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There is a delightful market of very small fanless boxes on AliExpress that typically just throws a 15W laptop CPU into an aluminum case. Turns out if you slap

There is a delightful market of very small fanless boxes on AliExpress that typically just throws a 15W laptop CPU into an aluminum case. Turns out if you slap a couple pounds of aluminum onto the CPU, it will stay pretty cool. I have a small box with an i5-5200U (15W part) that includes two NICs. This runs as my router and firewal at home. It sits around 40C. It might throttle if I ran heavy workloads on it, but it's great as a small always-on PC. Here's a search to get you started, and you can refine from there: https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20200721073945&SearchText=fanless+mini+computer https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=S...

fermienrico 6y ago
I wouldn't delve into AliExpress when there is https://pcengines.ch https://pcengines.ch, all boards made in Taiwan and engineered in Switzerland.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  But they don't seem to offer boards based on AMD's R1606G which is super power-efficient. Nor do they offer dual 10GbE NIC boards. And they don't have good ready-made cases with good cooling. :(
wahern 6y ago
That's the competition that ultimately ate Soekris' market--they never could recover after the net6501 debacle, and maybe would have exited regardless. But what Soekris offered and PC Engines still offers is ostensibly greater consistency and reliability, a better firmware story, and a proven commitment to long term availability and support of the platform. PC Engines still sells their ALIX model, and Soekris Europe still has net5501 boards in stock. The ALIX and net5501 are both ~15 years old, I think. A substantial portion, if not most of PC Engines' business, comes from small vendors building custom embedded solutions, such as WiFi base stations. The developer/hobbyist community loves PC Engines because it takes the guesswork out of things. The hardware will always be well supported by FOSS--because of PC Engines' efforts, and because there are plenty of FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, etc developers with a box--and there's solid brand recognition regarding quality. (Also, serial!) The downside is that the specs are antiquated almost from day 1, but for basic chores still adequate.
- greggyb 6y ago
  I hear you on the reliability of a known and long-tenured vendor. I got one of the AliExpress ones, because I wasn't originally certain what it would be used for. At one point it was my primary PC, and it performed silently and as well as or better than a same-specced laptop. The support is nonexistent, but compatibility is pretty good. These mini PCs are just taking generic laptop motherboard and CPU assemblies (probably the same you'd find in a Clevo or similar ODM machine). I wouldn't use one for something mission critical, but it worked great as a silent desktop and it has been a (super overpowered) router box as well.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    Do you use pfSense as a router, or something else? I am on the fence of not buying Mikrotik or Ubiquiti and just get one of these boxes you mentioned. But I am not a network admin and have no clue about network protocols (yet). My main idea is to return to Android but have very strict blacklists on my router machine so as to preserve privacy the best I can. And while Mikrotik routers can import various blacklists -- and even auto-update them! -- I am still not 100% sure about it and I wonder if I should take the leap to a small pfSense box that I control completely. Do you have any opinion on this?
    - greggyb 6y ago
      I run the latest OpenBSD stable and several utilities for myself. The router and firewall is composed of just standard PF and a config I've built myself based on the networking FAQ. I also have a bastion host for my home LAN, local DNS caching, a syncthing server, and some useful cron jobs. My goal is to also use it for a home automation hub, but all of those projects are in the future.
      - pdimitar 6y ago
        Thank you. Do you have observations on how easy it is to add a WiFi access point to a pfSense box? I've read some obscure posts on Reddit claiming that it's a hassle and that's the main that scares me.

fermienrico 6y ago

I wouldn't delve into AliExpress when there is https://pcengines.ch https://pcengines.ch, all boards made in Taiwan and engineered in Switzerland.

pdimitar 6y ago
But they don't seem to offer boards based on AMD's R1606G which is super power-efficient. Nor do they offer dual 10GbE NIC boards. And they don't have good ready-made cases with good cooling. :(

wahern 6y ago

That's the competition that ultimately ate Soekris' market--they never could recover after the net6501 debacle, and maybe would have exited regardless. But what Soekris offered and PC Engines still offers is ostensibly greater consistency and reliability, a better firmware story, and a proven commitment to long term availability and support of the platform. PC Engines still sells their ALIX model, and Soekris Europe still has net5501 boards in stock. The ALIX and net5501 are both ~15 years old, I think. A substantial portion, if not most of PC Engines' business, comes from small vendors building custom embedded solutions, such as WiFi base stations. The developer/hobbyist community loves PC Engines because it takes the guesswork out of things. The hardware will always be well supported by FOSS--because of PC Engines' efforts, and because there are plenty of FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, etc developers with a box--and there's solid brand recognition regarding quality. (Also, serial!) The downside is that the specs are antiquated almost from day 1, but for basic chores still adequate.

greggyb 6y ago
I hear you on the reliability of a known and long-tenured vendor. I got one of the AliExpress ones, because I wasn't originally certain what it would be used for. At one point it was my primary PC, and it performed silently and as well as or better than a same-specced laptop. The support is nonexistent, but compatibility is pretty good. These mini PCs are just taking generic laptop motherboard and CPU assemblies (probably the same you'd find in a Clevo or similar ODM machine). I wouldn't use one for something mission critical, but it worked great as a silent desktop and it has been a (super overpowered) router box as well.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  Do you use pfSense as a router, or something else? I am on the fence of not buying Mikrotik or Ubiquiti and just get one of these boxes you mentioned. But I am not a network admin and have no clue about network protocols (yet). My main idea is to return to Android but have very strict blacklists on my router machine so as to preserve privacy the best I can. And while Mikrotik routers can import various blacklists -- and even auto-update them! -- I am still not 100% sure about it and I wonder if I should take the leap to a small pfSense box that I control completely. Do you have any opinion on this?
  - greggyb 6y ago
    I run the latest OpenBSD stable and several utilities for myself. The router and firewall is composed of just standard PF and a config I've built myself based on the networking FAQ. I also have a bastion host for my home LAN, local DNS caching, a syncthing server, and some useful cron jobs. My goal is to also use it for a home automation hub, but all of those projects are in the future.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      Thank you. Do you have observations on how easy it is to add a WiFi access point to a pfSense box? I've read some obscure posts on Reddit claiming that it's a hassle and that's the main that scares me.