 2 processors, and use less of them, but they're also not the gimped e-core architecture so it'd be interesting. Though looking at it, parts like the 7320u have double the power limit of the N300, so it probably outperforms it even with the lower core count. Even the Athlon parts still have 15w TDPs. Doesn't look like AMD has any explicit 7w parts.
The bit about people buying giant server chips for their homelab and then not using them really got me XD. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with perf issues in my homelab+homecloud because my 'giant' server CPUs (the biggest ones are currently 1x24c and 2x12c, so not actually very big by current enterprise standards) aren't enough for the compute I throw at them, but I'd have to buy newer platforms to get considerably more performance :') TCO however is slowly pushing towards a massive overhaul of my homelab/cloud though, because yes, they comparatively use a huge amount of power, and even moreso when loaded since the architectures are... rather dated by today's standards! The upgrade would be an actual upgrade though, to something even bigger but more consolidated.
Sure. However, if you are buying a motherboard, you system is going to be many times larger than this so you would be making a completely different class of device.
Really, it depends on the manufacturer and their testing. We have seen some MiniPCs with lots of issues out of the box and barely useable, while some are just fine. Your best bet is to wait and see some user experiences, especially on the Discord if there is one. I also always recommend getting a mini PC from somewhere that offers an easy return option (i.e. Amazon) as the QC with mini PCs usually sucks and you don’t want to be stuck with a bad unit.
On almost any chinese made mini/micro pc, you really won't see bios updates/firmware updates beyond what Microsoft provides with Windows; if you are not running windows, well, you really almost have no say in the matter, and won't likely receive a single firmware update. Firmware updates require constant development; these vendors end development as soon as the next model is released.
If you want properly supported Mini PCs, buy reputatble brands, e.g. HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Asrock. These Chinese mini PCs "brands" come and go as they mostly source their machines from OEMs and put their names on them.
That's neat! I have been looking for a low power, small form factor replacement for my current cobbled together, way over-engineered firewall box. This just might fit the bill! And, it supports OPNSense! Thanks for the review, Patrick! Appreciate your opinions and dives into the world of computing!
@@cheerbeerification Which ones for example? Because if you also count in the power usage, this box is a pretty good option. I am currently also on the lookout for something like this and would be interested to hear about other alternatives.
Hey Patrick...I am considering this as an OPNsense replacement. The 8 gig of RAM is just fine for me, as my current firewall is barely breaking 4 gig of RAM use. This is perfect!
if you are using it purely for OPNsense, I dun think you need so many cores unless you are going to do some sysctl tunings (or your uplink is not multi-gigabit).
@qazwsx000xswzaq I run IDS/IPS , Zen Armor, and a few other services than strictly a firewall. I'd rather have some horsepower available than not having enough.
More cores/power makes opnsense more of a pleasure to use. If I look at my 8C/16T AMD 5700G CPU usage it's really low... but having that horsepower means nothing bogs down any more (IPS induced latency, slow service restoration on reboot, hanging when opening huge log file)
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh Indeed having more cores is preferable when you have other services (especially true for IDS and IPS) running together with OPNsense. The FreeBSD network stack under OPNsense default tuning is heavily single-core.
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh Indeed having more cores is preferable when you have other services (especially so for IDS and IPS) running together with OPNsense. The FreeBSD network stack under OPNsense default tuning is heavily single-core.
In Asia there's some weird Gigabit Light standard basically 500 Mbps Ethernet speed and the NIC that support those are mostly Realtek, If you plugged it into Intel nic, it will negotiate at 100Mbps only. I think this is pretty useful for some markets.
the power adapter might be for POE so you can put this remotely and power it through your ethernet and break out at the device. I have many security cameras that look the same way.
Still working on it. Trying different mics and lav packs to see which work best since we cannot set a static shotgun on a standing set where I am moving. The DPA 4071 just arrived a few minutes ago.
great for subsea stuff. fits in small expensive 1 atmosphere pressure bottles. always on the lookout for this kind of stuff. if it had a 10gbe option it would be perfect
Every time I see one of these, I’m like ,”I want this. I’m glad I didn’t get the last one.” 🤩 But then again, they’re producing new units and new upgrades at a spit-fire rate that I’m like, “wait a min, may be..” 🤔
FYI: I bought hardware like this because of your videos :) But I got the larger black one with an N-305 and put 32GB of ram in it with a 2TB nvme drive.
Can you overlay what each chart displays behind you when your talking about the power/cpu usage? I think it would be helpful to get a quick idea of what's going on.
I’d love to see a price to performance comparison of this vs getting a marked down Framework 11th Gen board (for those people that need that little bit more I’ve been curious if two of these would do better in a clustered configuration vs a single framework board with pop in adapters.
