Cheap & Capable pfSense/OpenWRT Machine! Fujitsu S920 Router Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- This $50 thin client from 2015 beats the $200 router that we built in the last video... by a big margin.
Fujitsu S920 paired with a PCIe NIC is a great cheap machine for OpenWRT, OPNSense, IPFire or VyOS!
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That's my favorite thing about discussing tech, someone probably already found an easier or better way to solve the problem.
*PCIe Risers:*
Generic x16 riser (cheap and should work since the PCIe slot is open-ended): www.aliexpress.com/item/32840518713.html
A bit short, but works (and it's cheap) www.aliexpress.com/item/4000594216710.html
Official Fujitsu part (expensive) shop.immel.de/de/pci-e-riser-holder.html
*PCIe NIC FRUs and model numbers:*
Dual NICs: HP NC360T, IBM/Lenovo 39Y6128 or 39Y6127
Quad NICs: IBM/Lenovo 39Y6138, HP NC375T, Fujitsu D2745-A11
Please note: I did not test all of these cards personally. Make sure you buy a low profile card with a half-height (or low profile) bracket.
1:26 "spoiler alert - yes" Nice, love it! 🤓😁
Edit: Also, every one - please be prepared to see price spike on this device - influencer at work 😄
You could use ubuntu server if wanted to go down that route
I love OpenWRT but I wonder why many ppl choose Pfsense
@@lilith1504 influencers like network Chuck etc. 🤔🤓😄
@@TheStuartstardust haha that's it. We watched the same guys!
Aaand, prices have gone through the roof on the Fujitsus!
There's loads of similar thin clients to choose from
(Ebay) they go for $47 + (in my state) another $47
They still cost the same here in Germany: www.ebay.de/itm/294820107840
@@WolfgangsChannel I think they may have been joking about the other TH-camr’s curse: recommending a product for its price, only to see the video become popular, and the prices to skyrocket.
They cost $45 now + $45 shipping to USA east coast. Is it worth it at that price?
I think I will stick to my edge router 4. 🙂 But I have "outsourced" a lot of functionality to my Raspberry PIs, like the UNIFI network controller, UNMS, and tons of other docker containers in just one of the newer 8 GB models and Im running Pi Hole on my Pi 3b. Its remarkable how smooth everything is despite running a Linux Raspberry Pi buster x64 OS with a fancy GUI with all sorts of effects and more config options than anyone could possibly want. Only way to max out the memory is to open a few tabs in chromium. 😄
RPI 4B is a beast for routing purposes. I get full duplex gigabit throughput with torrents on my fibre connection, and the Pi isn't even sweating it (about 10-15 % load). Torrents are notorious for hogging CPU, due to the huge NAT table that has to be maintained.2nd Eth port not necessary per se, if you have a managed switch spare and know how to configure VLANS.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 do not even try to compare rpi4 which barely capable to handle 1GB with hardware that can 10GB
@@maximkosheleff I am not talking about 10 Gig equipment. The Pi has I/O limits that dictate the maximum speeds. But the CPU could handle it, albeit only just and without any extra filtering or shaping. If 10 Gig is wanted then the only option is a heavy duty arm-based CPU and wide PCI express bus, aka expensive SBC or a full-blown PC with Intel i3 or i5. The Pi is probably the most cost effective option for 1-2.5 Gbit operation.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 keep in mind that 10g is not only for throughput but also about delays. 10g capable hw offers much lower delays.
And I don't believe in 2.5g over rpi which hardly can handle even 1g
@@maximkosheleff Whatever dude
Shoutouts an den squad Wolf Gang
We lit
Found one and bought it. It already has a bigger drive and 4GB RAM. Thank you for the tip.
A youtuber finally made a video on it, I've been thinking of these for a while.
Would love to get an idea how it handles pfSense/OpenSense with a couple of addons as a possible bonus...
On the strength of this video, I bought a S920 to use as the basis of a pfsense 2.6 firewall and retire an existing i3 PC using Untangle firewall. I already had a HP (re-branded Intel) dual port pcie ethernet card, so I just needed a 90 degree riser. I bought one, but it was too tall. I looked at others, but none so far have right height to line up probably with the case outlet slot. Ended up using a short ribbon.
There's a sata port under the CPU heatsink. You can't get to it without removing the heatsink and I had to shave the back off a 90 degree sata cable to get it fit underneath, not ideal. On the mobo there's a 4-pin power supply for a floppy drive (WTF?), which follows the same cable layout as a molex connector. I had an old PSU, so I cut the one cable with the floppy socket and kept one molex on it, then used it with a molex to sata adapter to power a 2.5 sata HDD.
