Hello, we need suggestions for the best mini PC with 2x SFP+ for Router OS. Currently, we are considering purchasing the MS-01 Work Station. Are there any alternatives with a 13th or 12th generation intel processor?
I got an MS-01 for the SFP+ ports (as my personal workstation, not a server), and I am not aware of any other small form factor PC with 10G networking out of the box, barring using Thunderbolt external NICs.
Hi,
maybe this: https://www.servethehome.com/the-everything-fanless-home-server-firewall-router-and-nas-appliance-qotom-qnap-teamgroup/
I did not test any however! Thanks to Chinese manufacturers, there are many more, you can find good reviews on STH. Especially the N305 CPU based ones look interesting, you can find some with Intel SFP+ ports on Aliexpress.
I never used anything apart MT HW for this purpose (and I love MT HW, compact and low power), but I believe there are many situations, where it´s beneficial to use a “PC” and I was thinking about using Proxmox for running ROS. For this such an N305 mini PC would be great.
I stand corrected. Doesn’t have the grunt to use as a daily driver desktop, but as a dedicated router it would be great.
Search for R86S.
Tiny thing with 2XSFP+ and 3X 2.5Gb
HP’s T740?
DDR4 but don’t know which generation the Ryzen is though, unless it must be an Intel..
Add whichever low-profile PCIe card you want for the SFP+ slots.
Only as a side note, what I find concerning with these tiny PC’s (or reconfigured thin clients) but also on some router/switch hardware is the (IMHO) crazy temperature some SPF’s run at/reach.
It seems that optical SFP’s seem to run cool enough, but the copper ones run really hot, I doubt that running them on passive cooled devices (or active cooled with small silent fans) is a good idea.
In the specific case of the (BTW nice) R86S, having the two SFP’s just below the three ethernet ports looks “wrong” to me.
I am using several SFP+ cooper modules without a fan, including one model from Mikrotik and indeed they run pretty hot, almost too hot to touch. But, after 4 years of 24/7 usage, they still work.
STH has a review of the unit here: https://www.servethehome.com/the-gowin-r86s-revolution-low-power-2-5gbe-and-10gbe-intel-nvidia/
For my own personal use, I opted for a bigger unit in the form of MS-01 Workstation, but even for 10 Gb/s is crazy overkill. This thing does NAT under a VM @ 10 Gb/s and CPU usage with 4 cores is 5-6% (basic firewall)
I’ve the MS-01, using CHR in a VM with Proxmox. It’s really a beast machine, but if you’re looking to make also some other VM, it’s really a good option, except some “minor” issue.
The worst part to me, is that even passing the whole X710 board to the CHR VM, I’m not able to see the SFP TAB withing winbox, so basically I lost all of the control of installed module. It’s not a big deal when you use for example short DAC cable, so or it works or not, but if you have more complex sfp module and you want see information, you don’t have.
Actually is the only things that I miss from previous physical setup with an rb5009. I hope it’s something like a configuration error or driver option that I made wrong, but can’t figure out.
Btw, just to make a router, it’s not worth at all the ms-01, going with R86S it will be better. In my case I also have to host a Windows server, so it will be perfect since I’ve removed everything else 