Before we left the Texas studio last fall, Bryan built a Framework 11th Gen (the $199 special) in one of those Cooler Master cases. It is sitting on the shelf here and TBH I have not been excited enough to do the video for it.
I'm not Patrick but I think this is a little overpowered for a dedicated baremetal OPNSense/pFsense router - you could go cheaper and probably still be fine unless you're doing super high speed fiber and full packet inspection (and even then there are probably slightly cheaper options that can handle it). I think this would be ideal if you want multiple Portainer setups etc. Check out this channel's video called "The EVERYTHING $300 Fanless Home Server" for another good option.
Great video, as always! It's too bad that for the N300 option, right on, on Amazon, the 16 GB RAM option isn't available (at all). But on the manufacturer's website -- it is quite a pricey option, I think. In contrast, I bought an OASLOA Mini PC which has the N95 processor, but only dual 1 GbE NICs in it, and that one was only ~$150, which is quite a lot cheaper. I'm running three of those (the 16 GB/512 GB SATA 2242 M.2 SSD variant) in a 3-node HA Proxmox cluster with erasure coded Ceph RBD and and erasure coded Ceph FS on it and it runs well enough for what it is. All three nodes, idle, combined, at between 21-24 W; so it has very low power consumption. I wouldn't necessarily say that the performance is stellar, but for running my Windows AD DC, DNS, and Pi-Hole, it works.
Perhaps my attention wandered... but I did not see how much storage comes with that box? The NVMe drive is optional. So where is the OS stored? Is that OS's storage SATA based? Is it reasonably fast? What is its capacity?
Can I use my 2 internet connections for failsafe with this one? What is ur suggestion for small business(less than 10 devices) having 2 internet connections?
Patrick, hoping you see this and can make a suggestion. You have a large knowledge of different systems and hardware. Looking for some hardware. My needs. 3-4 systems with TinyPC size or smaller (would love something this form factor). Want to run ProxMox as a cluster and on it run Home Assistant, Frigate (with coral tpu), Plex (4-5 streams), arr suite, truenas or next cloud and maybe a few other programs. I would also want to host a Windows vm to run my web design software. But I am looking under $1000-1500 USD. Also looking to have 2.5gb Ethernet (2-4). Any suggestions on this? Want to not have to upgrade for a few years. Thanks in advance.
That thing isn't only good for low power home server. It will make perfect IPS apliance if you pair it with either pfsense ce or if you prefer to have more flexibility openbsd which is base for pfsense. I know i'd use it that way and in so many more ways that don't require high power computer. Normaly most will buy netgate which comes with pfsense+ but not everyone needs pfsense+ and some may want more flexibility. Asuming that thing isn't pricey it gives an opportunity to save money. If i saw correctly it has internal battery which means you have to buy one UPS less to keep it running when there is no power.
Mentioned this a bit, but the CPU is faster than the C3758R Netgate puts in its 8200 MAX so doing in one port of 2.5Gbps and out another (or others) is not a problem for the N300 as a firewall. IPsec VPN would not get QAT offload here. If you are just using WireGuard, then you have plenty of CPU for that too.
ive been running a home server for about 6 years. my first system was an i7 2700k 32GB i got for free and it was GIANT. it served me well and showed me i only really need about 16GB ram and a quad core is MORE than enough. today i have a i7 4770k with 16GB truenas scale server than i host my NAS, NVR and now PalWorld server and im as happy as a pig in poo.
They do not sell the N300 with 16GB ram.... so you are going to get 8 core with 8GB ram... only the N95 4 Core comes with 16GB ram , so the info in video is not up to date anymore
... missing where to plug in a keyboard/mouse via a usb slot ? edit, sorry, later in video saw you flip it over and see the 2 x usb ports. question answered... this seriously looks like my next pfSense host
Yes, plenty of CPU for most applications - and mostly my servers are spiky so really the only thing lost is full-throttle performance. HOWEVER where I need the "Big" server is PCIe lanes and honestly a lot more RAM, and ECC. Tiny server is cool, but CPU performance isn't the last word. Give me an MS-01 with 512GB of ECC memory and the ability to put a full-sized card in and I'd be real happy. I'm still working on making a "good" proxmox backup server, and honestly its hard. I need at least 4 drives for ZFS, at least 20TB of space, and an external SAS connection for tape backup. Hard to do in SFF.
I've been looking for a new pfSense box for the house - the one I have is fine, but a little more performance couldn't hurt, and then I'd have the old one as a spare. This looks great. Netgate do make appliances but they're arm based and weak.