Getting back to pfsense, installed it and works great. Setup some rules to restrict ports to minimize exposure. Minor hurdle, getting pfsense 2.6 to work with my VPN provider was initially difficult, but finally tracked down the right setting to get encrypted traffic to and from the provider using their DNS. Only setup one package so far, pfBlockerNG. Probably needs a bit of tuning of the rules to get the most out of it, but it's working fine.
pfsense seems to be reliable and getting a VPN encrypted connection for the whole network, without having to set it up individually for each machine was a must have goal. All in all, comparing the S920 TC with the i3 PC, it's probably using about two thirds less power a day, which is quite a saving on power use and cost over a year.
based and routerpilled
Routerpilled🤣🤣🤣
I have been "pushing" this machine as a ultimate cheap solution for some time! The base system is good enough for most firewalls, but there is a good upgrade path with more memory and bigger ssd. In fact there is also a sata connector under the heatsink which you can use for adding an additional sata drive. So this system can also serve as a small file or virtualization (docker) server.
For pci-e card, is full profile ok, or do we need low profile cards?
@@tockar low profile. In my experience these nic cards usually are low profile or have low profile bracket included.
A USB ethernet dongle is less elegant but frees internal space if needed.
I used the futro s920 since 3years as Firewall i350-t4 in pcie and on mini pcie i plugged a wifi Card so my Firewall creates the wifi too.
The 720 will make also a Great Job as Firewall But they have no pcie Slot. But you can use an Mini pcie to pcie Adapter for a nic.
Futro s900 is older and have no pcie, but i Build some kodi Media Players with them.
I just bought a WRT3200ACM or a WRT1900AC and flashed DD WRT to it.
A lot cheaper and a lot less hassle. Built my entire wide area network with those two.
You only need the WRT1900AC... but the WRT3200ACM is a premium only if you want to establish a super wide 160mghz 8 channel wifi bridge between two buildings. It's overkill. You can do the same with the WRT1900AC but up to 4 channels.
Hey Wolfgang! 👋 I'm loving your content and really appreciate the insights you're sharing. Just watched your review on the Fujitsu S920 as a pfSense/OpenWRT machine and I'm all in! 🚀 Could you possibly guide us through setting it up for a Home-Lab? I'm particularly keen on figuring out how to put my Vodafone Router into Bridge-mode and mesh it with this setup. Safety and security settings are my top priority - would love to know your recommendations on the most secure configurations. Keep up the great work, looking forward to your advice! Cheers! 🌟
It’s ok. Hardware is vast and have different price tag in different regions. You are still amazing ❤
Not a bad price for a powerful router like that.
I've currently got a Netgear R7000 running DD-WRT. It runs about 9 watts idle, and 11 watts when stressed. I'm not sure how many bits/second it'll handle, but I'm getting gigabit internet later this summer and I'll see if it can fully handle a gigabit connection. My guess it wouldn't handle multi-gigabit connections, but maybe it can fully handle my gigabit connection?
We'll see. I have a preference for the simple solutions where I can just flash a new firmware, and it largely just works. I spend enough time fiddling with operating systems to try to have to configure my router.
I have a couple low-power servers around that are beefy enough to handle more serious tasks I wouldn't want to run on a router. IMO a router should just route traffic, and not be a be-all-end-all device. I don't love putting too many things on one device... it just becomes a big maintenance nightmare anytime you want to update the whole shooting-match.
But if you don't have other servers around, and don't want to run other devices 24/7, this seems like a pretty decent solution.
Here is pro info for anyone interested in doing this project. If you're interested in using the Intel Pro1000PT card, you only have two options. The quad or the dual version. The dual is low profile already but the quad comes in two versions, full size or the low profile LP version. Since you can not use the full size on this device, you will have to choose between the Dual or the LP Quad. Get the LP Quad instead. Dual and Full size Quad only has a single interrupt shaing all ports. Only the LP Quad version has 4 Interrupts, one for each port. You will get better performance. However it comes only with a full size backet. You will have to find a smaller bracket or modify it yourself. Why? Becasue Intel.
Thanks
I wish they build one of this with latest Intel N200/N100 CPU because that would be fantastic, much better than those fanless solutions.
You can hack BIOS to force PCIe 2.0 for full 10GbE/Gbit networking (if CPU allows).
The HP t730 Thin Client with PFSense is another good alternative.
you can build openwrt with uefi support, you just need to google it, also you cannot just do "dd" of the image from usb to the ssd, as the kernel args can actually change mounting point depending of the type of the memory (/dev/sda/ /dev/nvme..... etc.)
This is good, yet another option to consider, and I love that it's x86.
Thin clients are popular with a few companies in my area, and I got lucky that one was refreshing theirs, and got a bunch for liquidation prices. Still unhappy they charged me, since they were just going to pay to have them recycled.
I've never seen a device that wants 19v like this not work with a Toshiba laptop power supply. It will usually just plug right in and work.
Would be interested to see throughput with IDS/IPS enabled
New video idea: How you backup your home server!
