Are there any NUC style PCs with dual NICs?

H

hellosky

Weaksauce
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Mar 28, 2010
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I've been looking around everywhere and can't find what I'm looking for.

Ideally it would be a small compact PC like Intel NUCs with a built in mobile CPU (i3/i5) and at least 2 Intel NICs.

The few that I found have Realtek which I'd rather not use for pfSense.

Is there anything else out there? Wish Intel would make a NUC with 2 NICs on there... :(

I've been reading about people building their own systems with the Rangeley Atoms but I think that's out of my price range.
 
I've been looking for something like this in the sub $300 range hopefully, as I would like to do the same.

I think a nuc with an added intel gbit adapter (via mpcie or some such) and maybe a machined case could be an option also.

In my research I ran across a few thin client and embedded solution boards, check this out:
http://www.axiomtek.com/Default.aspx?MenuId=Products&FunctionId=ProductView&ItemId=6396

Do you think the fitlet has enough compute power to hit gigabit transfer speeds, especially for vpn/encrypted traffic? I like that the 6400T processor on the fitlet should support aes encryption pretty well, but does that work with PFSense?
 
deruberhanyok said:
if you don't mind building your own, Gigabyte has a thin mini ITX board with dual NICs.
Click to expand...

But unfortunately only one of the NICs on that board is Intel, the other is RealTek.

Fitlet looks highly interesting, but I suspect a painfully high price?

What I did myself was to build a low-budget mini-itx machine based on an Intel D2500CC board, which has two Intel NICs. I needed two more NICs, so I also got Intel's expansion card which connects to mPCIe. Put it in a horribly ugly case, but firewall/router machines don't have to be pretty now, do they? :D
 
backfeed said:
But unfortunately only one of the NICs on that board is Intel, the other is RealTek.

Fitlet looks highly interesting, but I suspect a painfully high price?

What I did myself was to build a low-budget mini-itx machine based on an Intel D2500CC board, which has two Intel NICs. I needed two more NICs, so I also got Intel's expansion card which connects to mPCIe. Put it in a horribly ugly case, but firewall/router machines don't have to be pretty now, do they? :D
Click to expand...

An expansion card that gives you two NICs an fits in a mPCIe slot? That's interesting, do you still have a link or the product name by any chance?
 
This may be the one:

http://www.logicsupply.com/components/expansion-cards/admpeidla/

The fit-PC2 goes for slightly above $300usd on Amazon, and the fit-barebones is supposed to be 1/2 the cost. Not sure what that means for the rest of the fitlet lineup, but most PFSense setups would require at least fitlet-i (dual nic) or fitlet-x (4 nics). Might hit the market in Feb this year, if you trust their press releases
 
Ah, good find! Most boards have half sized mPCIe these days, though. But I don't think you could even fit all the required circuitry on that.
 
The axiomtek board I listed earlier supports it:

1 x Full-Size PCI Express Mini Card w/mSATA supported

That's in a 3.5" form factor too, which is more ideal for a router. I think mITX is at the limit of what I would consider acceptable for a router, but to each his own.

Sent off an email via their website to try and find out the cost...

The fitlet would be a great solution too if a suitable SKU for < ~$300 was available
 
I replaced my shuttle pfsense box with this one:

$360 shipped

http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/desktop/fw-7525

Awesome, small, quiet, fast, capable. I first used a CF card but that failed after about 6 months so I highly recommend getting their 2.5 adapter and putting a small SSD or HDD in there. Works awesome headless. I'll be happy to help you get it going if needed.

FW-7525_front.jpg


FW-7525_back.jpg


Atom C2358 CPU built-in Intel QuickAssist Crypto acceleration
Fanless design
Optional rack mounting kit support
Screw-locked power plug
Intel AES-NI new instructions, improves security without slowing response times
Support up to 8 GB DDR3 Memory
Intel i210AT LAN controller
Support Gen.2 LAN Bypass function
 
That Jetway JBC320U93 looks perfect! But where can you order it?
 
The Atom 2930 doesn't have AES-NI, which is useful for encrypted traffic. Is there a similar Jetway model that has an E3845 instead?

Screw it, I'm building a full server with an i5 4590s to just avoid all the little nitpicks, heh.
 
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I'm just going with this setup:

Antec isk110 w/ 90w psu (this is driving most of the other decisions)
Asrock E3C224D2i
Intel i5 4590s

I can't seem to find ANY 'L' series processors for sale that aren't ridiculous markup from the tray price, so the only options are processors with 65w tdp or less. That rules out the E3 V3 series, and puts me in the market for either L, T, or S processors with AES-NI and VT-d

Hopefully the asrock mobo will boot with my generic PNY non-ecc ram, and hopefully ESXi takes all the hardware together; I've already prepared a USB stick with an injected image for the Intel i210 nics on the asrock. Will post back with some results after this weekend
 
Siba said:
I'm just going with this setup:

Antec isk110 w/ 90w psu (this is driving most of the other decisions)
Asrock E3C224D2i
Intel i5 4590s

I can't seem to find ANY 'L' series processors for sale that aren't ridiculous markup from the tray price, so the only options are processors with 65w tdp or less. That rules out the E3 V3 series, and puts me in the market for either L, T, or S processors with AES-NI and VT-d

Hopefully the asrock mobo will boot with my generic PNY non-ecc ram, and hopefully ESXi takes all the hardware together; I've already prepared a USB stick with an injected image for the Intel i210 nics on the asrock. Will post back with some results after this weekend
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you would spend the money and space on that setup when the lanner looks to have what you need for a pfsense box and is much much smaller.

I own 4 of those asrock boards 2 with onboard atom CPU and 2 socket 1150s and they all worked well.

EDIT. Sorry didn't realize you wanted to run ESX.
 
It's not just for PFsense, though initially that will be the primary use. The physical space isn't really increased by much more, and I'll be able to use it for other VMs without as much hassle. The flexibility is what really got me, I'll basically be able to use it as a start to a homelab for any little project, while the appliances listed here would be pretty limited at anything other than a PFsense gateway

I find it attractive to have the all in one box with an idle power draw not much more than a basic router and also allows for much more in terms of future expansion. Also, the cost of those appliances seemed pretty high for what they were, and if I'm reusing basic desktop parts, I'm only really out the mobo/cpu/case cost

tldr my scope expanded to a VM host as well
 
Logic Supply was already mentioned, but they've just announced a new system with a dual NIC option - Introducing the Next Generation Industrial NUC: The ML100

ml100-10-pic3_4.jpg


EDIT 5/1: Anandtech did a review of the i5, vPro version - Anandtech Reviews the Logic Supply ML100G-30
EDIT 6/15: A review of the dual NIC system from Silent PC Review - Silent PC Review of Our Dual NIC NUC, the ML100G-10
EDIT 10/5: Recently published video with details about both systems - VIDEO: The ML100 Series – Intel’s NUC, Evolved
 
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i looked at some of those jetways, i'd be cautious as theres lots of reviews online of the cooling being inadequate causing overheating.
 
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