I've been enjoying my latest router build with an AMD 5700G... It's overkill on 1gb symmetric fibre but it means I can crank up IPS without perceptible latency
Buy a Lenovo m920q/x and slap an Intel i350 for gb or mellanox x3 for 10gb in it 2.5*4 pcie Intel cards are hard to come by but if you don't need 2.5, or cant go 10gb to a switch that does 2.5. .. see above.
Wow, that's nasty! The label on the unit said 12V/PD, but the adaptor cable uses an old style barrel jack...? Power Delivery requires data and power connections in order to allow the load and power supply to negotiate the correct voltage and current. Obviously, a barrel jack can't support that negotiation. The implication is that this combination of power supply and adaptor cable could easily release the magic smoke from any phone or tablet that was accidentally connected.
I wold buy it but only with 2 sodimm slots and 2 M.2 slots. This is very good for home server, router etc but without ram and storage the use of it is very limited...😊
Mini-pc, maxi-price. Their recommended build is almost 450 euros. You are not saving money on electricity, when you are paying over the odds for the technology.
I see the 16GB version isn't available, so I am guessing it sold out right away. That being said, I think for router duty I would give up the extra nic and instead go for something with passive or mostly passive cooling so that when the system is at idle it never needs the fan. Other than the low amount of memory it looks like a very powerful tiny PC for its size.
You can fix fan speed with software like fanspeed in most mini-pc. If the CPU reaches max temps, it will downclock itself and not overheat, even with 15-20% fan speed. Performances are reduced but for a router I don't think you will notice any difference.
@@greg8909 For longevity in things like routers, the goal is to eliminate active cooling where possible. My current router is based on a mini itx intel atom board that is 15 years old and completely passively cooled. I expect I will need to replace the CMOS battery and boot SSD at some point but the rest of the system should easily last another 10-15 years of service at which point I will likely have upgraded due to increases in internet speed and a need for more raw throughput.
Most folks are not going to run these at 100% since for a firewall, router, virtualization host, web server, and so forth that is really bad. The screen behind me doing the power section is showing clock speed on all eight cores, temps, and so forth and even at 100% it was not cool, but not throttling majorly (a few cores would dip 100MHz briefly.) For the intent of this device, it is actually very good.
I would like to see OPNsense run on that realtek junk. It's bricked 2 new realtek NICs and it's an OPNsense update that killed them. However, those were M.2 A+E NICs.
Hmmm, only Intel. Is there also an AMD version that is: 1. a bit higher system performance (single/ multicore); 2. lower Wattage power draw; 3.a little bit cheaper; and 4. just as small and all other parameters the same (Ethernet, 16-32 GB storage, etc.)?
I've had the worst experience with i226, even on intel-designed NUCs. That one has packet loss on receive even at gigabit. On other 2xx chips the checksum offload engine is vulnerable to truncated packets. The QA on 2xx is nothing like the pro100 and pro1000 that made Intel a name in network cards. These days I'll use either a server-targeted adapter, or a rtl8125b.r5.
I love how they stacked the PCBs to get the formfactor down, it's such a nice compact design.
problem with this piko size is, that this will overheat after 10 seconds, cooler fan will run at max rpm whole time and you will hear it 2 rooms away
@@nargalda773 the CPU package power is only like 7W, you don't particularly need a lot of airflow to cool that. Heck, at this level you could passively cool it if it wasn't in the enclosure
@@DuyLeNguyen 7W its on idle/low load, if you give it rly hard work, it will rise almost to 30W and you will hear that A LOT, i have few of these mini mini pc, and their fan start spinning at 40degree to full spin and never go off (only on realy idle state, where you have just windows ), its does not matter if ouy have this mini pc somewhere where is noisy, but in quiet room at home, you will hear this about 4 meters away, you dont want sit with this mounted on monitor or near, i have nuc near 2 times in size, with 10cm fan, and even that under load is like jet plane starting
@@nargalda773 30 watts when Intel say is a 7 W processor?
Nice you could forge it 4x more than rated by manufacturer...
GG
From Intel's site:
"CPU Specifications
Total Cores
8
Total Threads
8
Max Turbo Frequency
3.80 GHz
Cache
6 MB Intel® Smart Cache
TDP
7 W"
@@nargalda773mate, there's literally a noise test in the video
I hope they come out with an iKoolCore R2-OCD Edition, which puts the 3 Intel I226-V NICs in the same row and the Realtek NIC by itself.
I thought the same thing when the team showed me the photos of how it worked internally
Don't forget the need to replace the proprietary fake USB-C 12VO port and the fake USB-C headphone jack being with standard parts.
@@KiraSlithThe strange thing is that in their website, it states that "...supports PD protocol GaN charger for power supply...". Maybe Patrick can clarify this with them.
