Why Intel Nuc NUC6CAY as a router?
I was trying to buy
Product Specifications:
CPU: Intel J3455 (2M Cache, up to 2.3 GHz)
RAM: DDR3L-1600/1866 1.35V SO-DIMM
LAN: 10/100/1000
Wireless: Intel® Wireless-AC 3168 + Bluetooth 4.2
Power consumption.
6.9Wh when operating
And 1.2Wh when Idle.
There is only 32GB Hard drive.
I both SSD () to save the windows in case. And to install the router system on fresh Drive.
Buy SSD on Amazon: Please use my link.
Or click on a photo.
So let’s get started. First, I got Pf-sense image on my USB. You can find out those images on Pfsence website.
I quickly realized that this card
( Intel® Wireless-AC 3168 ) will not work with
I was searching the internet to find a solution but most of the people says:
“AC is not supported at all. Generally, as far as WiFi is concerned, do yourself a big favor and get a proper AP.”
The idea is to use three LAN in total.
One for WLAN, LAN, Wireless AP.
USB Lan is a bit bottlenecking, cause USB interface.
So if normally my internet speed is like:
The first value is download speed second upload speed.
After Pfsense Router is like:
As for specification. This small computer will be useless for enthusiast router build.
I highly not recommended you to create something similar if you do not plan to use VPN, or for blocking services with the perblockNG plugin installed.
pfSense is working properly.
Router uptime is almost 3 days. Temperatures are between 52-53 degree. As the device is passively cooled that’s really good results.
That USB LAN dongle is recognized by pfSense. And it is working ok. I’m bit disappointed with the bottleneck that setup makes. But if you want to use it for windows 10 go for it.
Windows 10 is working pretty nice. However after update to the latest version.
You need to click on disk cleaning utility.
Cause you will get only 4Gb of free space.
After cleaning and all of the updates, you will have about 11 GB of free space for use. So not really many. As a Client probably perfect. But for home use. I’ll probably buy Lenovo T420 instead.
