Cheap & Capable pfSense/OpenWRT Machine! Fujitsu S920 Router Review
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2022
- This $50 thin client from 2015 beats the $200 router that we built in the last video... by a big margin.
Fujitsu S920 paired with a PCIe NIC is a great cheap machine for OpenWRT, OPNSense, IPFire or VyOS!
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Aaand, prices have gone through the roof on the Fujitsus!
There's loads of similar thin clients to choose from
(Ebay) they go for $47 + (in my state) another $47
They still cost the same here in Germany: www.ebay.de/itm/294820107840
@@WolfgangsChannel I think they may have been joking about the other UA-camr’s curse: recommending a product for its price, only to see the video become popular, and the prices to skyrocket.
They cost $45 now + $45 shipping to USA east coast. Is it worth it at that price?
I love that you made this follow up video listening to valuable feedback. I find your videos to be really well done, honest and informative.
Also to mention that in the S920 there are 3 cpu versions :
AMD G-Series GX415GA @1.5Ghz Quad Core cpu
AMD G-Series GX222GC @2.2Ghz Dual Core cpu
AMD G-Series GX424CC @2.4Ghz Quad Core cpu
But the GX222GC model doesn't like a Quad port, i have tested this model with a few different Quad port cards, and with all, the ThinClient reboots when you pull traffic through it,even when browsing through the Web GUI of Pfsense and it reboots. With a Dual port card this model works fine, even at full speed.
The GX415GA model like in this video works fine with Dual and Quad port cards, the GX424CC version i havn't tested yet, of this will except a Quad port card.
The malfunction of a Quad port card in the GX222GC has (i guess) to do that the PCI-E slot doesn't provide enough power for the more energy hungry Quad port cards.
Great info.... I'm guessing quad port cards tend to be power hungry because they are meant for rack mounted servers (1U - 4U) that have beefy PSUs and power rails. This is also important for those of us (like me) looking to replace my edge appliance with a low power equivalant since I also have a UPS attached to it to do a graceful power down.
I have GX424CC, but Quad port card reboot the device right after you put any load to the NIC.
I can confirm what you said. Broadcom cards work (Quadport).
@@drcamp8843 Which model exactly? 0H092P doesn't work.
@@Eversti94 Dell 5719
Also when it comes to the power supply, make sure to get the polarity right if you modify an existing one. That is pay attention to whether the center (or tip) is positive or negative. Obviously the other part of the connector will be whatever the tip was not. If you get the polarity wrong, there is a very good chance of damaging the computer and thus a very good chance it will never start again. When polarity is reversed there can even be a risk of smoke and fire. Other electrical problems cause fires too so be careful.
At work we have a number of old Dell and HP power supplies that provides 19V. It might require soldering a new connector on one but that can be a cheap alternative if you need a power supply. However I discovered that the Dell 130W supply has an idle power consumption use of 9W.
I just shorted a router by using the wrong adapter,
I'm now praying it had an electronic control chip
otherwise repair is futile
Hence I would just sale it to my local vendor for scrap
& Get a new one
This is good advice, and cost saving too. I got two Fujitsu D3313-S2x boxes from e-waste and one of them has just become my pfsense router on 500mpbs fibre, works like a charm. The only thing I did was put in a small sata drive, 8GB RAM and replaced the heat sink compound.
1. With iperf you can do parallel streams (check the -P switch). You could probably maximise the 10Gb speed of that NIC that way.
2. Having said the above (and just to be clear for the wider audience) what iperf can achieve is very different to what you can get when you perform real life tasks such as (dynamic) routing, NATting, firewalling, IDS/IPS, antivirus, etc and generally FW/NGFW tasks.
That's my favorite thing about discussing tech, someone probably already found an easier or better way to solve the problem.
Thank you for making this video. This provided me with the exact answers I was looking for regarding the S920, particularly regarding power consumption. To prevent CPU bottlenecks during throughput tests, run iperf3 on different machines instead of the DUT. Remember that pps with 64 B packets is a more valuable metric than average bps and will provide you with more precise information on packet handling capabilities. Keep up the good work.
Genuinely fascinating stuff. Especially glad you can do 10gbit as my internet connection is now up from 3gbit to 10gbit. Love that you showed how it all works. Great job!
Crazy , was just reaseraching the subject , saw the comment that started this video, searched for the device and it led me back here . Love it.
