Intel Celeron N2930 Quad Core Dual Intel LAN Fanless - HBJC311U93W-2930-B

I bought one of these to build a firewall and use it between my cable modem and home network. I installed Sophos Home UTM-XG on it. The dual Intel GbE ports are one of the reasons I was attracted to it for this purpose. I installed 8GB of RAM and a 60GB mSATA SSD for it. The machine stays a little warm on the top, the lack of a fan isn't an issue for me (it stays in a basement which runs between 58 and 65F). Power draw has been under 10W. The Sophos software is not a drag on the 4-core processor. It typically runs about 20% utilization. At the moment, I have not tested VPN performance and load (the N2930 does not support AES-NI in hardware). My cable service allows 160Mbs downstream, about 12Mbs upstream. I get this performance through the box running OOKLA or doing large OS updates. I have not tested wireless (I have my own access point). There is a SATA port and associated power port on the underside of the PCB when up pop the cover off. On a couple of other of these I bought for work, did attach a Thermaltake BlacX USB/eSATA drive cradle. It worked great while I was running some drive tools. Of course, you'd have to create access through a panel to utilize it, or buy the model with room for a 2.5" drive. The packaging is sufficient and nondescript. The bottom cover flips over if you want to attach it to a VESA-enable monitor. It comes with a pair of antennae, and all ports have inserts in them (nice touch), and a small kit to thermally ground any mSATA drive to the outer shell/heat sink. There were no issues accessing BIOS functions. All-in-all a cool little package.

I use this for a Sophos UTM home and it runs great! I have 40/5 internet and I am able to get the full speed both directions even with all IPS options, Web Protection (with dual virus scanning), & application control. I have 4GB of RAM and with all of these features turned on I'm running at about 50-60% memory usage along with a max of 2% swap usage. The CPU is almost overkill as I have only seen it hit 30% once, but that is certainly not a bad thing. The outside of the case doesn't get hot, it is warmer than the room, but definitely not hot. Other reviews mention putting a fan on top, but for my usage this is not needed. One thing I absolutely love is that there are no fans so it operates completely silently which is great for my living room. My only complaints are: the power light is quite bright, when you power it on there is a loud beep, & it would be nice to have a VGA along with HDMI port. These are minor and will not deter me from purchasing another one at some point.

I was looking forward to receiving this item for building a small, fanless, dual-lan pfSense firewall box. The item arrived packaged will, and appeared solidly built. It has a nice aluminum casing, clean solders, and easy access panel. Unfortunately, the item was DOA. I powered it up with a USB keyboard and an HDMI monitor (both function fine on other machines). The unit gave a short beep and a blue power light came on, but that was the end of the show. Multiple keyboards or USB sticks would not function in any of the 4 USB slots. 2x monitors did not function in either of the HDMI slots. Although the unit appeared to be getting power (the DC converter brick was lit up, as was the power light), power did not seem to be making it to any of the ports. I was ready to love this device, but it's hard to give any stars when it doesn't amount to anything more than a well-machined brick with a functioning blue light. UPDATE: 5/29 - I am revising my review of this device from one star to 4. Initially I thought I had received a defective unit. Upon further investigation, I learned that this device MUST HAVE 1.35V RAM, not standard 1.5V+ RAM. It does say 1.35V RAM required, and this is what I thought I had purchased (Amazon listed the 4GB RAM stick I purchased on the "Commonly Purchased Together" line). An e-mail to support had me verify and identify this problem with about 24 hour turnaround. Turns out, I had purchased 1.5V RAM and needed to exchange it. Once this was fixed, the unit fired right up as expected and I quickly installed pfSense. So far so good. Admittedly, this was user error. However, I sort of would expect that the unit would at least power on to access the BIOS without low voltage RAM (or any RAM for that matter). Instead, without low voltage RAM the device gives no output at all on any monitor or USB port. Strange. After the startup bugs have been worked out, I so far have had a good experience.

Seems great so far. I bought this as a PFSense firewall for a 120/30Mb cable connection. I'm not doing VPN (that may actually use the CPU and this CPU doesn't have the AES-NI extensions). I'm running squid with the paid Snort VRT rules and the damn thing never goes above about 5% CPU. A bonus which I didn't expect is it appears the wireless card may work with PFSense(I see messages in dmesg about it but have not tested it). So all in all I kind of wish I went a little bit cheaper here but this should work well into the future. I suspect it can do snort at or near 1G rate. From a HW perspective the case seems extremely solid and inserting memory and a SATA drive is very simple. For refrence this is what I used in my build. Crucial 8GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 SODIMM 204-Pin 1.35V/1.5V Notebook Memory CT102464BF160B and Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB mSATA 2-Inch SSD (MZ-M5E250BW) Update after about a month of use. The device crapped out and won't power on. Not sure if it's the power brick or the PC itself. Awaiting a new one to show up. I'll update in a month or two if it works that long.