$50 + $53 shipping to the US plus parts. Works out to about $200. there are lots of other choices for that much money. This is not really any kind of a bargain. Unless you meant this for a European audience only.
Thank you very much after watching your video I bought Fujitsu S920 I installed OPNsense + AdGuard + Xenarmor.
It was a very good router.
Don't you have a video of installing SEARXNG on the OPNsense router to get a search engine?
I see a bunch of these little guys on eBay right now for about 47 USD, but unfortunately they all are in Germany or Belgium and shipping one here would cost more than the unit itself.
excellent vid my guy! I'm looking to do what u did but build a pfsense router for my 1.5gigabit internet soon to be upgraded to 3 or 8 gigabit internet. sadly, my isp offers killer speeds but still uses bloody pppoe. what ive gathered from this video is that most likely my existing 1.5gig internet will work and so will the 3 gig internet . it gets a little questionable at the 8 gig mark because u proved 6 gigs is tops. but was that because of the CPU/PCIe bus? As u mentioned there are other thin clients out there and I'm wondering if I got a slightly higher performing thinclient with at least an x4 PCIe slot if it would work just fine. The other unknown in my setup is that I use PPPoE. I wonder how much that will affect speeds as it has to be applied to every single stinkin packet! I am researching a way to put a GPON SFP straight into one of the connect3x port. Maybe its time for me to make an IT video instead of my typical aviation videos (which I haven't made one in a while). How much of a hit this would take having proxmox lying in between? Hmmmmm...
Oh wow these look SO nice for OpenWRT, and are still cheap! If there are any USA viewers, what's the analogous model number? Every ebay search for Fujitsu thin clients turned up European sellers (problem is undisclosed shipping cost); nothing here in the US. |Anyone: Feel free to drop mention of a US equivalent, cheers.
You're right! Unfortunately, it seems like those aren't very popular in the US.
Other thin clients that you might have better luck finding are HP T620+ and Dell Wyse Extended
7:30 the recommendation in this video is wrong. You can not use the Intel Pro/1000PT Quad on this device. You can only use the Intel Pro/1000PT LP Quad (Low Profile verison) Because you can only install Low-Profile/Slim: 68.9mm height PCIe cards on this device. Intel Pro/1000PT Quad is full size PCIe and it won't fit in this device.
Crud, I have a Fujitsu Futro S720 lying at home [that does not have a PCIe port].
*Sad NIC noises*
It still has a miniPCIe port, and you can buy one of those miniPCIe NICs from Ali: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004896957529.html
P.S. Pay attention to the chipset and make sure it has Linux/BSD drivers
@@WolfgangsChannel Thanks a lot for that hint, Wolfgang!
I actually realized that later on - and in fact purchased precisely that kind of mPCIe unit.
Very affirming to see you would have chosen the same.
The only tricky part actually turned out to be fastening it properly, as it lacks the plastic clips (that the mSATA slot has).
A tiny M2 screw and nut did the trick.
A great video by _The Geek Freaks_ helped me overcoming issues with the Speedport:
watch?v=TPHwomummP8
(They are another English-speaking German tech channel, haha. Maybe you know them?)
Thanks for the great video. You motivated me to buy all these things for a firewall. However the rec. NIC Intel Quad Port 10/100/1000 with 4 Ports doesn't fit in the cassis.
Did I ordered the wrong NIC (seems same than in your picture 4:51) or was there a mismatch in the recommendation? Thanks
Edit: the problem is, that the card needs to be 'Low-Profil'. The shown card isn't in my understanding a low profil card.
I ordered a new one. 50€ waste of money. Maybe this helps anybody else.
You need to get a low profile NIC with a low profile PCIe bracket. I’ll add a link to the description so that it’s clearer.
@@WolfgangsChannel OK, thaks, that would help others 🙂
Thanks for an enlightening video. I have a couple of questions as someone completely new to the possibility of a DIY router. I was finally able to upgrade to a fiber optic internet connection from my previous mobile solution. Unfortunately, at the same time, the provided for router solution has been a downgrade from the previous router solution, both regarding “wired” and wireless coverage (sort of a nest solution)…
It seems to me that the project you describe would seriously slow down LAN speeds compared to my theoretical maximum. Is there anyway to speed that up?
In your mentioning a WiFi card for the thin client, is the implication that it would be possible for computers to connect wirelessly to this router? Can a repeater be used with the Fujitsu router if needed?
Is it possible to include a VPN solution with this router project?
lol i got 7 sff dell OptiPlex's all differnt i5 modles for a grand total of 70 bucks businesses/schools get rid of all kinds of old hardware that can be used for lots of stuff
God your content is awesome, братишка😸
what a great video! the only question i have how can i use the wlan-antennas? could you please explain?