I built that thing ! (after watching your video) Thanks ! Set me back 80 € and 3 hours of work, with NIC+PCIe-cable and storage. running OpenWRT routing a 500/100Mbit upstream. (and it does so admirably so far)
According to spec sheets, this CPU can support up to 8GB of ECC ram, too, which would make it a great homelab server. You can run web servers, mail servers, etc.
The CPU itself supports ECC, however according to the mainboard's manual (Fujitsu D3313), ECC RAM is not supported.
By the way, the mainboard has two RAM slots, and supports up to 16GB of RAM (8GB per slot).
I just verified that ECC RAM is indeed NOT supported. The system doesn't even POST if unbuffered ECC RAM is installed. Pity.
(tested on a Futro S920 with the GX-415GA CPU and the D3313-A13 mainboard)
My futro works fine with 16gb RAM
@@samul4395Bit of a late reply but thank you for actually testing this. And not only that, coming back to share your findings, too. This is what I love about the tech community, always people willing to share information to learn together and to avoid everyone having to do the necessary tests separately
I use this thinclient for about 3 years as my pfsense box. Had 8gig of RAM lying around and put a quad port into it. Very happy with that thing.
is it still a good idea in 2024?
@@surajmeghoe7962 Sure, these things are pretty cheap now. Just consider to use a low power nic for low energy usage
@@surajmeghoe7962 works in 2024 just fine, however, i would recommend OpenWRT, which is more lighter and faster than pfSense. Running a gigabit fiber connection here just fine with a quad 2.5GE card. The BIOS limits the PCIe to Gen1 Speeds and that can't be changed over the bios, but with a DOS-tool, more info on that in the STH forums.
This just what ive been looking for, cheap, low power, extendable, supports pfSense. Im gonna get 2 of these for failover and ditch my provider modem completly with a VigorNic 132.
i had that vigor132. there is no benefit in doing it. when rebooting you loose your wan connection. if you better use the vigor130 you can do things such as failover router
also has no support for 250mbit vdsl2+ only 100mbit vdsl2
You can often find working SFF computers as e-waste at small businesses. I picked up a half dozen Dell Optiplex SFF computers (circa 2012) with Haswell Core i5 CPUs. 8 GB RAM, 512 HDD, single 1GB Motherboard Broadcom NIC and internal Intel Wifi card for almost nothing. They all worked although they had been wiped. I had a bunch of very old 30 & 60 GB SSDs laying around so I removed the HDDs and installed the small SSDs. I popped in some Intel duel 1GB NICs into the single low profile PCI-e slots these computers have. This was the only part of the project with a cost ($50 each). After updating the BIOS to the latest A20 version pfSense was installed on each with no drama or shenanigans caused by the BIOS. I kept two of the units, one for my home and one for my companies corporate firewall. They've been in and running non-stop for about 3 years now without a hiccup. The other 4 I donated to local non-profit originations along with installation and basic configuration.
I can't say enough good about pfSense. Secure, lightweight, feature rich, extensible and deadnuts reliable. The only time I've ever had to reboot the firewall is either during a version update. Did I mention FREE????
this is great, thank you! I am starting to get into home networking and didn't want to spend $200+ on a netgate router or build my own pc just for this, but this is the perfect solution!
It's indeed a good deal. Regarding the 10G, I was quite surprised you didn't fill the link, but your htop showed only 2 cores were used. You might have been facing an issue with IRQ affinity. It's important in a router to make sure all cores are used by the network. In addition, iperf itself sucks a huge amount of CPU, and in a real router it will not be present, all the activity will remain in the kernel, so even with just two cores it's possible that you could manage to forward 10G.
Awesome video! This channel was so worth finding for!
Thin clients are great, they've been completely missed by the wider community so they're really cheap and most of them have pretty good specs and are well suited for mostly idle and low usage tasks with very low power consumption even at peak
And they often get dumped by the thousands on ebay when corps swap out every contract period.
@@enlightendbel Yeah, it's pretty insane. I even bought a really nice R720 on a site for under 220 and it does amazingly well with TrueNAS. Consumes a bit of power but the performance is top tier.
I think one of the big reasons is people aren't sure how to gauge the actual cpu performance against something they're familiar with to gauge if it will be adequate for what they want.
Found one and bought it. It already has a bigger drive and 4GB RAM. Thank you for the tip.
I recently got myself one of those S920 boxes to run Home Assistant. Works beautifully…and I might pull the trigger on another one of these for the project you introduced here.
