Micro Firewall Appliance, Mini PC, OPNsense, VPN, Router PC, Intel Alder Lake-N 12th Gen N100, HUNSN RJ42, 4 x 2.5GbE I226-V, 2 x HDMI, DP, TF, Type-C, 8G DDR5 RAM, 128G SSD

I picked this Mini PC router because I manage a near gigabit network with 15 to 30 users and my NetGear R7800 router (1.7Ghz ARM CPU) didn't have enough processing power to perform traffic shaping above 400Mbps. I did my homework and found this Intel N100 CPU (Q1,2023) to be my best balance of CPU power and power efficiency - and because I like the durability of the fanless design. The unit delivered looks exactly like the photos on this Amazon page. And, the 8GB / 128GB model has been easily sufficient for router software plus a dual-boot windows 10 instance.If you aren't looking to do traffic shaping, then I have no doubt this router can handle dual directional 2.5G throughput. Using traffic shaping, my initial SQM tests (Cake, piece.of.cake) indicate that this processor easily handles gigabit throughput using only 15% of total CPU and 28% of a single core. SQM is single threaded so single core performance is especially important. Based on this, I would think it could easily perform traffic shaping on a 2.5Gig connection or bi-directional 1G. 2.5G bi-directional. I don't have a means to test that, but I suspect you'd get something less than 2.5G bi-directional. But hey, who really needs to upload / download 2.5G at the same time while traffic shaping it? Not many people.To my surprise, this unit came in faster than PassMark's online rating for this N100 CPU. In the single thread test, it came in 6% faster (2,088 vs 1,906). On the multi-core test, it came in 9% faster (6,153 vs 5,621). And, the heat sink worked beautifully. No thermal throttling. It easily dissipated the heat generated in both single and multi core tests. Over multiple tests, the CPU was able to maintain its max single and multi core speeds - 3.4 ghz and 2.8ghz respectively. Note: The external heat sink temperature hovers around 108F which I think is normal. It’s hot to touch, but remember, metal transfers heat quickly so it’s not as hot as it might feel to the touch.The memory, disk and graphics tests were less impressive, but hey, you're probably going to be using this box as a router and those don't affect router performance which is CPU intensive. I mean, you're not thinking about using this as a gaming box, are you?!?This gizmo came with a version of pfSense+ that was a Chinese modified version. If you are going to use pfSense, I highly recommend reinstalling a fresh version of pfSense that you get from the official repository. I compared pfSense+ with OpenWRT and found OpenWRT preferable, especially for "per host" SQM. One note, this device has the newer i226-V NIC (ethernet). pfSense detected it fine. OpenWRT detects it fine, but you have to use version 23.05.0 or later. Windows 10 did not recognize the NIC and I had to download the driver. Google "Intel Network Adapter Driver for Windows 10" and install.Let's talk about power consumption. I have two Ethernet cables connected.Windows:* idle = 11 watts* single core test = 18 watts* multi-core test = 25 wattsOpenWRT:* idle = 12 watts* 500M SQM = 12.8 watts* 900M SQM = 13.3 wattsI'd like to say that I found this unit among the many look-alikes in this field via a YouTube video called "HUGE UPGRADE! New Firewall Router Virtualization Host". Check it out for more details on this and its sibling units.Okay, that's the news fit to print from the USA. Please give me an upvote if you thought this review was helpful. — Chris

Bought two for his and her's firewalls (or backup in a pinch). Added Crucial memory (32GB) and Crucial NVMe (P3 with 500GB) with heatsink.Reached out to the company (thanks Elena!) about some parts, and they went beyond expectations to help. Way beyond.I secured USB powered Noctua "150mm" 12V fans using CPU heatsink clips and standard wire wrapped around the box through the clips. The internal 80mmx10mm 5V fan didn't fit with the NVMe heatsink. I inserted very short M3 standoffs (or was it M2.5?) to lower the bottom just enough to mount the fan "inside" (albeit now slightly open). I don't feel this compromises anything as the air would otherwise have nowhere to escape and create too much pressure for the fan to function.Reading that it is common for the CPU not to make full contact with the top (a massive heatsink), I purchased a kit of 20mm copper shims of various heights. One box has CPU temps <40C (usually 37C) idle and rarely above. The second box is running hotter (maybe 42C idle) but does do more. I may reopen, repaste and check if another thicker shim works better. (It may not improve, we'll see. Or I may not bother for the possibility of 5C improvement.)In the end, I am torn by my decision to not buy rackmount units. As is, the two boxes require 3U. (Though I managed to fit them in at the top of the rack sticking into empty space and use only 2U.Very impressed with the quality of the units. Runs OPNsense flawlessly. HUNSN is amazing and definitely stands behind their products. (Just wish they offered a box with external 2-port or 4-port SFF-8644 and 1 or 2x 10GB SFP+ ethernet ports.)

I wanted to remove the Chinese pfSense plus and Loas pfSense CE.To do this I had to remove the NVME install it in a USB cradle then Wipe it with Active@ Killdisk.I then installed it into my tech bench that has UEFI.I installed pfSense via USB to the NVME.I removed the NVME and installed it back into this unit.It booted fine.Why did I do this?Because no matter what USB stick I used it would not install.I kept getting ... the checksum for base.txz does not match...I even tried to load the installer on another NVME drive,I installed that in the first slot and the original drive in the second slot.Same error. So it's not limited to the USB.Anyway it's working great now!

This is a good package to use as a firewall/router. Customer service is knowledgable, and good to work with.

Powerful little box. My box had one issue that required some tinkering to fix. The CPU temperature would idle at 60C while just having the bios screen open. The heat sink connections were not physically touching and a large amount of thermal paste was used to compensate. I had to carefully grind about .5mm off the top of the mounting pegs to lower the PCB enough that the CPU would touch the copper heat sink block. In hindsight it probably would have been better to buy some copper heatsink shims to compensate for the gap. however, now the CPU idles around 35C in bios. Likely need to play with the settings some to lower the cpu power as i am looking for <30C temps when idling.