Love the idea of a fast modern pc i could fit in my pocket. The more i see of tiny capable machines like this the more i want to get my hands on one. 👍
My ideal pocket PC would be 20-30mm thick, and up to 100x150mm (with 2x sodimm and 2x nvme, also 8xZen 5c + 16 RDNA4 but the tdp needt to be lower, like upto 10w total system power
We need a metal cover for SSD's that function both as a heat spreader plus function as a slide able cartridge imho
these are great. i've had an r1 for my personal server and home security system for a while. never missed a beat.
That power supply it comes with is absolutely insane and should not exist, it's just waiting for someone to plug in and fry their phone with an unexpected 12V. I can't believe they brought that over from the previous gen, that's the worst way they could have possibly chosen to power this thing.
I feel like sth shouldn't be promoting devices that do absolutely moronic things like that 12v USBC
look like they borrow that from the "upgraded" R86S, was trying to explain to my friend why he should bought my 1st gen R86S with the barrel jack, and not looking for the "upgraded" model with the USB-C, same killer power suppy, 12V USB-C
Even maniacs that are desperate for high performance nodes, can use a "witness node" in their proxmox cluster. I'm sure as heck no to get rid of my wyse-5070 ... those served me well, and allowed me to practice the failovers ... and just sip power.
Thanks for another great review.
Super point.
I love Patrick's enthusiasm at 2x speed.
Wifi slots on those are awesome for the Coral TPUs. Especially with that amount of ethernet.
The problem with most of the A+E key slots is they are single lane and can't take advantage of the dual TPU M.2 cards.
@@Chad_at_Big_CAT_Networking yeah it might be limited... but still very capable with just one TPU. especially considering the size and Power consumption
The fact this thing is more powerful than my dads mini HP with a 6500t he uses for TH-cam is insane to me. I got that free from work. lmao
No, i5-6500T is still more powerfull and can also be upgraded to i7 where the i3 N300 is a soldered chip.
this + a battery + big touchscreen 4k monitors would be an amazing on the go setup
LOL the power button. Yep lost the power button for the n5105 version when I took it apart last night. No where to be found. Now I have to poke it with a stick to turn it on :(
did you disassemble the case again to have a look in there, just *ahem* in case.
That’s a feature, not a flaw.
You can get one by contacting us😂
17:12 bang on. Been there, done that. Lol you made me laugh. Its so true, epic resources 1% utilization. hahaha
I've gone the other way also... spend money on all those HDDs and disk and the board be underspecced and it not even work right... considering we are talking about what is essentially a miniPC , its the wrong tool for the job for everthing except a basic internet PC or HTPC. I mean thing has all these ports but at the end of the day you can't put all that much storage in it... because it physically won't fit, if they had this same design snuck into the corner of a box with a SATA expander then we'd be talking.
Love it. Thanks for the review.
Thanks for watching!
The Type C audio port changed my mind, I was going to buy it, very nicely built mini PC, (but) having a phone with Type C audio connector and the issues over the years I've had I must say never again. Great videos though. Greatful for your channel.
Thanks for sharing
Good video as always! From a production point of view, I know you're still ironing out the kinks at the new studio but the sound change is super noticeable. Maybe try one of those square TH-camr mics for both segments until you get it sorted out so its consistent?
Agree with you about more ram not being possible being a bummer - thanks for pointing out the processor limitation; makes much more sense. I didn't see any N95 benchmarks on your charts - perhaps you guys could find a mini PC with that processor and test so we could see exactly what we are missing? A portable Kubernetes cluster in a pelican briefcase and a Gaems screen (all connected over USB-C 10gbs in a mesh network or 2.5gb NICs) all powered off a battery bank would be super cool.
Yea we use a Sennheiser MKH 416 in the main set where I am sitting. For the new set, I need to move, so it has been trying combinations of lav mics and such. #11 a DPA 4071 just arrived this afternoon. Still lots of work to do.
Could that wifi slot take a coral? Could make this a little Ai box if so.
I don't know why but i just watched the entire trailer for the new roadhouse movie that came up as the ad and totally forgot i was actually here for this video. LOL!
Ha! Have a great day
@@ServeTheHomeVideo But I did continue to watch your video so you'll definitely get the credit of a full ad being viewed, LOL!!! :D :D :D
Here's a question - could you run this from PoE splitter? If the splitter stepped down the voltage to 12V, and could deliver a PoE+ 30W?
Neat stuff. Too expensive for my needs but I like it.
Of course I WANT one of those, it's a Shiny Tech Thing! 🤓😎
So will that included power adapter kill other USB PD devices or are they doing negotiation?