Those thin clients are actually really really neat for a lot of things and with the Raspi Foundation apparently having abandoned the home user market and selling to “professional applications” exclusively as of December 2022, other platforms are pretty appealing. There a literally non Pis on sale anywhere at the moment, except the odd Compute Module maybe.
BTW, I got my Home Assistant box about two weeks ago (roughly mid-November 2022) and paid 35 bucks plus shipping. And the unit came with a PSU. So, still reasonably cheap b
I am still loving my collection of RPi boards but I am not paying 170+ of European currency for a medium range Pi 4. Sorry but that is just nuts.
S740 is more powerful btw. Spent so much money on raspberries, wish I considered thin clients earlier...
Loved this Video, Just over a year ago and still relevant.
Guten Tag, mein Herr :)
Thanks to this video, i was able to get myself the same Fujitsu Futro S920 (8GB RAM + 120GB SSD included) and order one of the network cards that you recommended. For a noob router builder like me it is nice to get concrete tips about specific parts with model numbers that you have tested and which is working.
The last of the parts have been purchased from AliExpress and are on the way. Soon i will be up and running with a new router, thanks to you! :)
Keep up the good work! You make great and informative videos, and your english is flawless btw :)
*PCIe Risers:*
Generic x16 riser (cheap and should work since the PCIe slot is open-ended): www.aliexpress.com/item/32840518713.html
A bit short, but works (and it's cheap) www.aliexpress.com/item/4000594216710.html
Official Fujitsu part (expensive) shop.immel.de/de/pci-e-riser-holder.html
*PCIe NIC FRUs and model numbers:*
Dual NICs: HP NC360T, IBM/Lenovo 39Y6128 or 39Y6127
Quad NICs: IBM/Lenovo 39Y6138, HP NC375T, Fujitsu D2745-A11
Please note: I did not test all of these cards personally. Make sure you buy a low profile card with a half-height (or low profile) bracket.
1:26 "spoiler alert - yes" Nice, love it! 🤓😁
Edit: Also, every one - please be prepared to see price spike on this device - influencer at work 😄
You could use ubuntu server if wanted to go down that route
I love OpenWRT but I wonder why many ppl choose Pfsense
@@lilith1504 influencers like network Chuck etc. 🤔🤓😄
@@TheStuartstardust haha that's it. We watched the same guys!
your video editing skills are getting better and better.
Great Video! For benchmarking, the NAT performance would be interesting. So having the openWRT router between the iperf Server and Client, simulating actual routing not just switching.
Thanks! I might do a video or a text article with additional benchmarks
Agreed, although also iperf is not a real-life representation. THat's just raw processing power. Real life experiences would be lower I think, with mulitple devices communicating back and forth at the same time with many states.
@@MT-yo3mg true !
Saw this video a while ago and had never considered thin clients for doing _things_ before. Now I have 2 S720 for €20 each. Had 2 4GB DIMMs from a broken notebook lying around. Perfect. Now both machines running Debian 11 and a mass storage upgrade is in the making. Then I will test how much nextcloud, navidrome and other stuff I can self-host, before the computers go up in flames. Just for fun.
Yes I would be interested in speed tests and seeing what limits it has.
I got a TP link router for $20 at a garage sale, flashed it with OpenWRT... it has been working great for about 3 yrs.
Sometimes at the Goodwill you can find great deals for under $5. Just double-check if the router works with OpenWrt before buying it.
@@boink800 yes! and you don't really need a lot of resources for a home router. My TP link stays bellow 50% utilization. The important part is to get rid of those crappy factory firmwares.
Be careful about cheap routers - a lot of them are 4MB ROM/32MB RAM devices. With those you won't be able to install many (if any) additional packages and plugins, and in some cases even use LuCi (the WebUI).
openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning
Thank you for your video! Really exciting one. By the way there are only S920 with one LAN port left at eBay. According to Fujitsu data sheet 2nd LAN/Power-over-Ethernet module is optional.
Thanks for the video, this is exactly what I am looking for now. I am in the process to migrate from HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 with Xeon (Sandy Bridge...) machine to more power efficent solutions. The cube has 500GB storage for KVM virtualization, 4x3TB WD Red HDDs for NAS and runs kubernetes inside VMs along with a Raspberry Pi 4. Even my firewall (opnsense) runs virtualized. The plan is to migrate from 1 bulky cube to 3 new devices: Firewall (with the components here in this video), TuringPi2 for Kubernetes and some Services I use (AdGuard, Whoogle Search and so on) and an yet unclear solution for my 4 WD disks as a NAS device.
