Description
Product Description
PROS:
+ Intel Gigabit NIC—It all adopts Intel i225 network card chip and 4x Intel 2.5GbE NIC ports to improve your network throughput and stability
+ Compatible with Diverse OS—Supports a range of popular open source firewall software; Please Note that this micro firewall appliance comes with Intel i225 NIC, the following systems are NOT supported: Sophos, Untangle, IPCop, WIN7
+ Completely Silent—It uses fanless design to give you a quiet office space and support 7×24 hours running
+ Full Aluminum Case—It doesn’t have moving parts, which increases it’s durability in less than ideal environments
+ Save Space—Small body size, only 5.27 x 5 x 1.43 inch, and it has a VESA bracket, which can be mounted behind the monitor
+ 6W TDP—Low power consumption to greatly save energy
CONS:
– Only 1x SODIMM Slot—The max ram it supports is only 8GB
– Warmish Case—Due to the fanless design, the whole case is a big heat sink, which conducts heat to the case when it’s running
– Reinstall the system—Because inactive windows 10 pro is pre-installed by default, if you need to use it as a firewall/soft router, you need to reinstall the system yourself. It’s an ideal device for experienced users/hobbyists but may be a little tricky for beginners
TIPS TO BETTER USE THIS FANLESS MINI PC:
- If you need to install OPNsense, please follow the below BIOS setting, otherwise, it may lock with boot: Advanced-OS Selection-Android; Boot-Boot Option Priorities-Boot Option #1-UEFI OS (P1: Hoodisk SSD)
- If the device has CAM timeout issues on pfsense, opensense, and others, you can get around this by going into your /boot/loader.conf and adding this line to fix it: vfs.zfs.trim.enabled=”0″; or please leave us message directly and we will send you an updated firmware to fix it.
For more BIOS Settings information, please check the FAQ page of our VNOPN Store.
Why Choose Vnopn?
- 1) Original Manufactory over 12 Years
- 2) Working Directly with Original Chipset Factory
- 3) Offering Product Customization Solution
- 4) Safety Stock & Patented Case Design
- 5) Many Strict Quality Tests
Vnopn K8-F12 Mini PC
- Used as an Advanced Firewall Router
This compact pc has 4x Intel 2.5Gigabit LAN ports. You can re-install open-source system and configure it as a firewall, LAN router, VPN appliance, smart gateway, edge computing terminal, etc.
- Used as a Smart Mini Computer
This fanless mini pc is pre-installed inactive windows 10 pro for test. After you receive it, please connect monitor, keyboard & mouse to it, then power on, and it will work as a mini desktop computer.
- What Will You Get?
(1) Vnopn Mini PC; (2) Dual WiFi Antenna; (3) Packing Box
(4) US Power Supply; (5) User Manual; (6) Back Mount Bracket & Screws
- Operating System:
This smalll computer comes with inactive Windows 10 for test by default, you can re-install it with linux ubuntu, opnsense and a variety of popular open-source firewall software distributions.
If you need a windows license, the cost is USD12/piece, plesase leave us message.