I think it is a 12V barrel jack in the type-C connector…
I deployed an Intel N5105 version of this as a print node. Brand was GMKtech.
3:26 but realtek on pfsense is a pile of problems
I wish they wouldn't use I226-V, it doesn't support any virtual functions or SR-IOV. But maybe that just means it doesn't suit a use case for me directly.
What would be better for using SR-IOV?
Right. Intel only shows 300-series and up on their SR-IOV FAQ. So no NIC passthrough support for hypervisors for the 200-series NICs. Maybe we'll see the small box vendors pivot to to better chips if enough people ask for it.
@@davidneal1127 Wait a second. You dun need SR-IOV for passthrough unless you want the device partitioned.
You only need sriov if you want to pass thru ports to a VM each..
I got that same USB C external and it was a life saver on my last deployment. Only nit pick was it makes the most obnoxiously loud beep when you first turn it on. I agree that this tiny PC is likely way better of a homelab hypervisor than giant Xeon systems. I think we all just get caught up in the attractiveness of all of the pcie lanes available on Xeon systems. I think you could make a really interesting video showing the benefits of a super lightweight hypervisor box like this in a power out situation or a demonstration of how much heat those larger systems use. If nothing else it would work great as a VM fail-over for things like Home Assistant or any NVR in the event you need to power down your larger systems for any reason.
Drop of hot glue on the speaker
I like the size but because of the lack of storage space and the type of m.2 drive, I wouldn't use it for my home lab. I will though use it as a CNC controller as it is small and I can easily place it in the CNC controller box. Since it has WiFi I can send designs remotely or edit/design something quick while there. I'm on the fence on this one.
Really nice pfsense box, overpowered for home, but still nice.
This is more evidence that small packages pack a lot more power than you think.
Amazing piece of tech, but agreed that the I/O choices were... interesting.
Looks like a fun little system. FYI, the Amazon link shows it is not available.
Audio jack makes this great for streaming whole room/small store media
It's worth noting that while it's an "8 core", they're 8 12th gen e-cores and are fractionally as capable as Zen 3/4 cores. Still capable of most things you'd actually want a mini pc like this for, but don't go thinking it can actually compete with 5800u, 6800u or 7840u systems for performance.
What I don't know is how it stacks up to similar Athlon/r3 parts. That would be a more interesting competition. The latest of those use Zen 2 processors, and use less of them, but they're also not the gimped e-core architecture so it'd be interesting.
Though looking at it, parts like the 7320u have double the power limit of the N300, so it probably outperforms it even with the lower core count. Even the Athlon parts still have 15w TDPs. Doesn't look like AMD has any explicit 7w parts.
""As part of the sandwitc"killed me
I'd like it better if it was POE lol.
I have a 64c epyc as a home server.
Around 30-40% load on avg
The bit about people buying giant server chips for their homelab and then not using them really got me XD. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with perf issues in my homelab+homecloud because my 'giant' server CPUs (the biggest ones are currently 1x24c and 2x12c, so not actually very big by current enterprise standards) aren't enough for the compute I throw at them, but I'd have to buy newer platforms to get considerably more performance :')
TCO however is slowly pushing towards a massive overhaul of my homelab/cloud though, because yes, they comparatively use a huge amount of power, and even moreso when loaded since the architectures are... rather dated by today's standards! The upgrade would be an actual upgrade though, to something even bigger but more consolidated.
I want either a 3DVCache version or a Mac Nano. A metal AppleTV case with M3 with 18GB RAM version. One can wish
For reference, my main server is idling at 231 watts.
Just one of them. I don't even want to know what my 24 drive DAS is doing right now...
Yea, that is why these mini PCs are super cool
Are BIOS updates a thing to consider when buying these little boxes (as opposed to buying a motherboard and components separately)?
Sure. However, if you are buying a motherboard, you system is going to be many times larger than this so you would be making a completely different class of device.
I wouldn't say most motherboard manufacturers are any better at releasing firmware past the 6 month mark or so
Really, it depends on the manufacturer and their testing. We have seen some MiniPCs with lots of issues out of the box and barely useable, while some are just fine. Your best bet is to wait and see some user experiences, especially on the Discord if there is one. I also always recommend getting a mini PC from somewhere that offers an easy return option (i.e. Amazon) as the QC with mini PCs usually sucks and you don’t want to be stuck with a bad unit.
On almost any chinese made mini/micro pc, you really won't see bios updates/firmware updates beyond what Microsoft provides with Windows; if you are not running windows, well, you really almost have no say in the matter, and won't likely receive a single firmware update. Firmware updates require constant development; these vendors end development as soon as the next model is released.