Thanks for this one! Really an inexpensive but useful build. Lets take it up a notch though... rather than OpenWRT, how would you change this build for pfSense?
This is good, yet another option to consider, and I love that it's x86.
I'm currently using the Belkin RT3200 with OpenWRT. I got it for 80€. It supports Wifi 6 on the 5GHz Channel and has enough horse power for PiHole, OpenVPN etc.
So far it's awesome. But the Fujitsu seems like a awesome Option if you already have a seperate Access Point or don't need Wifi at all.
Good video like always. :)
Look up the gl.inet flint ax1800
@@Phil-D83 you just ended my eternal search for a new router, thanks
@@msld3529 i still recc an opnsense or pfsense box as the router and a wifi6 ap. For most people, the a router like that gl.inet ax1800 is sufficient
@@Phil-D83 I have experimented with opnsense before, but I couldn't get it to work because it kept mixing up the ethernet ports. I was using an old pcie quad port Intel nic and another Intel gigabit port integrated into the mainboard. Kinda gave up after that, though I still have the hardware. May give it another shot considering I have a symmetric gigabit connection now and that I need to use vpns for remote desktop from/to my university.
@@msld3529 opnsense still has less than perfect auto detection of what ports are what. Pfsense works well in that regard. I moved from pf to opn because the pf updates kept break my system... opnsense works very well minus a few quirks. You can also run openwrt or ipfire as an alternative on a pc.
A youtuber finally made a video on it, I've been thinking of these for a while.
Very nice video - also a benchmark result for sqm would be very interesting
I really like you video! I'm planning to replace my ISPs router for my homelab setup and would love to see a video using this as a main router using VLANs, DMZs and maybe WiFi.
At all very interesting stuff on you channel. Thanks a lot!
Not a bad price for a powerful router like that.
I've currently got a Netgear R7000 running DD-WRT. It runs about 9 watts idle, and 11 watts when stressed. I'm not sure how many bits/second it'll handle, but I'm getting gigabit internet later this summer and I'll see if it can fully handle a gigabit connection. My guess it wouldn't handle multi-gigabit connections, but maybe it can fully handle my gigabit connection?
We'll see. I have a preference for the simple solutions where I can just flash a new firmware, and it largely just works. I spend enough time fiddling with operating systems to try to have to configure my router.
I have a couple low-power servers around that are beefy enough to handle more serious tasks I wouldn't want to run on a router. IMO a router should just route traffic, and not be a be-all-end-all device. I don't love putting too many things on one device... it just becomes a big maintenance nightmare anytime you want to update the whole shooting-match.
But if you don't have other servers around, and don't want to run other devices 24/7, this seems like a pretty decent solution.
This is a miracle machine! I use it with Windows Server 2012 R2 and it runs amazingly
LoL Windows Server 2012…LoL..3.5 years since end of life...good luck mate...seems as if you've forgotten the basics of security.
I subscribed to your channel immediately. You clearly care about truth. Thank you for this great video.
glad i saw this considering i was about to spend about £130 on a passive box with 2 NICs to use for PFSense. i will see if i can find one of these for cheap near where i live
PCI-E TIP: I have encountered an issue using 4xRJ-45 PCI-E cards (various vendors) with this S920. Cards randomly detected/not detected on every power up. Solution was to tape ( using Kapton tape) x2 and x4 PCI-E pins, forcing card to work in x1 mode. Don't know if problem occurs in x2 mode, as I have no time to check it and x1 mode is enough for me.
I'm already buying two of this, they are around 30 euro in my area with 4GB of RAM and 2GB SSD and power bar included. I hope it will be doing great as my router / firewall with pfsense
hey i actually have one of these, Was using it as a home server for years before the Pi4 basically superseded it in power per watt, that said i don't plan to get rid of it, since it has some advantages over the Pi4 (x86 compatible and accessible PCIe bus being among them) The Pi4 is running VMWare though, which won't run on this box without a large ram upgrade first.
I think I will stick to my edge router 4. 🙂 But I have "outsourced" a lot of functionality to my Raspberry PIs, like the UNIFI network controller, UNMS, and tons of other docker containers in just one of the newer 8 GB models and Im running Pi Hole on my Pi 3b. Its remarkable how smooth everything is despite running a Linux Raspberry Pi buster x64 OS with a fancy GUI with all sorts of effects and more config options than anyone could possibly want. Only way to max out the memory is to open a few tabs in chromium. 😄
RPI 4B is a beast for routing purposes. I get full duplex gigabit throughput with torrents on my fibre connection, and the Pi isn't even sweating it (about 10-15 % load). Torrents are notorious for hogging CPU, due to the huge NAT table that has to be maintained.2nd Eth port not necessary per se, if you have a managed switch spare and know how to configure VLANS.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 do not even try to compare rpi4 which barely capable to handle 1GB with hardware that can 10GB
@@maximkosheleff I am not talking about 10 Gig equipment. The Pi has I/O limits that dictate the maximum speeds. But the CPU could handle it, albeit only just and without any extra filtering or shaping. If 10 Gig is wanted then the only option is a heavy duty arm-based CPU and wide PCI express bus, aka expensive SBC or a full-blown PC with Intel i3 or i5. The Pi is probably the most cost effective option for 1-2.5 Gbit operation.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 keep in mind that 10g is not only for throughput but also about delays. 10g capable hw offers much lower delays.
And I don't believe in 2.5g over rpi which hardly can handle even 1g
@@maximkosheleff Whatever dude
I don't wanna ruin your day, but iperf3 is single-threaded. Hence why you see core #4 being absolutely trashed, while the others are essentially idle. If you want to see the full picture of throughput, either use iperf2 or run multiple instances of iperf3.
Also AES-NI is pretty important if you want to do any kind of VPN or other stuff that uses symmetric encryption. Without it, the CPU has to deal with raw encryption/decryption, rather than natively having a compatible instruction set to do it.
That being said, CPU improvements for the past 10 years are mostly elsewhere than in the raw clock frequence. We should step away from determining processing power in GHz.
Cool video overall, keep up the good work - earned a new sub!
My bad! I will retest with -P 4 for the next vid
I've benchmarked the AES-NI performance in comparison to my previous router and it doesn't disappoint!
I am about to set my S930 in production with OPNsense.
I had issues with Intel Quad-Port cards so had to choose a Broadcom.
Good to know that I could choose the Melanox which I wanted to buy first…maybe time for an upgrade.
Very nice content!
At 8:31 lower right corner, that mastodon tag is quite useless without server, luckily there was a link in the description and great to see you on mastodon 👍 I cannot write the correct username, because it seems to trigger youtube shadowban
And looking for a Fujistsu S920 from here in Argentina. Found a couple of listings of it coming from Germany. Unfortunately, the price is u$d 47, as of June 18, 2022 + at least another 36 u$d for shipping. Not that I think isn't worth it. But just for reference. Awesome content! Keep it up!
Cam on! It's just measuring the volvaje (polarity) and properly welding the plug and then isolating properly
The other influencer curse is when a product becomes 5x as expensive when you mention it in a video.
Glad that one isn't happening... Yet.
Just checked - now they're all over $700 AUD.
about €25 in europe
@@googlacco Is that a typo?
@@SireSquish no
Thank you very much from France DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i talking to you on my blog soon ;)
Regarding power consumption, I got hand on an Fujitsu Futro S740 with 8GB RAM, SSD upgraded to 480G, having an idle power consumption of 3W. Home Assistant, Firefox browsing and normal Linux computing works like a charm. So this is my Smart Server now, keeping the house smart, space as backup server and even h265 en- and decoding is hardware accelerated.
And not to forget everything for €80, additionally installed M.2 wireless card for €15.
It’s ok. Hardware is vast and have different price tag in different regions. You are still amazing ❤
Love the video :3
It's also worth mentioning that in UK ebay there are sellers selling this box with a whole setup of intel NICs, risers etc, preflashed with pfsense, if you don't want to build it yourself!
Sadly, the case is slightly too tall to fit in a 1u space, so I couldn't use this when I was building my own router. Another, very similar option is to use a motherboard with the AMD A4-5000 cpu. It's very similar to the CPU in the video, has AES etc. and cheap OEM versions can be found for as little as £15. I put one in a random supermicro 1u case and use it as my router :3
Preflashed with pfSense???
I ain't trusting no eBay seller with my entire internet
@@NoorquackerInd ahaha, I'd do the same probably. i reinstall windows on used laptops too.
@@NoorquackerInd reinstalling pfsense is still less effort than finding a functioning riser and NIC and putting it all together :)
Hi, do you have a link to an eBay listing? Thanks
My build: Fujitsu S920 + MT7916 + OpenWrt
Power consumption from the wall in IDLE - 11W
And during the speed test - up to 17W
Damn, I had to pause when you just casually pulled out the pi being used as a wireless KVM. That's a thing???? That's the solution to a problem I've had for ages!!! I'm absolutely setting up one of my Pi's as a KVM now
NanoPi R5S from FriendlyElec might also be something to test.. two 2.5GbE RJ45 and cheap.. sounds good at least..
HP T620 Plus is another good choice and has a slightly faster version of that cpu. The plus version has a slot for a PCIe card. There are some never HP that also allow a card, but I can't remember the model numbers.
I did a ton of research and landed on the T620 also. However, the seller sent me an HP T730 instead, which is a BEAST for using as a router. The T730 is going for around $120-$150 right now on eBay, which is way more than the one being presented in the video. I believe the T730 to be a better value, though, in terms of what you get. Uses the AMD RX-427BB, which is dollar for dollar one of the best available right now. It benchmarks on PassMark as twice as fast. It has a PCIe x8 slot, but it supports x16 10Gb NICs, uses M.2 for storage, has another M.2 expansion port for 1Gb fiber (lol), or an M.2 802.11ac card, and supports up to 16GB of DDR3L RAM. It has a TDP of 35W, so it is a little more power-hungry as well, but mine typically sits in the 10W range.
power usage?
Oh hey... I have been using an S920 for about 6 months now. With OpnSense it handles my 1.2gbps cable internet connection with ease. If you are lucky enough to get one that comes with the optional AMD FirePro GPU, it already comes with the right angle PCI-E adapter. Looking to add a dual SFP+ adapter to it once I upgrade to a 2Gbps fiber connection. Hopefully it can handle that.
what a cpu model u use? i will buy one for my 1gbit cable internet :)
Yes which cpu model
So I bought an HP prodesk 400 G3 for this purpose, installed OPNSense on it, and it works great. I'm limited to gigabit speeds though, but it isn't a huge deal since my connection is much slower than that and I realistically shouldn't need more than gigabit in the future either. I'm currently connecting to a WiFi network as my WAN connection since I don't have access to an ethernet connection and the system only has one port anyways, with no option for a pcie card. My plan though is to replace the m.2 wifi/bluetooth card with an m.2 ethernet card, and use the modular expansion port on the back as an opening to mount the RJ45 connector. USB ethernet adapter is another option but most use a Realtek NIC chipset that isn't well supported by FreeBSD, so the m.2 adapter will be a better choice. You don't need the exact model shown in the video, just need a little ingenuity.
Shoutouts an den squad Wolf Gang
We lit
Just a note that those old NICs such as Pro 1000 PT draw as much power as the box itself. Spend a little more on a recent NIC which will use 25% of the power e.g. 3w vs 12w.
Some examples? Thanks
I've been wanted to make my own router for some time, but I want something that doesn't need a fan. This looks perfect and is exactly what I've been looking for, except that it seems these were never available here in South Africa. Shipping one from the UK or EU will cost a couple of arms and legs. Someone mentioned the HP T620 in the comments which I know I should be able to get. Going to give that a go.
Make sure you get the plus version! The regular T620 doesn't have a PCIe slot
@3:11 cfdisk? Nice. Didn't know it. Another partition tool to add...Usually [g]parted are used...
Thanks for an enlightening video. I have a couple of questions as someone completely new to the possibility of a DIY router. I was finally able to upgrade to a fiber optic internet connection from my previous mobile solution. Unfortunately, at the same time, the provided for router solution has been a downgrade from the previous router solution, both regarding “wired” and wireless coverage (sort of a nest solution)…
It seems to me that the project you describe would seriously slow down LAN speeds compared to my theoretical maximum. Is there anyway to speed that up?
In your mentioning a WiFi card for the thin client, is the implication that it would be possible for computers to connect wirelessly to this router? Can a repeater be used with the Fujitsu router if needed?
Is it possible to include a VPN solution with this router project?
Great video and solid tip for the router. Small bit of confusion tho w.r.t PCIe 2.0 bandwidth. It's 500MBs so 4Gbits, enough for quad port gbit nic, one port 2.5Gbit nic or .11ax module.
My super easy way to install OpenWRT: Boot a Knoppix live System from a USB-Stick, download a suitable OpenWRT Image to Ramdisk (if the RAM is big enough) or save it to the Knoppix USB-Stick. Then "dd" it to the CF-Card/SSD/HDD of the ThinClient and You're done!
Hey Wolfang,
I'm lucky enough to get fiber to my home hopefully this year. I've been pondering what to do for my router / Firewall. I want to use VLANS and definetly utilize the gigabit speed my new provider is... well providing ^^
Would this Machine be powerful enough to act as a Firewall and serve at least 4 PCs the near gigabit speed my ISP can provide?
Secondly can you recomend any Switch Brand with VLANs / Management, PoE+ and a reasonable price?
Nice video! But X86 mini machines reducing prices recently. I bought an N5105 machine with four 2.5G ethernet ports barebone, and it only cost me around 800 CNY to make it function.
CM4 with the DFROBOT router hat has been a workhorse in our house
you can build openwrt with uefi support, you just need to google it, also you cannot just do "dd" of the image from usb to the ssd, as the kernel args can actually change mounting point depending of the type of the memory (/dev/sda/ /dev/nvme..... etc.)
I used the futro s920 since 3years as Firewall i350-t4 in pcie and on mini pcie i plugged a wifi Card so my Firewall creates the wifi too.
The 720 will make also a Great Job as Firewall But they have no pcie Slot. But you can use an Mini pcie to pcie Adapter for a nic.
Futro s900 is older and have no pcie, but i Build some kodi Media Players with them.
i'm using a Fujitsu Futro S900 as a Router running RouterOS and it's surprisingly good. currently thinking about adding a small sata ssd to use it as a cache
power usage?
@@vanhoatvdat not sure
Those people may be right sometimes but we don't always see the same things. We are individuals and see our own things when we see them. Sure it is nice to hear what you could have had instead. It may even help someone make a better choice. They might not like the suggestion and just keep going with what they originally intended. Sometimes when I want a certain item, it is hard to make me want something different unless it really is better and I just never heard of it.
Hey, super interesting video :) I have one question though. If I want to use both, the quad nic and additionally a wifi card with antenna, how and where would I mount the antennas?
Thanks for the great review Wolfgang.Did you already make a video about most power efficient router for home use (ok,work from home+kids streaming Netflix)? You mentioned Fritzbox too,so I wonder did you completely removed provider's device from network or it still serves as a modem,after which you have this 910 as a router?thanks
Good Video, thanks!!
From my experience iperf is so cpu heavy that i wouldn't be surprised if it was able to actually reach a lot closer to 10gbit in real world workloads. Also is there any kind of network hardware offloading enabled?
The power supply for the router uses a type "H" barrel connector. Keep up the good work!! You might want to look at the Lenovo M93P thin for a cheap box to work with;. Rebuilt ones on Amazon start at about 250.00 USD. And the GL.iNet GL-AR750S is a gigabit travel router that uses Openwrt. $68.90 USD Amazon. I've been using one at home for a couple of years now, no complaints.
So when I saw this video I ordered it right away. I already had a 4 port intel NIC, which I passthrough to a VM right now. Anyhow, it's here. A few hours of testing and troubleshooting, and I have 2 issues. I wont POST with my USB keyboard attached, no biggie as it can be attached right after POST. Tried different ports and bios settings, but didn't put much effort into solving that tbf.
I do get an 'expansion rom is not initialized'-error on the post screen when I have my 4 port NIC attached. Googling it is a tough one, as every manufacturer seems to have different issues/solutions for it. I tried updating the BIOS, but it's still there. I can hit enter to ignore the error and pfSense does see the NICs, but I had some issues with link speed and ports just stop working. Stopped trying more for now as I needed my NIC back in my router.
I'll give it a go tomorrow with the 4 port NIC, if that doesn't work I might just order a 2 port one and a VLAN capable switch if that works out.
Would love to get an idea how it handles pfSense/OpenSense with a couple of addons as a possible bonus...
On the strength of this video, I bought a S920 to use as the basis of a pfsense 2.6 firewall and retire an existing i3 PC using Untangle firewall. I already had a HP (re-branded Intel) dual port pcie ethernet card, so I just needed a 90 degree riser. I bought one, but it was too tall. I looked at others, but none so far have right height to line up probably with the case outlet slot. Ended up using a short ribbon.
There's a sata port under the CPU heatsink. You can't get to it without removing the heatsink and I had to shave the back off a 90 degree sata cable to get it fit underneath, not ideal. On the mobo there's a 4-pin power supply for a floppy drive (WTF?), which follows the same cable layout as a molex connector. I had an old PSU, so I cut the one cable with the floppy socket and kept one molex on it, then used it with a molex to sata adapter to power a 2.5 sata HDD.