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Support Various OSYou can re-install a range of open-source software on this device, such as dd-wrt, FreeBSD, ClearOS, CentOS, OpenVPN, OPNsense, pfsense, etc. to create a security system that caters to your needs. Please Note that this micro firewall appliance with an Intel i225 NIC, the following systems are NOT supported: Sophos, Untangle, IPCop, WIN7 |
Support 3G/4GThere is a SIM card slot on the motherboard. But by default, WiFi module is installed in this mini pcie slot. If you use 3G/4G, it will can’t use WiFi, you can only use one of WiFi and 3G/4G. If you need to use it with 3G/4G, please remove the WiFi module first and reinstall a 3G/4G module on the motherboard, otherwise, it can’t use 3G/4G. (NOTE: 3G/4G module is not included, it needs extra cost. You can leave us message or buy it yourself) |
4x Gigabit EthernetThis 4 lan mini pc has rich I/O ports: 1x HDMI, 1x VGA, 2x USB3.0, 4x RJ45 LAN, 1x Reset. It adopts Intel i225 chipset, supports 4x 2.5Gigabit Ethernet network. Low-power hardware, but stable and high speed, good compatibility, and wider network application fields. |
Fanless Cooling DesignThis small computer comes with fanless passive cooling design and aluminum case to make it heat dissipation faster, quiet and 0 noise when working, supports 7×24 hours running. Fanless enclosed housing design makes it suitable for harsh industrial applications. |
wile-e-coyote –
Very Reasonable Value network applianceI purchased this device and it has been running in my home for 8 months now and since I first wrote this review the device has had plenty of time to burn in and be evaluated.While its only in residential use, I have remote working, online gaming, media streaming and education needs that I believed this device could address better than consumer level wifi routers. My experience is that this is so much more powerful and cost effective than any consumer or prosumer level router/firewall hardware.Some of the more advanced features I was looking for for my application were-heavy VPN usage with between two and three VPN connections. This makes good use of the on-board acceleration.-8 Segregated VLANS-Parental controls-Advanced network insights-Advanced firewall rules and routing.Comparing specifications this device was very reasonable for the features. It seems that some models now are shipping with 2.5 gig network cards for the same price. If you can get it with the 2.5 gig network ports that would make it all that much more future proofed and powerful. It also seems that there is more competition in this space offering 2.5ghz solutions.Consider my review is on a unit with 1ghz ports as that was shipping when I purchased it. Here are my observations.I was fearful of some of the reviews on quality and was considering buying one of the more mainstream network appliances to save myself a headache but i did decide to take a chance. This unit had proven itself more robust and a worthy product.Its specs are perfect for high end residential use into moderate sized small business use. Right out of the box its a much more solid build than some branded open source network appliances that are housed in plastic. Other than the wifi that this comes with, this is a step change from consumer based products or all-in-one wifi-routers.It showed up, no lose parts, no issues powering it up and it does come with a preloaded OS for POST testing. That OS is not really usable and you should expect to provide your own operating system for whatever its intended purpose.Installation of the open source firewall on it was a breeze and required no special configuration, I used pfSense for first install. All hardware was fully recognized on the initial install and went seamlessly.It comes packed well, securely and environmentally sustainable in paper based packaging. It comes with an L-bracket to attach to the back of a monitor should you desire to mount it there or use it as a small personal computing device, but you will need to install a different OS than the one that is included for that purpose. It comes with some screws to attach to monitor or for use in a wall mount setting using two recesses on the bottom of the chassis, rubber feet for a desktop install. Also the box contains a very brief user manual, QA certificate a robust power supply and two small wifi antennas.The device is about 5-1/4 inches by 5-1/2 inches but will require more install space for cables and included antennas. The foot print is significantly smaller than most consumer grade products. The case is robust being made from aluminum. Access to the internals is easy and expansion seems straight forward, but it isn’t made for frequent access and expansion as some gaming computers may be, but that’s to be expected. The motherboard is an American Megatrends and as I looked at it you will be restricted to the one slot of memory.Initial set up you do need a keyboard mouse and direct monitor connection but once configured it can run like any other consumer network device accessed over the network.It runs quietly since there is no fan. It does run warm to the touch but nothing concerning and doesn’t raise any safety concerns, however I would not use it on a desktop where it could get covered by something that would restrict natural airflow or allow heat to build up.My first configuration suggestion specific to this hardware should you run PfSense is to customize these two settings right out of the box.Navigate to System->Advanced->Miscellaneous scroll down to the section on Cryptographic & Thermal Hardware and set the following fields.Cryptographic Hardware = AES-NI CPU-based AccelerationThermal Sensors = Intel Core* CPU on-die thermal sensorI’ve been running many devices (15 to 25 peak) over a full time VPN with about 4 or 5 consistently using moderate bandwidth for remote working, remote education, streaming and hardcore gaming.In 8 months the hardware has only been restarted two maybe three times (once for an upgrade in software, once for a power failure and if I recall once for an ISP outage) so its been running