Check this boy
NanoPi R6S
Wow that thin client has thunderbolt 4 and 2x 10GB Lans and 3 x m.2 ........
If not it sucks 🤔
The other influencer curse is when a product becomes 5x as expensive when you mention it in a video.
Glad that one isn't happening... Yet.
Just checked - now they're all over $700 AUD.
about €25 in europe
@@googlacco Is that a typo?
@@SireSquish no
Also when it comes to the power supply, make sure to get the polarity right if you modify an existing one. That is pay attention to whether the center (or tip) is positive or negative. Obviously the other part of the connector will be whatever the tip was not. If you get the polarity wrong, there is a very good chance of damaging the computer and thus a very good chance it will never start again. When polarity is reversed there can even be a risk of smoke and fire. Other electrical problems cause fires too so be careful.
At work we have a number of old Dell and HP power supplies that provides 19V. It might require soldering a new connector on one but that can be a cheap alternative if you need a power supply. However I discovered that the Dell 130W supply has an idle power consumption use of 9W.
I just shorted a router by using the wrong adapter,
I'm now praying it had an electronic control chip
otherwise repair is futile
Hence I would just sale it to my local vendor for scrap
& Get a new one
Thanks for this one! Really an inexpensive but useful build. Lets take it up a notch though... rather than OpenWRT, how would you change this build for pfSense?
1. With iperf you can do parallel streams (check the -P switch). You could probably maximise the 10Gb speed of that NIC that way.
2. Having said the above (and just to be clear for the wider audience) what iperf can achieve is very different to what you can get when you perform real life tasks such as (dynamic) routing, NATting, firewalling, IDS/IPS, antivirus, etc and generally FW/NGFW tasks.
This just what ive been looking for, cheap, low power, extendable, supports pfSense. Im gonna get 2 of these for failover and ditch my provider modem completly with a VigorNic 132.
i had that vigor132. there is no benefit in doing it. when rebooting you loose your wan connection. if you better use the vigor130 you can do things such as failover router
also has no support for 250mbit vdsl2+ only 100mbit vdsl2
According to spec sheets, this CPU can support up to 8GB of ECC ram, too, which would make it a great homelab server. You can run web servers, mail servers, etc.
The CPU itself supports ECC, however according to the mainboard's manual (Fujitsu D3313), ECC RAM is not supported.
By the way, the mainboard has two RAM slots, and supports up to 16GB of RAM (8GB per slot).
I just verified that ECC RAM is indeed NOT supported. The system doesn't even POST if unbuffered ECC RAM is installed. Pity.
(tested on a Futro S920 with the GX-415GA CPU and the D3313-A13 mainboard)
My futro works fine with 16gb RAM
@@samul4395Bit of a late reply but thank you for actually testing this. And not only that, coming back to share your findings, too. This is what I love about the tech community, always people willing to share information to learn together and to avoid everyone having to do the necessary tests separately
Also to mention that in the S920 there are 3 cpu versions :
AMD G-Series GX415GA @1.5Ghz Quad Core cpu
AMD G-Series GX222GC @2.2Ghz Dual Core cpu
AMD G-Series GX424CC @2.4Ghz Quad Core cpu
But the GX222GC model doesn't like a Quad port, i have tested this model with a few different Quad port cards, and with all, the ThinClient reboots when you pull traffic through it,even when browsing through the Web GUI of Pfsense and it reboots. With a Dual port card this model works fine, even at full speed.
The GX415GA model like in this video works fine with Dual and Quad port cards, the GX424CC version i havn't tested yet, of this will except a Quad port card.
The malfunction of a Quad port card in the GX222GC has (i guess) to do that the PCI-E slot doesn't provide enough power for the more energy hungry Quad port cards.
Great info.... I'm guessing quad port cards tend to be power hungry because they are meant for rack mounted servers (1U - 4U) that have beefy PSUs and power rails. This is also important for those of us (like me) looking to replace my edge appliance with a low power equivalant since I also have a UPS attached to it to do a graceful power down.
I have GX424CC, but Quad port card reboot the device right after you put any load to the NIC.
I can confirm what you said. Broadcom cards work (Quadport).
@@drcamp8843 Which model exactly? 0H092P doesn't work.
@@Eversti94 Dell 5719
Thin clients are great, they've been completely missed by the wider community so they're really cheap and most of them have pretty good specs and are well suited for mostly idle and low usage tasks with very low power consumption even at peak
And they often get dumped by the thousands on ebay when corps swap out every contract period.
@@enlightendbel Yeah, it's pretty insane. I even bought a really nice R720 on a site for under 220 and it does amazingly well with TrueNAS. Consumes a bit of power but the performance is top tier.
I think one of the big reasons is people aren't sure how to gauge the actual cpu performance against something they're familiar with to gauge if it will be adequate for what they want.
