We are in the middle of a series comparing the great Intel Alder Lake-N-based firewall/ virtualization boxes. Now, we have the CWWK-designed Intel N200 firewall and virtualization host up for review after having looked at the Fanless Intel N100 Firewall and Virtualization Appliance a few weeks ago. For those wondering, the N305 video is being edited and that is gating our review of that option. In the meantime, we wanted to look at the N200 version.
Fanless Intel N200 Firewall and Virtualization Appliance Overview
For this, we have a video covering both the Intel N100 and N200 versions of this fanless firewall and virtualization host appliance:
As always, we suggest opening the video in its own tab or app for the best viewing experience.
The N100 and N200 units we purchased all ended up in the same chassis, despite attempting to order them with different chassis. That is a challenge with Aliexpress shopping.
The base barebones are $216 but fluctuate based on the day. Here is an AliExpress affiliate link to the one we purchased. We ordered a configured unit for $329 which was not financially prudent, but we wanted to see what components were in the bundle.
We already saw that the N100 version was a nice performance jump over the N200 version, so this seemed like an interesting proposition especially since with four cores it implied a higher performance per core than the N100. Intel Alder Lake-N is a great part when using newer kernels that support the chip.
Overall, ~$216 for barebones feels reasonable for a 4x 2.5GbE solution. Paying an extra $110 or so for the 16GB DDR5 SODIMM and 512GB NVMe SSD felt too expensive since those are roughly $75 or so on Amazon.
With that, let us get to the hardware.
Fanless Intel N200 External Hardware Overview
Regular STH readers will find the chassis familiar. Aside from the N100 review, we saw it in our Intel J6413 fanless firewall review and in our 6x 2.5GbE round-up where it was one of the good chassis.
The front of the system has a power button, TF (microSD) card slot, and two USB Type-A ports. There is a recessed clear CMOS button. Then there is something marked G that we still do not know what it does. One also gets two wireless antenna holes to use, but our unit did not come with WiFi.
On the back of the unit, we get two more USB Type-A ports (all gen 2), a DisplayPort and HDMI port, and a 12V power input. The big feature here is a set of four 2.5GbE ports based on the Intel i226-V. Aside from the physical upgrades, things like pfSense CE 2.7 now support the Intel i226-V, so the software side between that and Proxmox VE 8.0 is helping these become better platforms.
The top of the unit has fins. The bottom of the unit has vents. We are going to quickly note that you may see that there is now a mesh over the vents. This is an upgrade on these newer units and is one of the points where we see the quality has increased.
Next, let us get inside the unit to see more detail.
Interesting comments about the difficulties of ordering what YOU want from AliExpress…only to get what they send to you. That’s my take on that matter.
I really feel comfortable ordering from AliExpress…NOT.
The DDR5 option is neat. Single channel and single memory slot are not. What about virtualization???
This is not an Intel N200 but a Topton N200. I would suggest changing the headline so the use of the Intel trademark doesn’t suggest it’s a product made by Intel.
@Stamo, it’s a single memory channel CPU.
Anyone else getting hot (>70°C idle) NVMe in those passive boxes? I had to add a fan
I dunno Patrick, it just looks like a Raspberry Pi replacement to me.
“G” = GPIO?
So what is this CWWK company? I’ve found just cwwk.net. Company behind .net domain? Let’s see about and contacts. About us is some motivation blah and contact is just a pure web form. There is *NO* contact address at all.
Now, tell me, who would deploy device made by such company into the company network? In times when PRC based companies run spy opperation left and right either intentionaly or unintentionally, I should deploy *annonymoyus* company network appliance? For what? Just to save few bucks in comparison with trusted equipment?
Patrick, sorry about rant, but your constant advertisement of PRC based products is getting to my nerves. You can do better, way better. :-)
Again, I take umbrage on your presentation of performance metrics. For deity’s sake, put a clear (red rectangle?) marking on the chip (and associated bar) you want my eye to focus on, don’t make me read 20+ useless CPU descriptors.
I spit on your page 3!
This device with a sfp+ port would be awesome