PICOPC Intel AES-NI Atom® E3845 4 LAN Fanless Firewall Appliance Router (WiFi, 0GB RAM, 120GB mSATA SSD) support OS like Sophos, Untangle, Ubuntu, pfSense, ClearOS, FreeBSD, Monowall, Debian

Have been using this box now for a month now and I must say that I am pretty happy with the performance of the device.To start off, I purchased the device without RAM or storage. So installing them was very straight forward, obviously, one need to have basic knowledge perhaps from a similar activity in the past.On installation, one thing that I completed missed is that the box does not have a VGA input, therefore had to order a VGA to HDMI cable for my old monitor.Once connected, the device booted flawlessly from pFsense USB and I continued to install pfSense. In less than 15 mins, device was ready to rock and roll.Just for clarity, I added 8GB RAM and 40GB mSATA on the device.Can confirm that the device does have intel ports. In terms of the device temperature, early days still, also depends on the processing load. So far, the device seems to have maintained a constant temperature.Based on stats presented by pfSense, I can say that the device is quick and definitely fast in terms of churning packets out even when all devices are behind VPN.Very satisfied with my purchase so far.

UPDATE: 11-04-2018I've had to drop the review from 5 to 3 stars because I've just discovered after installing pfSense that the NICs are manufactured by Realtek, not Intel, as stated in the product description. This is an issue covered under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. I am in communication with the seller on this matter. This is disappointing as I would not have purchased if I knew the NICs were not manufactured by Intel. At low traffic levels, this may not be an issue for many people but a) higher loads may have errors and b) the point is, I was led to believe that this device contained Intel NICs.I was looking at hardware options in respect to getting a security appliance that would satisfy Netgate's future pfSense (version 2.5) requirement for AES-NI. This system (Pico PC MNHO-048) is ideal as it meets that requirement with an Intel Atom E3845 quad-core CPU. I wanted a small footprint system and this is an all-metal, passively cooled box that is widely used by other vendors (Protectli in the USA, for example) and I can see why. The case and power supply are barely luke-warm to the touch and the system (running pfSense in my case) barely goes above 40 degree celsius at rest. The four NICs are genuine Intel, so no worries there.I'd never heard of Pondesk before, but after a glitch (which was my fault and instantly fixed), I was impressed by their online customer support. The system documentation is also good: the product datasheet contains typical "real world" performance stats on this box running pfSense; Untangle; Sophos; Zentyal and Vyos firewall operating systems. Pondesk even describe how Intel NICs perform better than Realtek chipsets.I purchased the bare-bones option, and I added an existing 128 GB mSATA drive and 8GB Crucial 1.35v DDR3L RAM you can get here Crucial CT102464BF160B 8 GB (DDR3L, 1600 MT/s, PC3L-12800, SODIMM, 204-Pin) Memory 8 GB is the maximum RAM you can install, but that's no problem for a home/SOHO environment as even with multiple pfSense packages running, I doubt it will ever max out. For my installation, I have no use for the included WiFi card (comes supplied with dipoles), but it's nice to have.I have previously built multiple pfSense systems, from various home-brew and off the shelf hardware, and I'm very impressed with this product so far.

I recently purchased this Pondesk Mini PC (MNHO-048) from Amazon and I am really contented with the purchase. I had a few doubts though earlier after reading one of the reviews regarding the NICs not being original Intel ones which was quite shocking for me. As the product is quite unique and exactly what I have been looking for, so I tried searching on the internet about the brand and found all 5 star google reviews (which then gave a little boost and confident about them). I then tried to contact Pondesk directly through their website on the chat available and to my surprise, they were very helpful and patient. They tried to clear all my doubts and sent me email with all relevant proofs about the genuinity of Intel® Gigabit Ethernet Controller I211-AT. I finally got convinced and purchased it and currently using it as Untangle Firewall and its just perfect. All I can say is that I own a device which could be used with not one firewall but with most of them and that makes it one of a kind! Totally happy with this little monster from Pondesk!

I recently purchased two of these MicroPC's to run pfsense for establishing a site-to-site VPN for offsite backup. The product shipped much quicker than I expected and I was really pleased with the form factor. After installing pfsense I was slightly miffed by the wireless card on the MNHO-048, which appeared only to support 802.11b/g. I contacted Pondesk who came back to me incredibly quickly explaining that this was a known bug within pfsense. I didn't want to switch to a different O/S and therefore Pondesk offered to upgrade my unit to the later MNHO-073, which had a different atheros wireless card. Pondesk explained that they had tested this card with pfsense and could confirm support for 802.11b/g/n. I now have two of these later units installed with a VPN configured between the office and home to backup my data. Overall, very satisfied with the product and the level of support from Pondesk.

Cant praise this thing enough.I've moved from an ATX 6LAN white box to this and am very pleased I did.It was easy enough to set up, pfSense on USB, boot to USB, install.Restore backup from previous build, re-jig the ports - done.Getting good speeds both LAN and WiFi. From a delivered 200MB / 15MBLAN 160/10MBWiFi 20/7MBWifi tested from 30ft away. Better than I expected. This is with Snort running.They are Intel LAN NICsI've not noticed spikes above 10% on either the RAM or CPU.I'm using this as my primary gateway. Streaming media via WiFi has also not been a problem.*Small Footprint*Powerful*Easy to SetUp*Gets Very Warm (hot to the touch)