Today we have an update to a class of systems that frankly checks a lot of boxes of feedback we received on our previous review. Qotom, makers of The Everything Fanless Home Server, Firewall Router, and NAS Appliance, took the feedback from that article and video and made a new system with 10Gbase-T networking instead of SFP+ and is using the new Intel Core 3 N355 processor for notably more CPU performance. The system is called the Qotom Q11032H6, as the company has rough naming conventions. Still, we have been using this box for over a month, and it has performed very well for us. Of course, there are a few quirks that we will get into as well.
Of course, we have a video for this one:
We always suggest opening this video in its own tab or app for the best viewing experience.
Qotom 10Gbase-T Mini PC External Hardware Overview
This is a bit of personal preference, but the chassis Qotom is using looks cool with the giant heatsink fins on the top. We have lots of these fanless boxes in the studio, and this one stands out. It is also on the heavier side because this top area is all relatively thick metal.
On the front left, we get a power button, and status LEDs.
Next is a SIM card slot and a console port. We did not have a 5G modem installed so we did not get to test this SIM card slot.
There are then three USB 3 ports, a USB 2 port (all Type-A) and two display outputs. We have both DisplayPort and HDMI here as two of the three video outputs on the system. Something that this is much better at versus the C3758R version we looked at previously is that this can drive three displays, has more USB, and can certainly be used as a desktop with faster cores and an iGPU.
On the subject of that chassis, your initial assumption is probably as wrong as mine was.
On the side, we get more fins.
On the other side, it looks the same.
On the top, it looks like we just have some big fins, but you actually cannot see the angled design of the fins easily from this view.
Then we get to the bottom, and you probably see it. There is a fan in this system. It is not completely silent. What is even stranger is that this fan is there to cool the memory and storage, not the CPU and NICs. More on that when we get inside.
On the other faceplate, we get the exciting bits.
First, we get a 12V power input, followed by a USB Type-C port that has an alt DisplayPort mode. There is also another USB 2 port.
The 10GbE ports are perhaps the big story. These are Marvell Aquantia AQC113C ports, so they are low power and newer NIC IP.
The right side is the quad 2.5GbE port configuration. These are all Intel i226-V ports.
Next, let us get inside the system to see how it works.
I’d ask the designers why copper 10GbE instead of SFP+?
Is it compatible with OPNsense or pfSense?
The AQC113C is currently not supported by OPNsense or pfSense, as there is no official FreeBSD driver for it yet. While some Aquantia chips like the AQC107 are partially supported, the AQC113C requires a different driver that hasn’t been integrated into FreeBSD. For a reliable home firewall setup, it’s strongly recommended to use an Intel NIC (such as the i350 or X520), which is fully supported and stable.
Typically, you would use the 2.5GbE NICs for pfSense or OPNsense on a device of this class. So think of it more like you can run a pfSense or OPNsense as one VM on a Proxmox VE hypervisor and use the 10GbE for storage since you do not have a lot of local M.2 storage.
Does the I226-V have decent Linux support yet? Often see complaints it has poor performance under Linux.
More rubbish direct from China. The idle power consumption is way too high like most of these types of device. These chips are used in laptops which don’t even draw that much power at idle with Wi-Fi connected, audio and the LCD screen on! It’s about time Serve The Home started calling them out on this, these should idle at a few watts. They cut corners with the design and we got hand warmers.
The fan is a typical China last minute, we don’t care, hacked solution to an overheating problem. It has an intake grill but no exhaust grill, so its just spinning in hot air and doing very little except making noise and using more power.
If these boxes were designed correctly and so during periods of idle time dropped to a few watts, they would run cooler and give that metal more capacity to sink heat when the CPU ramps up.
I know the Intel spec sheet says 16GB max but it would be interesting to see if this can work with a 32GB DIMM.
2.5Gb firewall VM for most is just gonna use 2 of those cores and maybe 4GB. If you’ve got 8 cores that’s a waste of your not virtualization
You can virtualize the Aquantia NIC’s with Proxmox or KVM. I have a quad Aquantia 5Gb NIC that isn’t supported by FreeBSD. I simply run Ubuntu Server and 1 KVM based OPNSense VM and manage it with Cockpit. I don’t need all of the mass management of Proxmox, so I pared it down to a basic Cockpit GUI. Works great.
Just a heads up that Qotom is promoting this on Amazon as compatible for pfSense and OPNSense, but as the earlier post from Vince states, those OS’es do not support the 2 Marvell/Aquantia 10GbE ports. You will need to virtualize the system to use thos ports.
Since I’m looking for a 10GbE solution for a firewall (5Gb fiber service), this doesn’t meet the boxes, as right now my firewall of choice is opnsense/pfsense.
The FreeBSD Aquantia driver has been dropped by Marvell for the last 3 years to focus on Windows/Linux support. Several open requests to support FreeBSD again, but I’m guessing like almost all absorbed companies, the parent company doesn’t gives a damn about product support and just wants to milk what they have without additional effort.
A couple of questions:
1. Am I reading this right that you can use this for Opnsense on the 4 2.5g ports, but not the 10g ports?
2. The links provided show the box available with the N305, but not the N355. Is the 355 not in broad distribution yet?
RTL8127 is supposedly “right behind the corner” a whole PCIe card for $15. I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer