Compulab fitlet-XA10-LAN Review: A Fanless AMD UCFF PC for Networking Applications
by Ganesh T S on April 19, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Networking
- AMD
- Fanless
- Industrial PC
- Passive Cooling
- CompuLab
Networking Benchmarks
The configuration of the fitlet-XA10-LAN makes it ideal for use in networking applications. Typical uses include operation as a dedicated router, or a firewall appliance (using pfSense or VyOS), or even just generating network traffic for evaluation of other components in the network. Many use-cases can also be served with a standard Linux Mint installation.
Detailed benchmarking of the unit for a particular network application is beyond the scope of this review. However, we did install VyOS on the machine to test out its capabilities as a router. VyOS had no trouble recognizing the USB WLAN adapter and the four Intel NICs. We configured the unit as described in the Quick Start Guide of the official manual. eth3 was configured as the WAN interface. eth0 was configured as a LAN interface. The NAT, DHCP server, DNS forwarder and firewall policies were set up as indicated in the above guide.
Even though plenty of benchmarks can be run for this router configuration, we decided to focus on NAT throughput with the default configuration. In order to test that aspect, we configured a NUC to act as a DHCP server on its wired interface. This wired interface was connected to the WAN port of the VyOS fitlet. The NUC itself was set to a static IP (10.1.1.2) and it gave the VyOS fitlet an IP address of 10.1.1.1.
The fitlet's LAN port was connected to another NUC, and it received an IP address in the configured subnet (192.168.50.0/24). iperf was used to track throughput across the NAT, with the WAN machine acting as a server and the LAN machine acting as a client.
Since the WLAN interface of the NUCs was connected to our default network, we could log on via Remote Desktop to process the iperf commands.
In terms of performance, the fitlet-XA10-LAN was able to route a respectable 843 Mbps across the NAT in the above-mentioned configuration. The fitlet-XA10-LAN with two active LAN interfaces idled at around 9W. When routing at full rate across the two network interfaces, the power consumption peaked at around 15W.
The Intel NICs and the powerful 'unlocked' AMD SoC ensure that the fitlet-XA10-LAN is a powerful network appliance in a compact form factor.
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Stuka87 - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
I don't have each side by side to compare. But the 2c4 has intel NICs, and performs very well for me. I have not tried line rates, but I have pushed around 250 Mbps without issue. CPU usage was still very low.Rocket321 - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
While I understand using TrueCrypt may be a useful metric for benchmarking, it would be good to include a disclaimer letting folks know it is no longer suitable for production use.Per the project home page:
Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues.
You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.
extide - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
While it is no longer being developed, it didn't suddenly become un-secure. In any case, VeraCrypt has pretty much picked up from where TrueCrypt left off.Lazn_W - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
For my money, a quick search on Amazon for Mini PC will find a TON of Intel based small fanless alternatives, anywhere from fully decked out Celeron J1900 up to bare bones Core I7 for that kind of money.ganeshts - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
Which one of them has 4 GbE LAN ports? I would like to compare apples to apples, and I am obviously interested in see what the other options in the market are.Lazn_W - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
Lots of them, here is one from a 2 second search: http://www.amazon.com/Jetway-NF9N-2930-Fanless-Net...Lazn_W - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
And another: http://www.amazon.com/Kettop-Mi19L-Processor-Graph...ganeshts - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
oh, but footprint is nowhere close to that of the fitlet-XA10-LAN. One is a proper mITX, the other seems slightly bigger than a standard NUC.That is why I mention in the review that it is not easy to get something in the form factor of the fitlet-XA10-LAN and still get 4 LAN ports.
Lazn_W - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link
The 2nd one I linked is smaller.Death666Angel - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
This one http://www.amazon.com/Kettop-Mi19L-Processor-Graph... ?Smart design (134 * 126 * 47 mm )
vs the review unit 108 x 83 x 24
Yours is over twice as tall, 50% deeper and 30% wider adding up to over 3 times the volume.