Thank you for making this video. This provided me with the exact answers I was looking for regarding the S920, particularly regarding power consumption. To prevent CPU bottlenecks during throughput tests, run iperf3 on different machines instead of the DUT. Remember that pps with 64 B packets is a more valuable metric than average bps and will provide you with more precise information on packet handling capabilities. Keep up the good work.
Hey Wolfang,
I'm lucky enough to get fiber to my home hopefully this year. I've been pondering what to do for my router / Firewall. I want to use VLANS and definetly utilize the gigabit speed my new provider is... well providing ^^
Would this Machine be powerful enough to act as a Firewall and serve at least 4 PCs the near gigabit speed my ISP can provide?
Secondly can you recomend any Switch Brand with VLANs / Management, PoE+ and a reasonable price?
Spoiler alert... pfsense has a critical flaw regarding failover wan feeds, so this is really a moot point. FYI, pfsense will NOT send email notification if the primary wan goes down as the email alerting system is permanently routed through that connection and won't failover to wan #2. Pfsense has known about this issue for years as a confirmed bug.
I love that you made this follow up video listening to valuable feedback. I find your videos to be really well done, honest and informative.
All of these boxes on ebay are like $50 + $40 shipping... no bridge card or riser cable, just the bare bones systems
It's indeed a good deal. Regarding the 10G, I was quite surprised you didn't fill the link, but your htop showed only 2 cores were used. You might have been facing an issue with IRQ affinity. It's important in a router to make sure all cores are used by the network. In addition, iperf itself sucks a huge amount of CPU, and in a real router it will not be present, all the activity will remain in the kernel, so even with just two cores it's possible that you could manage to forward 10G.
Oh hey... I have been using an S920 for about 6 months now. With OpnSense it handles my 1.2gbps cable internet connection with ease. If you are lucky enough to get one that comes with the optional AMD FirePro GPU, it already comes with the right angle PCI-E adapter. Looking to add a dual SFP+ adapter to it once I upgrade to a 2Gbps fiber connection. Hopefully it can handle that.
what a cpu model u use? i will buy one for my 1gbit cable internet :)
Yes which cpu model
I recently got myself one of those S920 boxes to run Home Assistant. Works beautifully…and I might pull the trigger on another one of these for the project you introduced here.
Those thin clients are actually really really neat for a lot of things and with the Raspi Foundation apparently having abandoned the home user market and selling to “professional applications” exclusively as of December 2022, other platforms are pretty appealing. There a literally non Pis on sale anywhere at the moment, except the odd Compute Module maybe.
BTW, I got my Home Assistant box about two weeks ago (roughly mid-November 2022) and paid 35 bucks plus shipping. And the unit came with a PSU. So, still reasonably cheap b
I am still loving my collection of RPi boards but I am not paying 170+ of European currency for a medium range Pi 4. Sorry but that is just nuts.
S740 is more powerful btw. Spent so much money on raspberries, wish I considered thin clients earlier...
PCI-E TIP: I have encountered an issue using 4xRJ-45 PCI-E cards (various vendors) with this S920. Cards randomly detected/not detected on every power up. Solution was to tape ( using Kapton tape) x2 and x4 PCI-E pins, forcing card to work in x1 mode. Don't know if problem occurs in x2 mode, as I have no time to check it and x1 mode is enough for me.
I did this build but got different power usage results on a tuya smart plug
13W idle
23W at 100% CPU usage
It stays at around 15-17W during my normal usage.
Intel quad NIC and sata ssd added (no mSata)
NanoPi R5S from FriendlyElec might also be something to test.. two 2.5GbE RJ45 and cheap.. sounds good at least..
I don't wanna ruin your day, but iperf3 is single-threaded. Hence why you see core #4 being absolutely trashed, while the others are essentially idle. If you want to see the full picture of throughput, either use iperf2 or run multiple instances of iperf3.
Also AES-NI is pretty important if you want to do any kind of VPN or other stuff that uses symmetric encryption. Without it, the CPU has to deal with raw encryption/decryption, rather than natively having a compatible instruction set to do it.
That being said, CPU improvements for the past 10 years are mostly elsewhere than in the raw clock frequence. We should step away from determining processing power in GHz.
Cool video overall, keep up the good work - earned a new sub!
My bad! I will retest with -P 4 for the next vid
I've benchmarked the AES-NI performance in comparison to my previous router and it doesn't disappoint!
There's a spelling mistake in the video title. *Fujitsu.
Thanks!
I got a TP link router for $20 at a garage sale, flashed it with OpenWRT... it has been working great for about 3 yrs.
Sometimes at the Goodwill you can find great deals for under $5. Just double-check if the router works with OpenWrt before buying it.
@@boink800 yes! and you don't really need a lot of resources for a home router. My TP link stays bellow 50% utilization. The important part is to get rid of those crappy factory firmwares.
Be careful about cheap routers - a lot of them are 4MB ROM/32MB RAM devices. With those you won't be able to install many (if any) additional packages and plugins, and in some cases even use LuCi (the WebUI).
openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning
HP T620 Plus is another good choice and has a slightly faster version of that cpu. The plus version has a slot for a PCIe card. There are some never HP that also allow a card, but I can't remember the model numbers.
I did a ton of research and landed on the T620 also. However, the seller sent me an HP T730 instead, which is a BEAST for using as a router. The T730 is going for around $120-$150 right now on eBay, which is way more than the one being presented in the video. I believe the T730 to be a better value, though, in terms of what you get. Uses the AMD RX-427BB, which is dollar for dollar one of the best available right now. It benchmarks on PassMark as twice as fast. It has a PCIe x8 slot, but it supports x16 10Gb NICs, uses M.2 for storage, has another M.2 expansion port for 1Gb fiber (lol), or an M.2 802.11ac card, and supports up to 16GB of DDR3L RAM. It has a TDP of 35W, so it is a little more power-hungry as well, but mine typically sits in the 10W range.
power usage?
I'm currently using the Belkin RT3200 with OpenWRT. I got it for 80€. It supports Wifi 6 on the 5GHz Channel and has enough horse power for PiHole, OpenVPN etc.
So far it's awesome. But the Fujitsu seems like a awesome Option if you already have a seperate Access Point or don't need Wifi at all.
Good video like always. :)
Look up the gl.inet flint ax1800
@@Phil-D83 you just ended my eternal search for a new router, thanks
@@msld3529 i still recc an opnsense or pfsense box as the router and a wifi6 ap. For most people, the a router like that gl.inet ax1800 is sufficient
@@Phil-D83 I have experimented with opnsense before, but I couldn't get it to work because it kept mixing up the ethernet ports. I was using an old pcie quad port Intel nic and another Intel gigabit port integrated into the mainboard. Kinda gave up after that, though I still have the hardware. May give it another shot considering I have a symmetric gigabit connection now and that I need to use vpns for remote desktop from/to my university.
@@msld3529 opnsense still has less than perfect auto detection of what ports are what. Pfsense works well in that regard. I moved from pf to opn because the pf updates kept break my system... opnsense works very well minus a few quirks. You can also run openwrt or ipfire as an alternative on a pc.
Yes I would be interested in speed tests and seeing what limits it has.
This is good advice, and cost saving too. I got two Fujitsu D3313-S2x boxes from e-waste and one of them has just become my pfsense router on 500mpbs fibre, works like a charm. The only thing I did was put in a small sata drive, 8GB RAM and replaced the heat sink compound.
I use this thinclient for about 3 years as my pfsense box. Had 8gig of RAM lying around and put a quad port into it. Very happy with that thing.
is it still a good idea in 2024?
@@surajmeghoe7962 Sure, these things are pretty cheap now. Just consider to use a low power nic for low energy usage
@@surajmeghoe7962 works in 2024 just fine, however, i would recommend OpenWRT, which is more lighter and faster than pfSense. Running a gigabit fiber connection here just fine with a quad 2.5GE card. The BIOS limits the PCIe to Gen1 Speeds and that can't be changed over the bios, but with a DOS-tool, more info on that in the STH forums.
"OpenWRT, pfSense, OPNSense"
Could you give Debian a try as well for comparison? I've been using Debian as a router for years, after having started with pfSense and later IPFire, and it's not even very complicated to set it up, the most time goes into setting up the nftables firewall.
As for hardware, originally I had a system with a singlecore Atom and 1GB of RAM, followed by a dualcore Atom with 4GB RAM and currently an i3 8100 with 8GB of RAM in a passively cooled case (Akasa's Galileo TU3) that draws less power than it's predecessors and I haven't even done anything with powertop, without powertop it's already under 10W :)
@@Niklas2516 But then you don't learn anything from it ;)
Great Video! For benchmarking, the NAT performance would be interesting. So having the openWRT router between the iperf Server and Client, simulating actual routing not just switching.
Thanks! I might do a video or a text article with additional benchmarks
Agreed, although also iperf is not a real-life representation. THat's just raw processing power. Real life experiences would be lower I think, with mulitple devices communicating back and forth at the same time with many states.
@@MT-yo3mg true !
Is this any good? Mini PC Thin Client SH Fujitsu FUTRO S900n, AMD G-T44R 1.20GHz, 2GB DDR3
The bracket of the Intel NIC recommended by you is to large to be mounted in the case of the s920. I am sure that you can remove it and come up with a different way to mount it, but I wanted to mention it so other's aren't as supprised as I am.
I just spend $400 on vyos router runing i5 with x540-T2, I just need a 10 GbE router.
Only after booted do I realize how overkill it was.