If you want properly supported Mini PCs, buy reputatble brands, e.g. HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Asrock. These Chinese mini PCs "brands" come and go as they mostly source their machines from OEMs and put their names on them.
That's neat! I have been looking for a low power, small form factor replacement for my current cobbled together, way over-engineered firewall box. This just might fit the bill! And, it supports OPNSense! Thanks for the review, Patrick! Appreciate your opinions and dives into the world of computing!
There are better systems that have 4 Intel nics, replaceable ram, and faster processor for similar price.
@@cheerbeerification Which ones for example? Because if you also count in the power usage, this box is a pretty good option. I am currently also on the lookout for something like this and would be interested to hear about other alternatives.
@@cheerbeerification Me too. Please share some alternatives.
Great to see 2.5G becoming normal on most things now, can somebody nudge Synology to do the same
Imagine the heat at full throttle~
That's a digital toaster~
Heat is not bad with the 7W TDP CPU as shown in the power and noise section
Hey Patrick...I am considering this as an OPNsense replacement. The 8 gig of RAM is just fine for me, as my current firewall is barely breaking 4 gig of RAM use. This is perfect!
if you are using it purely for OPNsense, I dun think you need so many cores unless you are going to do some sysctl tunings (or your uplink is not multi-gigabit).
@qazwsx000xswzaq I run IDS/IPS , Zen Armor, and a few other services than strictly a firewall. I'd rather have some horsepower available than not having enough.
More cores/power makes opnsense more of a pleasure to use. If I look at my 8C/16T AMD 5700G CPU usage it's really low... but having that horsepower means nothing bogs down any more (IPS induced latency, slow service restoration on reboot, hanging when opening huge log file)
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh Indeed having more cores is preferable when you have other services (especially true for IDS and IPS) running together with OPNsense. The FreeBSD network stack under OPNsense default tuning is heavily single-core.
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh Indeed having more cores is preferable when you have other services (especially so for IDS and IPS) running together with OPNsense. The FreeBSD network stack under OPNsense default tuning is heavily single-core.
So, when can I get the 8 core version of this in a 3u case with 24 drive bays?
In Asia there's some weird Gigabit Light standard basically 500 Mbps Ethernet speed and the NIC that support those are mostly Realtek, If you plugged it into Intel nic, it will negotiate at 100Mbps only. I think this is pretty useful for some markets.
So weird
the power adapter might be for POE so you can put this remotely and power it through your ethernet and break out at the device. I have many security cameras that look the same way.
This is very cool, but I'm scratching my head as to how useful 4 Ethernet ports (even @2.5GB) would be in a home or small business network.
Turn the device into pfsense firewall block all ads before any ads goes on your router :).
Power and sound audio sounded staticky… almost as if you could hear the faintest noise from a fan
Still working on it. Trying different mics and lav packs to see which work best since we cannot set a static shotgun on a standing set where I am moving. The DPA 4071 just arrived a few minutes ago.
great for subsea stuff. fits in small expensive 1 atmosphere pressure bottles. always on the lookout for this kind of stuff. if it had a 10gbe option it would be perfect
Every time I see one of these, I’m like ,”I want this. I’m glad I didn’t get the last one.” 🤩
But then again, they’re producing new units and new upgrades at a spit-fire rate that I’m like, “wait a min, may be..” 🤔
What is the software used for displaying power usage under load on TV?
FYI: I bought hardware like this because of your videos :) But I got the larger black one with an N-305 and put 32GB of ram in it with a 2TB nvme drive.
32GB of RAM, but that's twice off-spec for the N-305. The specified max of 16GB of RAM was a deal breaker for me.
Can you overlay what each chart displays behind you when your talking about the power/cpu usage? I think it would be helpful to get a quick idea of what's going on.
I would love a cheep soultion like that that u1 rack mount
Nice video. Interesting pc. I would love an AMD version - Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 with intergrated RDNA-2 or RDNA-3 IGPU's.
I’d love to see a price to performance comparison of this vs getting a marked down Framework 11th Gen board (for those people that need that little bit more I’ve been curious if two of these would do better in a clustered configuration vs a single framework board with pop in adapters.
Before we left the Texas studio last fall, Bryan built a Framework 11th Gen (the $199 special) in one of those Cooler Master cases. It is sitting on the shelf here and TBH I have not been excited enough to do the video for it.
Patrick would you recommend this as an OPNSense router device?
I'm not Patrick but I think this is a little overpowered for a dedicated baremetal OPNSense/pFsense router - you could go cheaper and probably still be fine unless you're doing super high speed fiber and full packet inspection (and even then there are probably slightly cheaper options that can handle it). I think this would be ideal if you want multiple Portainer setups etc. Check out this channel's video called "The EVERYTHING $300 Fanless Home Server" for another good option.