Getting back to pfsense, installed it and works great. Setup some rules to restrict ports to minimize exposure. Minor hurdle, getting pfsense 2.6 to work with my VPN provider was initially difficult, but finally tracked down the right setting to get encrypted traffic to and from the provider using their DNS. Only setup one package so far, pfBlockerNG. Probably needs a bit of tuning of the rules to get the most out of it, but it's working fine.
pfsense seems to be reliable and getting a VPN encrypted connection for the whole network, without having to set it up individually for each machine was a must have goal. All in all, comparing the S920 TC with the i3 PC, it's probably using about two thirds less power a day, which is quite a saving on power use and cost over a year.
Hello Wolfgang. Really great video you have right there. I have a question: Do you have any recommendations for the IPEX Wifi Antenna Set? I am not sure what I should choose for compatibility.
A good option!! I went the other way. I have a lenovo M920q based on it, it has an expansion slot and you can put a 4 port LP network card there! I stuck 4 I225v3 ports, of course, the option is more expensive, but it is compact and powerful and stylish))) os pfsense
power supply how much run at idle
I was recently looking into a tv box to use with openwrt called HK1. It uses the amlogic 905x3 and has working gigabit ethernet as well as usb3. Priced at around $50usd.
You would need a USB NIC, right?
From what I read, the onboard gigabit nic is working.
Yes, but you need at least two NICs for the routing functionality. Unless you do LAN > WLAN
Oh yeah. You're correct. A Ugreen 3 port usb3 hub with gigabit ethernet will set you back another $20usd.
I wouldn't recommend Ugreen
github.com/pawl/raspberry-pi-1u-server/issues/4
I did this build but got different power usage results on a tuya smart plug
13W idle
23W at 100% CPU usage
It stays at around 15-17W during my normal usage.
Intel quad NIC and sata ssd added (no mSata)
Hey Wolfgang, this video made me switch from my Minisforum UM250 with opnsense to the Fujitsu. Works like a charm and is consuming 8-14w less compared to the u250. Side effect I have a UM250 to play with 👍 again, thank you!
Love this video
In your 10Gbit test (6gbit/s), only 1-2 Cores (of the 4) where stressed with 50-80%. Maybe the version with the dual-core ,but higher clockspeed, would be better?
got mine setup, decided to get more than 1 to make the $40 shipping cost worth it (with 4gb ram and powersupply included with each). I tried opnsense but get running into issues with my wan, got pfsense running and went wild with the granularity of the settings. only thing is that my quad port intel nic didnt fit but i only needed two ports so i used the one you recommended. also onboard nic is detected in opnsense and pfsense
I just ordered one of this, super exited to get it working. Do you know by any chance, how much speed can u push with QoS or DPI activated? I got a 5G 1gig connection with Telekom in Germany, and I would like to get the max out of it... Love your videos man!
Thin clients are popular with a few companies in my area, and I got lucky that one was refreshing theirs, and got a bunch for liquidation prices. Still unhappy they charged me, since they were just going to pay to have them recycled.
Hi wolfgang, love your videos!
I've been always thinking if it is possible to use a managed router with vlans instead using a multiple-nic pc. One port to the pc and the other managed via vlans (wan, lan, guest-lan, dmz ecc...) it would be interesting for a video! :)
My intro to OpenWRT came when I got a $22 Linksys EA7500v2 and got mad at Linksys taking control of the router when it was comnected to the internet. Maybe you could make a video of one of those as a router with wifi on the cheap.
Excellent video. I can see the S920 is still on offer and consider getting one and with a 2x1/2,5/5/10 Gb NIC it should be good for the future? Also is the S920 still the one to get?
The HP thin clients work well too
How is the performance with OPNsense Traffic shaping? Mainly PIE/Cake AQM. Also how is the WireGuard performance?
Excellent
Hey Wolfgang! 👋 I'm loving your content and really appreciate the insights you're sharing. Just watched your review on the Fujitsu S920 as a pfSense/OpenWRT machine and I'm all in! 🚀 Could you possibly guide us through setting it up for a Home-Lab? I'm particularly keen on figuring out how to put my Vodafone Router into Bridge-mode and mesh it with this setup. Safety and security settings are my top priority - would love to know your recommendations on the most secure configurations. Keep up the great work, looking forward to your advice! Cheers! 🌟
Hi Wolfgang! Do you think this one makes a good Media Server/NAS? I would use it for Kodi/Plex, Funkwhale and plug it to a FHD TV