CWWK Firewall Mini PC Intel N Series N100, DDR5 N0 RAM N0 SSD,4 x 2.5GbE i226V LAN,Micro Router Appliance,AES-NI,OPNsense

Equipped mine with an AZW 512GB 2280 NVMe, 32GB of Crucial 4800 DDR5, no WiFi. OS: VyOS 1.4 (Linux 6.6.22) Pros: * Silent * Easy to open up and install WiFi/NVMe/RAM. * Has 2 NVMe M.2 M key ports. (But I've only used the one on the side.) * Easily saturates a gige connection. * Runs VyOS like a champ. * Has an 80mm fan mount with filter on bottom. Can probably fit a 10mm thick fan in there. Cons: * No console port (there is a header). * Runs quiet warm (not painfully hot) to the touch. * The RAM & NVMe ventilation is on the bottom of the case. * NVMes do not get attached to case heat sink, would be wise to add your own heatsink or fan. Misc: * Second NVMe M.2 slot is on an "H Board", which is daughter board that's pretty floppy and weird. You can get better H-Boards. I haven't used it. If you want to use this as a NAS there's a 4x single lane NVMe slot version that would offer a lot storage (no idea how you're meant to get the heat out though). There's a bank of internal ports including a SATA connector, HD Power, Comm port, a "Mini fan header" (JST MX 1.25 4 Pin Connector), and a 5 pin USB2 header. I've read there's an additional fan connector on the other side. With the case on a wire mesh rack, no cooling modifications and under a regular nerd household load I'm seeing CPU temps between 38°C-44°C, NMVe is usually around 42°C-50°C. As a soft router, I love this thing. For other purposes I'd want more cooling in the bottom half.

This is a solid little device for experimenting with firewall solutions or running a home network firewall. It performs well for the price point, though there are some compatibility quirks and support issues to be aware of. Hardware Quality: The build quality is surprisingly sturdy for the price. It includes a fan at the bottom for cooling the RAM and NVMe drive, which is essential - though only time will tell how long the fan lasts. The 2.5Gb LAN ports are a valuable feature at this price point and provide excellent throughput for home network applications. RAM and Storage: I installed 32GB of DDR5 RAM, which proved to be overkill even while running IPS, VLANs, and many other services. Interestingly, Intel's specifications list the i3 N305 as not supporting 32GB of RAM, but it worked flawlessly on my system. For most users running OPNsense, 8GB to 16GB would be perfectly adequate. A 128GB NVMe drive was more than sufficient for the operating system and configuration files. OPNsense Compatibility Warning: There is a known Intel bug that affects OPNsense on this CPU architecture (this is not the fault of the device itself, but rather a compatibility issue between Intel processors and OPNsense). The symptoms include system freezes or kernel panics. The fix involves disabling C-States in OPNsense by adding specific tunables to the system configuration. If you encounter stability issues, search for "OPNsense Intel C-States fix" or use AI assistance to walk you through the configuration changes - it's not immediately obvious if you're unfamiliar with BSD system tuning. I had read that updating the BIOS might help with CPU compatibility, but the manufacturer never responded to my inquiries and there were no BIOS updates available on their website (which is poorly organized and difficult to navigate). Alternative Operating Systems: Before finalizing my OPNsense setup, I tested Ubuntu MATE on this device and it ran great without any issues. In hindsight, I wish I had tried Proxmox first - running OPNsense as a virtual machine might have provided more flexibility and potentially avoided the compatibility issues altogether. I might still do so since I may be able to import my OPNsense config backup. A new project in my future! Overall Recommendation: This is a fun device for experimenting with firewall solutions or serving as a dedicated firewall for a home network. While it could technically handle small business use, I would recommend going with a device from a more established manufacturer for business-critical applications, particularly for better support and documentation. The three-star rating reflects the lack of manufacturer support and information - it's a bit of a mystery black box. The hardware itself is capable, but you're largely on your own for troubleshooting.

Bought the bare bones version to run a home installation of pfsense. The box works well with pfsense and several of the pfsense cpu intensive add on packages. Plenty of cpu and it runs cool. Good mechanical design, easy to take apart and has a substantial heatsink case design. Did have a problem with Corsair memory getting sporadic errors. Ordered Crucial memory replacement and the errors disappeared. Did not seriously troubleshoot the memory errors but theory is that it was a timing issue and not a real memory problem. It has been my experience that Crucial is more conservative than Corsair is with timing parameters.