My super easy way to install OpenWRT: Boot a Knoppix live System from a USB-Stick, download a suitable OpenWRT Image to Ramdisk (if the RAM is big enough) or save it to the Knoppix USB-Stick. Then "dd" it to the CF-Card/SSD/HDD of the ThinClient and You're done!
Can you please do a video about connecting to home network using wireguard when someone is behind CGNAT or closed NAT. Thank you. There are a lot of us whose ISPs don't provide public IP or any other service of that kind but we would like to connect to our home network and services hosted on it when we're outside.
If you don't have too many (20+) devices then tailscale might work for you
Idk what it uses inside, but... Radmin VPN. Also zerotier one, but I'm not sure.
TailScale
Change ISP if they not given you ipv6 also
Nice video! But X86 mini machines reducing prices recently. I bought an N5105 machine with four 2.5G ethernet ports barebone, and it only cost me around 800 CNY to make it function.
And looking for a Fujistsu S920 from here in Argentina. Found a couple of listings of it coming from Germany. Unfortunately, the price is u$d 47, as of June 18, 2022 + at least another 36 u$d for shipping. Not that I think isn't worth it. But just for reference. Awesome content! Keep it up!
I just got my S920 today, specs are as followed:
S920, GX222GC, BIOS: 4.6.5.4 R1.16.XX
ULANSEN PCE TXA094 Dual 1Gbps NIC
I have a 1000/50 Mbps cable connection to my ISP over here and get:
Without IDS/IPS:
Download: [SUM] 0.00-30.00 sec 3.24 GBytes 929 Mbits/sec
Upload: [SUM] 0.00-30.00 sec 194 MBytes 54.4 Mbits/sec
With IDS/IPS:
Download: [SUM] 0.00-30.03 sec 335 MBytes 93.6 Mbits/sec
Upload: [SUM] 0.00-30.04 sec 193 MBytes 53.8 Mbits/sec
This test should be taken with a gain of salt cause its summer here an the board gets hammerd by the CPU-Load with the passiv setup i got. Might be better with actual cooling.
For me it is a total GO, cause i can leave my Proxmox NUC a litte less heavy hit (also DHCP is a nightmare with I225 Chipset). I will hopefully reply to this post in a few weeks do get a decent view while using this setup.
Any updates ? :)
@@thejerseyshaun Yes, its working just fine and all features (VPN, DNS, DHCP etc.) just run fine
Very nice video - also a benchmark result for sqm would be very interesting
In your 10Gbit test (6gbit/s), only 1-2 Cores (of the 4) where stressed with 50-80%. Maybe the version with the dual-core ,but higher clockspeed, would be better?
A good option!! I went the other way. I have a lenovo M920q based on it, it has an expansion slot and you can put a 4 port LP network card there! I stuck 4 I225v3 ports, of course, the option is more expensive, but it is compact and powerful and stylish))) os pfsense
power supply how much run at idle
My intro to OpenWRT came when I got a $22 Linksys EA7500v2 and got mad at Linksys taking control of the router when it was comnected to the internet. Maybe you could make a video of one of those as a router with wifi on the cheap.
Be careful, 4:36 Do not buy this 90 degree PCIe adaptor. It will not work on this device. It's height and the card space in the back is not compatible.
Also, any PCIe card should be Low-Profile/Slim: 68.9mm height PCIe instead of the full height 111.15mm PCIe card.
For example the PCIe card shown at 4:50 will not fit this device.
Mein S920 (GX415GA mit 8GB RAM) mit 2 Port Netzwerkkarte schafft maximal 400-450 von meiner Gigabit Leitung (Vodafone Kabel hinter einer Fritzbox 6591). Bei höherem Download steigt der WAN Port (Netzwerkkarte auf dem Board -> zur Fritzbox) aus mit Packet Loss und geht für kurze Zeit Offline. Musste den WAN Port, in der pfSense, mittels limitieren auf 500 MB/s begrenzen damit diese stabil läuft. Aber von meiner Gigabit Leitung kann ich so gerade mal 40-50% nutzen.
Bin da ratlos.
Wolfgang, 4:50 this recommendation is wrong. If you buy that quad port ethernet card you're showing, it will not fit in the device. You can only fit PCIe card in the Low-Profile/Slim dimensions in this product. I know you mentioned it being low profile in passing while you're talking about inside the device and more specifically the PCIe slot. The low-profile spec is for physical dimensions of the card not the slot. This is more about physical dimensions of the computer, it is not about the slot at all. However, you can still fit an intel quad board in but it's a different card and it's not the one you're showing. The one that fits is Intel EXPI9404PTL PRO/1000 PT Quad.
Love the video :3
It's also worth mentioning that in UK ebay there are sellers selling this box with a whole setup of intel NICs, risers etc, preflashed with pfsense, if you don't want to build it yourself!
