Netgate has a new appliance designed for 10GbE and 2.5GbE networking. The new Netgate 8200 replaces the Netgate 7100 series in the lineup and utilizes a Denverton Refresh SoC to provide new functionality.
Netgate 8200 New 10GbE and 2.5GbE Firewall Appliance Launched
The Netgate 8200 slots between the Netgate 6100 and the higher-end Xeon D-based offerings. It utilizes the Intel Atom C3758R processor. That is an 8-core Intel part with Intel QuickAssist (QAT) technology. We did not do a QAT piece with the C3000 series, but we recently looked at Ice Lake with QAT Card, Xeon D-2700 series, and even the upcoming 4th Generation Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids server that you can see in our Hands-on Benchmarking with Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Accelerators piece and in the video:
Part of the new Netgate 8200 series offering is that it comes with pfSense Plus, which is able to take advantage of the onboard QAT accelerator. The “R” refresh part also added another 200MHz to the clock speed for approximately 9% more performance. One also gets 16GB of non-ECC single-channel memory (soldered) and a 128GB NVMe SSD. This is a nice update in this class of devices.
The unit itself looks very cool with a blue chassis (call us biased.)
The unit has a lot of networking. There are two 10GbE (SFP+) ports, two combo SFP/ RJ45 ports for either copper or fiber. One of the more interesting features is the block of four Intel i226 NICs for four 2.5GbE. Effectively one gets 2x 10GbE, 2x 1GbE, and 4x 2.5GbE from this configuration.
One difference we see with this unit, versus some we have seen previously, is that this is an actively cooled unit. Looking at the unit from below the blue shelf, we see the fan.
Netgate says this unit is good for 18.6Gbps iperf traffic and 11.76Gbps using the more complex IMIX for L3 forwarding. With 10,000 ACLs in a firewall configuration, those numbers are 18.55Gbps and 5.1Gbps respectively. Using the QAT accelerator offload with IPsec, Netgate says 3.24Gbps and 810Mbps respectively.
Final Words
Overall, this is a nice unit. Pricing is $1395 with TAC-Lite support and Zero-to-ping support included. One can also get these in high-availability pairs. It is great to see Netgate add 2.5GbE support via Intel i226 on this unit as well as the higher-end CPU.
We have taken a look at many low-cost devices recently, but the Netgate 4100 we reviewed based on a similar platform but with a lower-end CPU and features is certainly in a different class. If you want to check out the video for that one, you can find it here:
Stay tuned for STH, we have some really interesting platforms in the lab and coming soon that we are very excited to show our readers although the Netgate 8200 is not in the current queue. It is a busy time as the DPU space is heating up and we are preparing for the Sapphire Rapids launch.
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Nice unit, pretty pricey though, sad that with such a premium over the 6100 with nearly the same CPU and ports that they didn’t spring for ECC. The CPU supports it, and it’s an option from their ODM. Seems penny wise pound foolish for a unit that costs 1.6x the Netgate 6100.
Nice unit, but it seems they don’t want to cater to the poweruser home crowd at all. The 6100 was attractive because it *ALMOST* was cheap enough for some of us for our homelabs, providing enough power to handle those 10gb speeds.
Most of their units expect you to sub-net through different ports, relying on general use CPUs to handle the routing power, I’d much rather leave that job to a quality switch personally.
If I could dream of a perfect device for my own homelab, It would be much less complicated than these.
1 HDMI, 3 USB 2.0, 1gb MGT port, 2 10gb SFP+ ports, power. That’s it. Most of us are having to slap random used parts together to utilize 10gb firewall duties. They’re bigger and older technology, and most of it lacks compatability with 1/2.5/5/10gb equipment.
Please please please create a cheaper device with enough power to do 10gb, that isn’t bloated with 10 additional ports that add cost and complexity. I Just want a WAN SFP+ and LAN SFP+ that can handle 1/2.5/5/10gb speeds for future expansion. Fiber is becoming more and more plentiful for many of us in rural and urban areas. Sometimes the speeds may start at say 600mb, but a few years down the road jump to 1gb, 2gb, or 5gb. If I’m shelling good money out for something like this, it needs to handle speeds that are to be expected in the next few years.
I recently built an R330 to handle this, and the expandability is great compared to Project Micro as an example, but it’s overkill really. I did discover the HP mini servers and thin clients that can both take half/full height PCIe cards, but even with over a year of research, they never came up on my results before my purchase.
I’d love to see some NUCs, HP G8s, and other devices include more than one NIC port. I don’t need 4 Displayport plugs. I don’t need 8 USB 3.2 plugs. Just give me a decent small computer with more than one NIC, preferribly at least 2.5gb speeds or more.
At that price point, an OPNsense DEC840 / DEC3840 would be a better buy if you don’t need the native 4×2.5G RJ45 ports (the [3]840/850 have 2×10/5/2.5/1G SFP+ and 4x1G RJ45 ports, and a MUCH faster CPU).
Carson – on the OPNsense it has a faster CPU but not with the QAT accelerator. That is a big deal. We are going to see QAT used more as it arrives in mainstream Xeons in January (see the SPR piece linked in here.)
Things are getting a bit weirder these days since we are seeing more dedicated accelerators. Many vendors are using lower-power general-purpose cores and accelerators instead of bigger faster performance cores
I’m curious about the power consumption. I switched away from x86_64 firewall/router/VPN appliance, with ~40 or more W of typical usage, to a Fortigate 60F at 10 W average.
Anyone know what the AliExpress white box equivalent for this is?
It looks like it’s the same Silicom base sys as the 4100 they’ve reviewed just with faster ports and a fan. So no AliExpress