Lanner NCA-1515A Desktop (Intel Router Box for pfSense, opnSense, etc)

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This one is interesting for those that want to dabble in alternate router platforms.

Lanner NCA-1515A Desktop Network Appliance for vCPE/uCPE and Edge Security | eBay

Lanner Electronics NCA-1515A. Desktop Network Appliance for vCPE/uCPE and Edge Security. 1 x Cooling Fan w/ Smart Fan (SKU A~E) or 2 x Cooling Fans w/ Smart Fan (SKU F). 2x Mini-PCIe, 1x M.2 2242 B Key, 2x Nano SIM for M.2 (Dedicated To An Optionally Installed LTE Module).

www.ebay.com

There's a writeup/review on the box over on Serve The Home

Lanner NCA-1515A Review This is the Home Lab Deal of the Year

In our Lanner NCA-1515A review, we see how this box with awesome networking options might be one of the better home lab buys we had this year

www.servethehome.com

This is a very capable box that is certainly feature rich...

 

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Here's the business end...

You get 8 1Gbe ports, 4 off the CPU, and 4 off the i350 ethernet chipset - one also gets a console port, and what's really useful, out of band management via the IOM port (it has a Aspeed BMC onboard)

Internally, it's got 2 M2 slots, along with 2 mPCI slots - it's a beast...

 

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Hokay - I did do the whole E-Bay thing to order the box...

For $250USD - it is loaded - 16GB DDR4-3200, 8GB-EMMC, 64GB-NVME, the BMC-ILO module, along with the 4G-LTE module and a dual-band/single radio WiFi card...

While it's not as sexy as some of the QOTOM boxes - this is a denverton 8-core/8-thread SoC with Intel QAT implemented...

It's the diff between an Apps processor vs a Comms SoC - good at certain tasks..