This is one of the most unique mini systems that we have seen in a long time. When we first heard of the 4-port 2.5GbE and 2-port 10GbE units, we were intrigued by the addition of SFP+ ports. That is something that after countless mini-PC reviews we have heard asks for from our readers and the YouTube comments. When we reviewed The R86S it had many of the features we wanted but lacked a bigger CPU and expandability. (Note we have a vastly upgraded R86S review in progress.) This unit has an Intel Core CPU and is based on a motherboard that we would not expect. In this review, do not miss the internal hardware overview because we were shocked at how these are built.
New 4x 2.5GbE and 2x 10GbE Intel Core Firewall and Virtualization Appliance Overview
For this, we have a video with both the 10GbE model as well as the model that has eight 2.5GbE ports. We are going to be doing more of these multi-unit videos over the next quarter and then have written reviews for both. The 10GbE one was the one the team picked for this video to go live with first.
As always, we suggest watching in a tab, browser, or app for a better viewing experience.
Since we had both units, we ordered the top two CPU options. One was an Intel Core i5-10210U that was in the 8x 2.5GbE model.
We also had this system with the Intel Core i7-10510U CPU. Since both CPUs are options available in both systems, and we successfully and easily did a motherboard swap, we are going to present results from both, and an unexpected recommendation.
In our system, we got 16GB of DDR4 memory and a 256GB NVMe SSD. The pricing of the Topton unit was $512 at the time we ordered on AliExpress. Since then prices have moved a bit, and the same configuration can sometimes be found for less and a barebones for around $400 with discounts. We also found the units for sale under the “Moginsok” brand albeit at a higher price on Amazon.
There is a decent premium for getting more capability than we see in some of the fanless 4-port and 6-port 2.5GbE units. We ended up running mostly Proxmox VE 8 as a base OS on these. They came pre-installed with pfSense Plus, likely to be compatible with the Intel i226-V before the latest pfSense CE 2.7 release. We also ran OPNsense on it, but Proxmox VE as a base hypervisor felt like a better use of the hardware.
Next, let us take a look at the outside of the system before getting to the crazy internal overview.