largely uninterrupted for the majority of 8 months flawlessly.I conservatively average 1.2 TB (1.6 TB peak) of download data per month from my ISP. All of that goes over this box so it does get a workout. There is additional workload for uploads and local network traffic. The important thing for me was that under that load the only time i see the CPU get out of single digit utilization numbers ( 4%) is when I run extended speed tests over a VPN.In fact my ISP gates my capacity because I use so much data so I can’t really give the device the full level of scrutiny I’d like to. As I hinted, CPU never really gets over 4% utilization, memory hovers around 7% and temp is constant 49 Degrees C. Running a prolonged series of speed tests over a VPN can push CPU to 40%, temp to 51 Degrees C however memory isn’t really impacted by these tests.Any concerns I had about this device having sufficient power to meet my needs have been fully dispelled with room to grow. This was a key reason for purchasing this hardware as the CPU fully supports AES-NI for encryption.Full disclosure, I do not expect to use the wifi capabilities on this device since and purchased this knowing full well that I wouldn’t. Most of the linux based open source software you may run on this box doesn’t support more powerful cards than what this came with.You can replace the wifi card with a 3G/4g LTE cell card but it will also be bandwidth limited. I’d refer you to the following links for education.OpnSensehttps://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/cellular.htmlPfSensehttps://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/cellular/hardware.htmlI would recommend the path that I took which was to externalize the wifi and install a few wifi 6 access points hanging off a powered switch. This is a bit more expensive but for that expense in addition to increased bandwidth, I can run multiple SSIDS on different vlans/subnets for security, take full advantage of the opensource software as well as get 5ghz and 6ghz wifi in addition to the 2.4ghz coverage in a mesh over a whole house with no dead spots.Like the wifi, if you plan to use Cell service as primary or backup internet connection I’d externalize that as well since a wired network connection will provide better throughput than any cards you can put into this device internally. I’d also suggest that if you are looking at 5G cell you should fully look to get the 2.5Ghz network ports because 5G cell service can support over 4Gbps. In reality if you are planning to play in that space on the leading edge of 5G, you may be a power user and may need different hardware quickly.This device enabled some more advanced use cases that I have. Having an Adolescent gamer in the house I am able to manage traffic and avoid lag and latency and make specific hardware tuning required by certain games. That is partially a function of the open source software but I just couldn’t do these things on consumer hardware.We are using this device for parental controls those features are more of a function of the open source software that you install on the device so I will refrain from going into this here. I will say that the features that this hardware provides me to run that software which provides me much more control and sophistication.The hardware offers the capacity capacity to run the additional software packages needed to perform advanced monitoring, diagnostics and control software under a heavy (for personal use) networking workload.If my review is a bit dis-joined, please understand that it is difficult to draw a fair comparison of this device against the consumer based wifi router that I’m using this to replace. This review is intended to be more specific to this hardware. I’ve attempted to minimize most references to the various opensource firewalls that would run on it. Consumer based wifi routers are a combination of both hardware (the specs of which you may never know) and the home grown (limited) software supported by the manufacturer.None of the hardware in this unit is esoteric or unsupported and I found that the opensource software was able to easily identify it and take full advantage of the capabilities, providing great monitoring.My conclusions are that if you are looking to get into Open Source firewalls and replace a consumer based wifi router, i can fully recommend this hardware. Its an affordable and fully featured device and has all indications of having a robust service life. Its not entry level so you will not run out of capacity unless you are using this in a quickly growing mid sized business, but I more than expect it to take care of a lifetime of residential needs, even with growing network usage.I would say that I wish I had been able to get a model with the 2.5 ghz network connections because that would benefit wifi 6 access points and anything connected. If you are looking to get into this space you are probably looking for advanced network capabilities and may consider ensuring you can get a 2.5 ghz unit one way or another. The fact that 2.5ghz network ports became available for the same price point was something i didn’t anticipate.I didn’t review this as a PC however it could be used in that way, but as a network appliance its a very robust piece of hardware. As an admonition, If you have simple and straight forward consumer based needs and don’t want to learn about more advanced networking this device may not be for you.This machine is purpose built for networking users with advanced needs, moderate workloads and looking to learn/employ more advanced networking topics. The real benefits of this device are that it is so much more cost effective, full featured and robust than equivalent capacity business grade products or branded network appliances. It can fully support home use to small business use. Community support for the hardware and software is pretty solid too.Lastly I would say that there is an advantage in purchasing this on Amazon as you get better customer service, faster delivery and more security than you may obtain by purchasing alternative hardware on other sites.
Aaron Sherman –
This Little Puppy can do it all!Now i’m not expert by any means but this little puppy has taken everything i’ve given it plus the kitchen sink! I threw pFsense in it, upgraded the RAM with some stick I had laying around, and boom it was off. Whether it’s running Wireguard as a client or server, VLAN, Network Monitoring, Ad Blocking or Packet inspection thing thing will handle it. Now I haven’t pushed it to the limits but we are getting close, but heat is the main combatant here. I may not have the best set up to help with it and maybe further test still needs to be done. I threw a good amount at it tonight with running Wireguard client as a gateway to one of my VLAN, while also doing some light streaming, I ran some speed test on a couple of devices, on different networks, at the same time. The speeds were still great depending on gateway but i noticed that I was pegging the CPU, used about 75 percent of the RAM, and temps started to creep close to 80 degree celsius. Now like I said this is a lot for this little machine to do and it still exceeded my expectations. I gave it a four because of the heat issue. This could also be caused by me, but I haven’t seen a way to modify it to allow a small fan or another way to help cool. I also could clean up the closet I have everything in and hopefully help the over all temps of all devices. If you have any ideas send them my way!Great Product 3 out of 5 stars wouldn’t change a thing. You get it.
Dave –
Good cheap pfsense router box with a couple minor gotchas that can be worked aroundI went comparing, almost bought a NetGate box, but decided to go this route and stick to open source.I didn’t trust the pre-installed Windows, but it worked well enough to do a quick burn in test to make sure everything was functional before I blew it away to install what I intended to run, pfSense.Docking a star since it came with OEM bios rather than CoreBoot, and while CoreBoot supposedly is available from some vendors of vnopn with that, it isn’t here and doesn’t seem to be available as a firmware flash. The second thing that pushes a missing star is the mSATA drive. It is great value to get this size at this price, but it doesn’t appear to support trim functions. This causes issues with CAM timeouts on pfSense, OpenSense, and others, but you can get around this by going into your /boot/loader.conf and adding this line to fix it: vfs.zfs.trim.enabled=”0″If you expect to do disk intensive actions with this system, you should either replace the included drive or use the internal sata port, as trim becomes increasingly important the more the disk is used or filled.I would’ve also preferred a more solid power plug than a barrel connector, or a locking barrel, but space is limited, so not docking a star for this as the barrel seems to be of reasonable quality.The unit runs warm, but is fanless, not too hot to touch, and rather powerful. 4 individual network ports and included wireless that works with pfsense is great. It isn’t the latest wireless technology, but the latest doesn’t work with things like pfsense anyway, and I disabled the wireless for security. If you want more/better wireless, use an external access point (and treat it as unsecure, like all wifi is). The SVGA port lets it work with ancient displays, and the HDMI port lets it work with anything current. AES-NI is a key feature that is included here on this processor, and enables speed ups for various encrypted network actions, which other slightly cheaper boxes didn’t have when I compared them.In short, this makes quite the nice all in one tiny package bang for the buck router box.
chuckp –
BIOS issueUPDATED – The second unit came in and works much better and as i would expect. I need to first modify the bios and do the install again [on this new unit], and compare it to the legacy mode install i had to do on the first defective unit… more to comeORIGNIAL POST – The unit powered on great and went into windows. I made the one change to prepare for install, in BIOS, that others left comments saying they did, and now i cant back into the BIOS. Power button and reset work, makes the green light goes off and on, BUT no red light activity, aka disk access to boot from OS.The only way to get back into windows is to remove power cord and wait few min.My other concern is the vnopn website is not accessible and i cant find any info on updating the BIOS or any other tech info other than submitting via amazon customer feedback which is concerning. Waiting for new unit now – so much for using the long weekend to install and test pfsense, which is very disappointing
A. Swarvar –