Really solid device, works well with OPNsense and has been reliable. Plenty of storage/ram. Couple plugins and it still seems to have plenty of headroom. HOWEVER, WATCH OUT FOR THE THERMAL PASTE. It seems they updated the design and it might run cooler now, but I always thought it was odd an N100 would spike to 80-90C when under load, despite being passively cooled in a warmish room. Well... I replaced the seemingly fine stock paste with some quality paste I had lying around and the temperatures literally were cut in half, now spiking to only 43C and idling at 36C. I'm sure as the chassis full saturates with heat again those will go up a little, but still, insane difference.

You will not get tech support if you order from CWWK. Their responses through Amazon will either ask for more information and then stop responding after you provide it or they will direct you to their corporate site to ask for help there and they won't help there either. There is no documentation on CWWK's corporate website and no section for downloads. I ordered the N100 unit with 8 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD. The RAM included was Samsung and the SSD was P8 — no issues with either. The picture of the chassis on Amazon had straight fins, but my unit has "Y" shaped fins. Not a big deal, but the mini PCs with the straight fins are supposed to be the newer design and run cooler. The DisplayPort on my unit does not work which is why I am returning it. I would have tried to update the firmware if CWWK provided an update. My unit also runs hotter at idle and under stress (tested using stress/s-tui) than others have reported. I would have added thermal paste to the processor if the DisplayPort wasn't broken. I liked the idea of buying a mini PC to build my own router. PROXMOX and OPNsense were easy to install after reading install guides. An additional OPNsense guide for setting up traffic shaping eliminated buffer bloat. The N100-based unit was more than capable of running PROXMOX and the OPNsense virtual machine. If I can get a refund I'll likely look for a vendor with better support. A brand that rhymes with Directly has a good reputation, but they didn't have N100-based mini PCs at the time. I was originally was going to buy this mini PC from a famous Chinese based ecommerce website, but I thought it would be delivered faster through Amazon and I would get better customer service if I had an issue. I don't think I've been any better off buying from Amazon and I paid more. I've initiated the return process with Amazon. Amazon indicated CWWK will provide a shipping label and I'll be refunded after the unit is returned. It has been a few days and CWWK hasn't provided the shipping label. The unit shipped from China and was delivered earlier than estimated. I suspect the return will need to ship back to China, but I haven't gotten the return label yet so I'm not sure.

Purchased the barebone kit with my own memory and NVMe drive (Silicon Power 256GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 SSD and Crucial RAM 8GB DDR5 4800MHz CL40 Laptop Memory). The mini pc was packaged well and plastic wrapped. I have installed opnsense and am using it as a firewall/router. The memory and ssd were very easy to install, just unscrew the bottom cover. Installation of opnsense went smoothly. It detected the USB boot drive right away, I didn't even have to go into the bios. Everything has been running smoothly. It feels a little warm, but not hot. I would definitely recommend it.

I bought the barebones kit and ddr5 ram separately. Extremely easy to open (4 screws) and install. If you have never installed sodimms you have to put the ram in at an angle like nvme and then push it down. 16g crucial ddr5 5600 cas 46 actually runs at 5600 cas 40 so that was a nice little boost. No memory errors. System booted right into bios no issues. There are a lot of options in the bios which is nice. Installing proxmox was easy. The only thing I got was acpi errors at boot, but it didn’t effect proxmox from starting up and running normally. I think the Linux kernel might not have the updated intel n100 hardware accounted for yet, but it didn’t have any actual effect on proxmox running without issue. Bios is from April of this year out of the box. Had some questions and the seller responded in a few hours, really responsive and knowledgeable. If you buy one of these mini pc’s CWWK is the way to go. I think they are actually the manufacturer of the hardware. Prices were great too compared to the other companies that clone their stuff and resell like Maginsok and Kingnovy. Overall would recommend the entire experience and hardware.

I have had this N305 V2 for a while now and has run perfectly stable with both OPNsense Bare Metal and Proxmox with OPNsense as a VM. BUT, I would never purchase anything from this company again due to the fact that I have reached out to their customer support from their website, email and through AliExpress, over the past SEVERAL months ever since purchasing this mini pc. They have not ever responded, not even a single time! The manual is horrible and does not match the N305. There is still a button label "G" and a switch labeled "on-off", that I have no idea what they do because they do not show anything in the manual and their support team does not ever respond. I will never trust or purchase this expensive of a product that is supposed to also have warranty, when they don't even respond to inquires on their on website, let alone on aliexpress, or by email. Amazon does not let you contact them, they chose to use the amazon customer support agents as their amazon support, who do not know anything about products like these. STAY AWAY unless you want to gamble your money and want a product that you have no idea what some of the buttons and triggers do, due to poor labeling, no documentation, and no customer support. As well as false advertisement of warranty.