I bought a J4125 4-prot firewall box (Hunsen) on AliExpress. I think that it is actually manufactured by Yanling (J4125 Pfsense Firewall 4x 2.5G Lan) who also seems to be a supplier to Protectli.
The box works well and have operated 24x7 without any issues what so ever. However, I have become a bit worried about the security of these Chinese boxes and more specifically about the BIOS (UEFI Malware and such). There seems to be no BIOS updates available.
I know that the safe choice is just to purchase a Netgate 4100 but this device is very expensive in Europe. Its a bit much for a home office solution.
What is the oppinion on this forum. Would you guys worry?
Never mind the lack of driver or bios updates. I was worried by more than that. When I was deciding on hardware, I was also worried about even things like the power supply with some of those AliExpress boxes. If I have something running 24/7 in my house when I’m not home, some how I just get a little more peace of mind, that the knowing power supply didn’t come from AliExpress.
A number of folks on STH forums bought some 2.5G boxes direct and have had nothing but problems, especially thermal related. Seems like OEMs stuff higher TDP CPUs in an existing fan-less enclosure with no regard to how they will perform under load. Folks end up tearing them apart, adding additional copper blocks, more thermal paste/pads, adding fans, etc. Just doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble. Protectli at least weeds out the poor designs, performs stress testing, and provides support. It’s your time and $.
I bought an old HP T620+ to avoid this problem, been fine for my home use. I’m told some of the newer HP thin clients also have a PCI slot (T730?) which would be the next step up to newer stuff. I guess it depends on what you are doing with it and how much you are willing to spend.
Used Supermicro servers (even the Hyve branded stuff) might be an option too.