CompuLab fitlet (X LAN)

Once again, ordered from CompuLab and once again, they shipped immediately. The fitlet-X A4-6400T serves as my router and firewall, running pfsense. Paired with 8GB RAM and 2x16GB USB drives for the operating system (having two drives allows backup of known good configs with dd). BIOS is from AMI; I never went into it.I also got the larger heat-sink based on recommendations of another reviewer. That immediately went on when I installed the RAM. The printed instructions for opening the fitlet-X were not clear, but there are official YouTube videos which show how to open the case and install RAM.pfSense installed as a breeze; 8GB UFS partition and 8GB for swap to match the memory size for coredumps I guess. Side ethernet port is set up as WAN; one management port, and two bridged LAN ports. OpenVPN supports hardware acceleration through the cryptodev interface. Under a heavy load, I haven't seen the CPU go past ~25% usage, so this should last a very long time.My only gripes are 1) the fitlet-X runs very warm, even with the larger heatsink; I will attempt later to use Arctic Silver between the external heatsink to see if this rectifies things, and 2) FreeBSD doesn't assign the ethernet ports in any logical order (example: the middle port on the left side is igb0, they are numbered 0-4), which could be a FreeBSD issue or a hardware controller issue. I haven't figured it out, and I don't really care. It was just frustrating a bit at first to figure out which port I was talking to. That's not really a knock against the fitlet-X at all, just a forewarning.*** UPDATE *** just wanted to say that one year later, this is still working perfectly as a pfsense router. We push several hundred gigs a month over our vpn and the fitler hasn't let us down.Out of curiosity, I hooked up my monitor to the HDMI port and booted Linux. Although its not an officially supported resolution, I got full 2560x1440 output. When they are in stock again, I am going to buy another for a lightweight desktop.

No major complaints so far, but too early to tell whether it merits 5 stars.Some helpful hints:- The instructions for opening the case are incomplete. Once you slide up the end of the case nearest the power button, the remaining metal forms an L-shape that you need to push *away* from the end you just slid down. That slides it out of its little catches.- To get at the mSATA slot, I had to remove the LAN card.- Like everyone else says, it runs hot. I wonder if there is a way to turn off subsystems (like the graphics card if I'm running it headless).[UPDATE]Every so often, one or more network ports would fail. I ended up running a software watchdog to reboot the machine if it was unable to ping some known-good IPs.I was unable to get the hardware watchdog working under ubuntu 16.04. Their web site does say you need a custom kernel to access the watchdog; it would be nice if they could get this into the mainline kernel.I replaced it with a  Qotom Q190G4 Intel Celeron Processor 3215U Dual Core Processor Barebone Mini PC  and I'm much happier:- It's cheaper.- It feels noticeably faster.- Network has been reliable so far.- Unit is larger. While this may be a downside for your particular application, for me it meant easier installation, better heat dissipation.- It comes with a nice wall mounting bracket.

Using this as a little pfSense box. Works great! Install was flawless.Initially the top was veeery hot. Though the manufacturer has stated that this is to be expected, I purchased their replacement cover that has extra large cooling fins. This seems to have brought the temp down to a point that I am not worried about burning myself when I touch it.It has been rock solid so far. Great little computer.

Wanted this fella to replace to replace a DUAL-realtek LAN no-name chinese i3-5005u PFSense mini-pc but unfortunately the AMD A4 Micro-6400T couldnt cut it... I was only able to reach max 700Mbit/s while the older mini-pc was able to sustain near 1Gbit/s routing performance. The USB ports are a bit underpowered too as the fitlet-x shuts down when power draw is 'too much'. So now, it acts as a standby router instead, ready to kick in if my main router croaks. The concept is nice but it is pity that the cpu cannot cut it...... The CompuLab fitlet-XA10-LAN Barebone might be a better bet if one needs Gigabit routing capability because of the faster CPU.

Got RAM added and the box running in about 10 mins. The top lid needed a bit more force than I expected.Everything seems to be working well so far. I will probably buy a second one in the near future if this one works out well.I'll update my review if I run into any issues.

Gets uncomfortably hot. It seems like it's supposed to, but I worry about the longevity of devices. For example, a USB drive plugged in normally gets warm when used, but it's piping hot when plugged in. However, for me the USB drive was not to be used long term, just while setting up.

Pros: good power for a firewall, solidly built, and *silent*.Cons: instructions are scant (how to remove the FACET card, which you have to do to get at the mSATA slot, would be nice). Factory QC could use a little improvement: the catch on my microSD slot doesn't eject the card properly, and the clear plastic cover for the power LED pops off easily and rattles around inside.Overall, a great product.

awesome for firewall / router