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Research on Opnsense hardware

·1 min

Today, I run Opnsense in a VM on my Proxmox node. That creates issues once in awhile when my fiddling with the Proxmox server brings down internet for the whole home. So, I was looking online on what dedicated machine I could purchase to run Opnsense. Here’s what I found:

  • Qotom looks like a good choice, kind of like a cheaper yet similar version of Protectli. I found 2 nice versions. Both were priced pretty similar on AliExpress.
    • Q335G4.
      • i3 but probably 1G ports. I have 1 Gbps fiber connection today, so 1G ports might be fine today, but things may change in future.
      • 15W TDP.
    • Q750G5
      • This has J4125, which is better than N4000.
      • 2.5G ports. Also, 5 and likely overkill for me, since I’ll anyway use a switch.
      • 10W TDP == lower.
    • Can also get rack-mountable versions of these.
  • I saw a bunch of Reddit posts on how people have repurposed used 1 liter or mini PCs. So, probably no need to buy new hardware.
    • Lenovo ThinkCentre M710Q: can be extended with dual NIC.
  • 1G vs 2.5G probably only matters for the WAN side. LAN traffic only goes through switches and wouldn’t hit the Opnsense box.