Is it possible to run 3 monitors off a mini pic? 2 NICs for OPNsense, and more NICs for VMs via a cat6 to HDMI monitor seems perfect if possible.
Why did they hobble it with no memory?
The WiFi slot is useful for those of us who want to put a Google Coral TPU in there instead.
Great point.
It looks a bit like the Chuwi Larkbox, although it is probably meant for slightly different use cases.
Wish these had an i211 variant and a VESA screw mount point
Great video, as always!
It's too bad that for the N300 option, right on, on Amazon, the 16 GB RAM option isn't available (at all).
But on the manufacturer's website -- it is quite a pricey option, I think.
In contrast, I bought an OASLOA Mini PC which has the N95 processor, but only dual 1 GbE NICs in it, and that one was only ~$150, which is quite a lot cheaper.
I'm running three of those (the 16 GB/512 GB SATA 2242 M.2 SSD variant) in a 3-node HA Proxmox cluster with erasure coded Ceph RBD and and erasure coded Ceph FS on it and it runs well enough for what it is.
All three nodes, idle, combined, at between 21-24 W; so it has very low power consumption.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the performance is stellar, but for running my Windows AD DC, DNS, and Pi-Hole, it works.
Perhaps my attention wandered... but I did not see how much storage comes with that box?
The NVMe drive is optional. So where is the OS stored?
Is that OS's storage SATA based? Is it reasonably fast? What is its capacity?
Unfortunately, this item is already unavailable on Amazon.
Will get it when more good reviews are posted at Amazon.
Can I use my 2 internet connections for failsafe with this one?
What is ur suggestion for small business(less than 10 devices) having 2 internet connections?
So does that power usb port do USB as well or is it JUST a power port?
Changing out the SSD and WiFi card is still more than what you can change on any current Apple device except the Mac Pro.
Patrick, hoping you see this and can make a suggestion. You have a large knowledge of different systems and hardware. Looking for some hardware.
My needs. 3-4 systems with TinyPC size or smaller (would love something this form factor). Want to run ProxMox as a cluster and on it run Home Assistant, Frigate (with coral tpu), Plex (4-5 streams), arr suite, truenas or next cloud and maybe a few other programs. I would also want to host a Windows vm to run my web design software. But I am looking under $1000-1500 USD. Also looking to have 2.5gb Ethernet (2-4). Any suggestions on this? Want to not have to upgrade for a few years. Thanks in advance.
Needs more USB ports. It's a neat form-factor, but I hang my miniPC on a wall. Flatter is better for that.
Does it have a hardware TPM?
The 4th USB NIC is great for a PLC programming cart computer as lots of PLC software HATES anything that isnt a weird NIC
That thing isn't only good for low power home server. It will make perfect IPS apliance if you pair it with either pfsense ce or if you prefer to have more flexibility openbsd which is base for pfsense. I know i'd use it that way and in so many more ways that don't require high power computer. Normaly most will buy netgate which comes with pfsense+ but not everyone needs pfsense+ and some may want more flexibility. Asuming that thing isn't pricey it gives an opportunity to save money. If i saw correctly it has internal battery which means you have to buy one UPS less to keep it running when there is no power.
What is going on with all these powerful tiny computers? I'm gonna be so broke!
could this unit route 1gb WAN port with a few rules as well as VPNs at 300mb + ?
Mentioned this a bit, but the CPU is faster than the C3758R Netgate puts in its 8200 MAX so doing in one port of 2.5Gbps and out another (or others) is not a problem for the N300 as a firewall. IPsec VPN would not get QAT offload here. If you are just using WireGuard, then you have plenty of CPU for that too.
I’m looking for a small k8s server this thing looks the ticket, thankyou!
ive been running a home server for about 6 years. my first system was an i7 2700k 32GB i got for free and it was GIANT. it served me well and showed me i only really need about 16GB ram and a quad core is MORE than enough. today i have a i7 4770k with 16GB truenas scale server than i host my NAS, NVR and now PalWorld server and im as happy as a pig in poo.
They do not sell the N300 with 16GB ram.... so you are going to get 8 core with 8GB ram... only the N95 4 Core comes with 16GB ram , so the info in video is not up to date anymore
Sold out on Amazon. You can still get the N300 w/ 16GB on their site
... missing where to plug in a keyboard/mouse via a usb slot ?
edit, sorry, later in video saw you flip it over and see the 2 x usb ports. question answered...
this seriously looks like my next pfSense host
Yes, plenty of CPU for most applications - and mostly my servers are spiky so really the only thing lost is full-throttle performance. HOWEVER where I need the "Big" server is PCIe lanes and honestly a lot more RAM, and ECC. Tiny server is cool, but CPU performance isn't the last word. Give me an MS-01 with 512GB of ECC memory and the ability to put a full-sized card in and I'd be real happy. I'm still working on making a "good" proxmox backup server, and honestly its hard. I need at least 4 drives for ZFS, at least 20TB of space, and an external SAS connection for tape backup. Hard to do in SFF.
a 2U rack mount tray should be able to keep cable clutter to a minimum.
