Fanless Firewall Appliance Intel N3700 4C/4T Mini PC 6 x Intel i225/i226 LAN Ports DDR3 SSD, Network Gateway Soft Router, Test with P-F-Sense AES NI (8G-128G-Wi-Fi)

The unit arrived quickly and had BSD installed with pfSense. Since my use case was different, I loaded it with Ubuntu server 22.04 and have had a lot of time to dig around and find out what is actually in the unit. I did not bother to see how this unit worked with pfSense. As expected for a unit like this, the instructions are useless and no system real documentation is provided. If you're going to play with this, you need to have some idea of what you're doing. There are no useful websites for the vendor or manufactrer and web searches for documentation on this unit will be fruitless. The motherboard has no documentation anywhere and no vendor or model number seems printed on it. It's a classic black box, where you won't know what's in it until you crack it open and look. The installation of Ubuntu went fine, although the disk partition install only allocated half of the SSD, so it required extending the LVM to use all of it. The wifi card chipset claims it runs on 2.4 and 5GHz and can run in ap mode, but either the available drivers don't support 5GHz or the obscure Wifi card doesn't actually do anything but run 2.4 GHz in client mode.. The description promises a license for Windows 11, which I was unable to find. The very idea of running Windows 11 on such a low-power device is absurd, and MSFT probably wouldn't let you install it without serious trickery anyways. Why they even bother saying this is beyond me, and I pray nobody picks one of these up with the expectation they're going to use it as a Win 11 box. lshw reports a AMI BIOS (firmware from 2019), 8GB DDR3 at 1600 MHz, Intel N3700 CPU, 128GB FORSEE SSD, an available SATA3 controller, 6x Intel I225-V ports (at 1GHz, not 2.5GHz as advertised), and a PCIe port with an IMC Networks 802.11 n/g/b Wireless LAN USB Mini-Card running off the usb controller. The vendor includes SATA3 connections for additional storage, but a 2.5" SSD will not fit in the case. A 1.8" card would be a very tight fit if possible, but you would definitely need a shorter and more flexible SATA cable to use it since the supplied foot-long cable takes up unecessary space within the enclosure. The wireless card is an obscure, obsolete card that only works on 2.4 GHz and will not function in access point mode with the rt2800 driver. A replacement mini wireless PCIe card from Intel would cost less than $20 but require you to solder antenna leads, which is not difficult. Use caution with tri-band cards as they can generate a lot of heat and there's no passive cooling available for a card in the PCIe slot A replacement should be seriously considered if buyers intend to use this in areas without wireless access, as otherwise an external router is needed. If one is available, the wireless connects easily, although you don't have access to anything other than 2.4 GHz frequencies. Two antennas are provided to connect to the SMA mounts on the case, which are too small for efficient 2.4 GHz use but work at short range. Since SMA is a standard radio connector, alternative antennas are cheap and plentiful if needed. Still, the small size is convenient. The passive cooling for the CPU alone works adequately, and seems adequate for 24/7 operation of the unit and core temp seems to max out at about 50 degrees C which is safe. The power adapter is not a "wall wart" that will use up space on a power strip. The HDMI interface seems fine, the VGA port was not evaluated (who in the hell uses that these days anyways?) and the (limited to two) USB 3 ports perform adequately. Generally, this unit costs about half of what others in this space are asking for more modern, capable, similarly configured units that aren't making sales claims they don't actually deliver on. You're getting lower capacity and performance because of the discount you'll enjoy, but it works within the actual specs of what it is. If you're looking for a firewall or server box for home use that you want to deploy for the long term, those more pricey options are probably a better investment. If you're a hobbyist or are building something specific that needs to have Raspberry Pi4B/8GB performance with some internal storage and a bunch of additional ethernet ports, yes you're paying 3x what a Pi costs but you'll get what you're looking for here. It looks, acts, and is priced as a cheap hobby box, which is precisely what it is.