The GoWin 1U 25GbE appliance is a system that so many of our readers have asked for. After we did our GoWin R86S Pro article and video, folks have asked for a 1U rackmount version. Today, that 1U rackmount version is a reality. This GoWin 1U 25GbE appliance has 1GbE, 2.5GbE, 25GbE, internal SATA storage, eMMC, NVMe slots, and various wireless expansion options. There is a ton here, so let us get to the review.
GoWin 1U 25GbE Appliance Overview
Of course, we have a video for this one. We also have fanless-adjacent unit that is a prototype that we took a look at during this video. If you are wondering what that means, check it out here:
As always, we suggest opening this in its own tab, browser, or app for the best viewing experience.
We got our early launch edition unit from GoWin for $635 plus shipping. That pricing seems to be now for the 10GbE version with the 25GbE version now at $695. Since the company knows STH, we got two special items. First, we got an acrylic top to help show off the unit on the video. Second, GoWin sent us a future fanless-adjacent unit prototype. Our $635 came with everything we needed to use the system. We are going to call this just the GoWin 1U 25GbE unit, but the model number is GW-BS-1UR2-25G.
We have an Intel Core i3-N305 8-core CPU, 32GB of memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD, eMMC storage, and an added 25GbE NIC.
We will also have a lot more on the internal hardware overview than usual because this system is fascinating. There is so much here. Let us get to the hardware.
GoWin 1U 25GbE Appliance External Hardware Overview
Looking at the front of the system, this is where the majority of the I/O is, and there is a lot going on here. Again, please note that we have the acrylic top on just to show what is inside, but normally the top is a solid metal piece.
First, the chassis is a short-depth 1U form factor, and it appears to be made custom for GoWin.
In terms of ports, we have a COM port and four USB ports, but there are some less common ports. Examples include the HDMI port since this has a CPU with an iGPU it can power a 4K display. We also get a TF card slot which is like a microSD card slot without the licensing.
On the networking side, there are two Intel i226-V (Intel SRKTU) NICs then two Intel i210-AT 1GbE NICs. There is a third i210-AT which is a PoE port if you have a low power device, but this seems to be more for powering a camera or something. That was one I was not fully expecting when I heard about this box. Of course, I would prefer PoE++ and for all of the NICs to be 2.5GbE but there is not enough bandwidth on the platform for all of that. Still, it is a unique feature.
Then there are two ports labeled SFP1 and SFP2. These are actually SFP28 ports and are 25GbE powered by a (Mellanox) NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx NIC. We are going to show a lot on how that works in our internal overview.
Next to that, is another vent.
Moving to the rear of the system, we see some different items as well.
For example, there are six antenna spots here so if you were to install a WiFi module or a 4G/5G module, you could have antenna access to the rear of the case. We left the red covers on for photos.
Next to that array, there are two chassis fans then a VGA port.
On the right side, we have our power input. Unlike GoWin’s R86S and R86S Pro, this has an internal power supply.
We are going to cheat a bit since our internal overview is huge, and show you the power supply here. This is a nice FSP 150W power supply which is plenty for a system like this.
The one feature we are not a fan of is the power supply fan. In the video, the reason the other version we have we are calling “fanless-adjacent” is because of this fan in an otherwise fanless system.
Next, let us get to the internal hardware overview.
can it run fq_codel or cake or libreqos?
Great review! What firewall/OS were you running when you got 17Gbps throughput on the 24GbE SFP+ ports?
I was one of the first people to receive this one. The fan on the PSU is absolute garbage and made it impossible for me to sit next to the machine. I ordered a Noctua NF-A4x20 replacement, spliced it in. That fixed the noise issue immediately. I’m still thinking if it’s worth it (and possible) to replace it with something like a Seasonic.
Also worth mentioning that the onboard SATA ports are not really SATA, those are 2 USB-SATA adapters, which make them almost useless for any real data storage on a modern filesystem like ZFS or Btrfs.
Another quirk is that the board does NOT shut down. The CPU will and system will, but it keeps drawing around 15W when the board is “powered off”, and it screws with the SFP ports because of this, some modules could not come up without replugging them after shutdown (there is a workaround for this on the mellanox side of things). This is because the board does NOT unlatch the PS_ON# pin. Yes, this means that the PSU fan will keep spinning even when the board is “shut down”. And while we’re on the power consumption side, enabling power saving in linux for the i210/i226 NICs makes the whole system crash.
Overall I’m happy-ish with the system, made it work for me. But Gowin has this mentality of designing a new version of hardware right as the first customers get the current version, and if you have issues with it? Tough luck, you can buy the new version which is right around the corner. Caveat emptor
I prefer buying from the company that made an item I’m buying, and given a choice that’s exactly how I shop. At least then I know I’m buying the real thing. I have very little trust in Amazon.
You get these machines that are obviously network appliances and you tell us how many times they can compile the Linux kernel per hour. Yeah, I need to get a nox with a low spec CPU and a lot of fast NICs for my C++ work. It’s so obvious! Please, give these things to your network guy so he can run a proper router or firewall OS on them and do a proper network appliance review.
Any product link?
They will never achieve anything close to 25G on those interfaces. Probably the only thing those would be good for is electrical isolation using fiber transceivers.
The link for product link is https://www.gowinfanless.com/products/network-device/1u-2u-server/
For systems where we’ve seen the CPU a bunch of times before, it’s safe to say we know how it fits into the overall landscape against other chips.
It might be more informative to see its performance compared to other boxes based around the same chip, so we can see if maybe one particular box is hosing up the config, perhaps by a suboptimal memory layout, PCIe lane config, poor default BIOS settings, cooling solution, or whatever. Especially if there’s a reference Intel board (say a NUC or something, in this space?) that could presumably represent a bench mark against which the other integrators could be compared.
The headline is a 25Gb product and barely a paragraph about that. Not what was used, not how it was configured…nada.
Barely passable content for page hits. Nothing more.
Is this a first draft of a review? It does not matter to me how many kernel compiles you can do per day on a network appliance.
What Software did you run? What settings etc
Thank you for the professional review.We will keep upgrade for the next version with cost down and function on.
The article mentions: “At the same time, there is still a good reason to use Parker Ridge/ Snow Ridge Intel Atom C5000 series parts with QAT and onboard 25GbE if you want to go faster”. A link to such a product reviewed by you in this article (or even the comments here) would be tremendously helpful. Thanks!