I've been looking for a new pfSense box for the house - the one I have is fine, but a little more performance couldn't hurt, and then I'd have the old one as a spare. This looks great. Netgate do make appliances but they're arm based and weak.
I've been enjoying my latest router build with an AMD 5700G... It's overkill on 1gb symmetric fibre but it means I can crank up IPS without perceptible latency
Buy a Lenovo m920q/x and slap an Intel i350 for gb or mellanox x3 for 10gb in it
2.5*4 pcie Intel cards are hard to come by but if you don't need 2.5, or cant go 10gb to a switch that does 2.5. .. see above.
I would like to know if the N95 CPU is strong enough for routing like Openwrt + a couple of Dockers…
Could anyone understand the spec of the usb ports? Seems a bit faster than usual today. 3.?
Is the power supply a USB C with a static 12V plug pack? Careful not to plug it into you phone!
Wow, that's nasty! The label on the unit said 12V/PD, but the adaptor cable uses an old style barrel jack...? Power Delivery requires data and power connections in order to allow the load and power supply to negotiate the correct voltage and current. Obviously, a barrel jack can't support that negotiation. The implication is that this combination of power supply and adaptor cable could easily release the magic smoke from any phone or tablet that was accidentally connected.
single channel memory on all the N-series chips
All of the Alder Lake-N chips
I wold buy it but only with 2 sodimm slots and 2 M.2 slots. This is very good for home server, router etc but without ram and storage the use of it is very limited...😊
why not a serisl console port, for a device with 4 nics
Mini-pc, maxi-price. Their recommended build is almost 450 euros. You are not saving money on electricity, when you are paying over the odds for the technology.
Can you please test Mikrotik OS on this system?
Can i put a M.2 2232 SSD in the WiFi slot?
I see the 16GB version isn't available, so I am guessing it sold out right away. That being said, I think for router duty I would give up the extra nic and instead go for something with passive or mostly passive cooling so that when the system is at idle it never needs the fan. Other than the low amount of memory it looks like a very powerful tiny PC for its size.
You can fix fan speed with software like fanspeed in most mini-pc.
If the CPU reaches max temps, it will downclock itself and not overheat, even with 15-20% fan speed.
Performances are reduced but for a router I don't think you will notice any difference.
@@greg8909 For longevity in things like routers, the goal is to eliminate active cooling where possible. My current router is based on a mini itx intel atom board that is 15 years old and completely passively cooled. I expect I will need to replace the CMOS battery and boot SSD at some point but the rest of the system should easily last another 10-15 years of service at which point I will likely have upgraded due to increases in internet speed and a need for more raw throughput.
Why do mini pcs have many ethernet connections
thermal throttling incorporated
Most folks are not going to run these at 100% since for a firewall, router, virtualization host, web server, and so forth that is really bad. The screen behind me doing the power section is showing clock speed on all eight cores, temps, and so forth and even at 100% it was not cool, but not throttling majorly (a few cores would dip 100MHz briefly.) For the intent of this device, it is actually very good.
@@ServeTheHomeVideomost based response. Thanks!
WhoTF uses USB-C for headphones?
I am sure it's probably a thing, but...so weird to me.
Good video, thanks for sharing.
I would like to see OPNsense run on that realtek junk. It's bricked 2 new realtek NICs and it's an OPNsense update that killed them. However, those were M.2 A+E NICs.
Hmmm, only Intel. Is there also an AMD version that is: 1. a bit higher system performance (single/ multicore); 2. lower Wattage power draw; 3.a little bit cheaper; and 4. just as small and all other parameters the same (Ethernet, 16-32 GB storage, etc.)?
AMD does not have a direct competitor to the N300 these days.
Cool unit but too expensive to replace my R210ii for pfsense. It would take like 8 years to just payback the cost of the unit with the energy savings
Can you imagine how much tinyer something like this would get if it was using an AirJet?
I've had the worst experience with i226, even on intel-designed NUCs. That one has packet loss on receive even at gigabit. On other 2xx chips the checksum offload engine is vulnerable to truncated packets. The QA on 2xx is nothing like the pro100 and pro1000 that made Intel a name in network cards. These days I'll use either a server-targeted adapter, or a rtl8125b.r5.