Perfect for pfSense useI have a decent amount of IT gear in the home (Synology NAS, VM host server, etc), along with an abundance of mobile devices, PCs, Macs, and a bunch of connected devices (TVs, AppleTV, Fire Stick, Ring, MyQ, Insteon, and more). Gigabit service from Xfinity was serving the home through an ASUS RT-AC86U with another RT-AC86U in AP mode with a wired back haul to ensure our entire home is blanketed in fast interwebz. Lately the RT-AC86U that was serving as the router would become unresponsive and require a reboot. Internet would be slow to unavailable entirely. If I could get the router to respond it looked like both CPU cores were maxed. I never looked into what the culprit was…I decided I’d just go a different route entirely. I had experience with pfSense when I managed IT operations for a bit and got to thinking this was a good excuse to go that route. Tried it out on a 15 year old gaming PC I built first to get things dialed in and prove out it would work. After some tinkering I got things working great…our power consumption was INSANE. Enter this awesome alternative. Priced attractively. 4 gigabit Intel based Ethernet connections. AES-NI compatible CPU. 128GB HDD and 8GB of RAM. Perfect/overkill for hosting pfSense in a home setup. I spent a few minutes tinkering with the BIOS to get things the way I wanted, installed pfSense, restored my pfSense config, and put it into service. Within 30 minutes I was done. It’s been running without issue since. Power consumption is almost non existent…it’s super efficient. pfSense doesn’t put a strain on the system resources at all, and it runs cool, as well as completely silent. Absolutely nothing not to like. I expect this to serve my needs for many years to come, and will do so much more reliably than any consumer router. Aside from all this, I have a MUCH more powerful device to improve my home network if I wish to, and I have a much better security posture in my home, running Snort and pfBlocker, etc. I can’t speak for using it as a pc, but if you want to use it as a firewall, I have zero issues recommending this unit.
Dustin Kanzlemar –
Makes a great pfSense routerI use this as a pfSense router, and it works amazingly in that role! I did have to remove the wifi card (as there is no option to order without the wifi card) since I use Ubiquiti Unifi access points, but that was super easy. I’ve had zero issues with this box, and it runs quietly due to fan-less passive cooling.
Bob S –
Drops USB (ports and WiFi card) & Storage doesn’t support TRIMTech support (Julie) and team was very responsive and really tried hard to discover what could be the problems I was experiencing. Kudo’s to them for their effort.This could be an excellent mini for a pfsense firewall if they could get the USB dropout problems fixed. I know pfsense (FreeBSD OS) is not the best for working with WiFi cards but I really wanted this for some low speed sensor data and leave the external AP for user connections. The unit is shipped with Win10 as stated for testing/verification purposes.While testing, I noticed that keyboard and mouse would drop out and had to unplug then plug them back in so they would be recognized again. The WiFi card is a mini PCIe USB host card and so it also experienced dropping out.After trying two units and another WiFi card, I experienced the same problems on both units and tech support said to return them. This is probably a BIOS firmware issue but they did not have a BIOS update available.Their choice of a storage card should be reviewed since it causes excessive delays when booting pfsense (CAM timeouts). Five, 30 second delays while it waits to initialize a non-existing hard drive. There is a simple work-around cheat that tech support will readily supply – but why? This is designed to be used as a firewall and tested against various open-source applications, so why not fix the problems and avoid these negative reviews?If they fix the issues then this would be an excellent choice.
Tantalo –
Works great with ipfireDidn’t know what to expect from such a small device. I used it to replace my outdated ipcop running on an oldwith an ipfire machine. Once I figured out how to boot from the USB drive, the installation was a cinch. I picked the device up during one of the prime day sales.
ffitz2 –
Great PF Sense FirewallIt came with an un-licensed pre-install of Windows 10. I don’t know why… If I was looking for a Win 10 computer this wouldn’t be my choice. BUT, it is great for the purpose for which I bought it. Once you figure out it’s boot override and get it to boot to the USB, you can install PFSense and it works great, much faster than the boxes Netgate sells.
osidfa –
Runs very hot.I just bought it for $320 and now it’s like $280, I feel like I got ripped off. I can say that it is running really hot, almost too hot to the touch, which means it is heating up my office and consuming a lot of power. I’m running PfSense on it with a bunch of plugins and using 3 of 4 Ethernet ports. I like that it is a powerful CPU but it is actually a lot more power than what is needed for this application, mainly sitting around 10% utilization. I recommend getting something even cheaper that is a more efficient processor, for example I have another one with Intel J4125 that generates virtually no heat and does the same thing.One other thing, there is a power button and if you cut power, you have to press it so it turns on again. None of my other networking appliances have this, they all turn on automatically as soon as power is restored.