Sadly, the case is slightly too tall to fit in a 1u space, so I couldn't use this when I was building my own router. Another, very similar option is to use a motherboard with the AMD A4-5000 cpu. It's very similar to the CPU in the video, has AES etc. and cheap OEM versions can be found for as little as £15. I put one in a random supermicro 1u case and use it as my router :3
Preflashed with pfSense???
I ain't trusting no eBay seller with my entire internet
@@NoorquackerInd ahaha, I'd do the same probably. i reinstall windows on used laptops too.
@@NoorquackerInd reinstalling pfsense is still less effort than finding a functioning riser and NIC and putting it all together :)
Hi, do you have a link to an eBay listing? Thanks
> professional electrician on the phone
I know that there are lots of great German electricians, but I must say that:
GreatScott collab when???
Good video, but there are still plenty of good reasons to build your own system from standard components. You can replace the motherboard and upgrade the system anytime if your needs grow without having to replace the case and power supply. Also be mindful that a 10Gbps NIC might overheat in such a small enclosure without airflow.
Lenovo M93p for £100 with SSD, ethernet and wi-fi (dual core Core i5 4570T @ 2.5 ghz, 8 GB RAM).
Btw if you need to get extra ethernet cards - there are plenty of usb ones available for cheap. Mind you, not all are Linux compatible.
Add to that WD Essentials 16TB usb drive (and PlexTV if you want) - and you get also a decent enough NAS for less than £500.
The biggest issues I faced were with the BIOS. Unless updated, power management and compatibility with Linux was terrible...
I really wouldn't suggest USB Ethernet adapters - it's really hard to get a good one + latency and throughput with USB are much worse than PCIe.
You *can* use one in a pinch, but it's always better to just get a device with dual NICs or a PCIe slot
@@WolfgangsChannel while theoretically you are absolutely right, I've been playing around with a few and the latency is no bigger than the one of the wifi. Unless you are looking at gigabit fibre broadband (FTTP), the throughput of even the usb2 (in the 300 mbit range) should be sufficient IF you get a dongle with a decent chipset. The only annoying thing I had to deal with those was the usb power management that loved to kick in and disconnected the line at some point.
To clarify - the M93p came with integrated ethernet port, I am using usb ethernet to connect a client PC, but it could also be necessary if you want to run multiple internet lines (similar to line bonding)...
Those are 300Mbit/s in both directions, as opposed to full duplex 1000 Mbit/s on PCIe Gigabit adapters (so 150Mbit/s) USB3 to Ethernet should be fine, but the added latency might play a really big role for streaming or online gaming.
Excellent video. I can see the S920 is still on offer and consider getting one and with a 2x1/2,5/5/10 Gb NIC it should be good for the future? Also is the S920 still the one to get?
The Intel Pro quad NIC is a solid choice if you want the hardware for as little money as possible. It's a hungry little bugger tho. An Intel I350 has the same capabilities and draws half as much power. Like everything newer and nicer it costs more money of course.
Be honest okay I just subscribed because you have a cheap router video and your name is Wolfgang 💙😊
I recently bought the 4-core model, everything works perfectly, but I have found a problem and that is that when the power goes out, it does not turn on again even having the recovery on power options enabled in "always on" or "last state". Does this happen to anyone else?
Crazy , was just reaseraching the subject , saw the comment that started this video, searched for the device and it led me back here . Love it.
Just a note that those old NICs such as Pro 1000 PT draw as much power as the box itself. Spend a little more on a recent NIC which will use 25% of the power e.g. 3w vs 12w.
Some examples? Thanks
Hallo i have one question a have bought one fujitsu D956 but whn i try to instal the pfsense or opn sense there then come the ACPI error message
From my experience iperf is so cpu heavy that i wouldn't be surprised if it was able to actually reach a lot closer to 10gbit in real world workloads. Also is there any kind of network hardware offloading enabled?
Is there a good documentation of SFF devices like this that would do for being a router? Basically my current router is good, but could be better by a lot, so I would like to use my old router as a dumb file server and active switch whilst the "new" router would do the routing but also other small things like Paperless, Jellyfin, Grocy and Home Assistant. So a small device like this would be great! Originally I wanted to use a Pi4 but the prices of those are stupid crazy (160€-ish for the 8GB RAM one. Like, wtf? xD)
Absolutely! Check out the STH article I linked in the description. Personally, I can recommend Dell Wyse Extended and HP T620 Plus.
Ubuntu is a snail.
Anybody found a link for the riser? It’s a x4 one
Any short riser would do. I didn't add a link bc I didn't test any particular riser from Ali and don't want to recommend something that doesn't work. Get a flexible one if you want to make sure
You can also get the original part: shop.immel.de/de/pci-e-riser-holder.html
Hey Wolfgang, do you still use this as your home firewall? How is the experience after 1 year?