PieFed DKNexalta Guardian: actually secure?
Cooper8I have been looking into setting up a secure home server and hardening my local network and I came across this kickstarter which is currently floundering, likely because it’s campaign page is way too technical without enough fluff for the uninformed out there (like myself to some extent).
That said, from what I can tell it seems like a really great device for my use case actually, combining a multiband WiFi 7 gateway with a built in NAS and upgradeable compute modules. As a binus it is a German company so I’m a bit less worried about back doors that with some of the Chinese generic manufacturers out there.
What I can’t sus out is how secure this actually is, how technical my background needs to be to get it set up effectively, and whether the price is good for the hardware. Any help?
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Lots of claims in here, but no specificity. I can tell WHAT they are selling: the hardware, or a software platform.
I’m also confused because they seem to missing the mark of what a useful piece of tech is for home users. Having everything all-in-one just compounds single points of failure. Also super confusing why they’re mentioning LTE and Starlink into this…makes it seem pretty stupid.
Honestly, if you’re just getting started, grab a cheap refurb from the Minisforum store, get a stack started and figure out what you actually, then make more informed decisions from there.
If you’re planning on hosting a large media collection, you probably want a NAS, which can also double duty for the other things you want to do as well in most cases if it supports running containers.
Its a commercial product fundamentally. Looking at the company’s site its clear this is an attempt to sell their commercial/enterprise “private cloud” node hardware to the general public but they’ve botched the marketing.
Medical and Transport are their core business, and they are a software-first company that has built a hardware solution for ready drop-in of their secure private cloud server software stack.
https://www.nexalta.net/blog-news/11
Looking at NAS options is how I found this, I got suggested a few NAS kickstarters, but the hardware on this one seems to be superior over all. Too bad the documentation sucks.
I would steer clear of just getting something from Kickstarter. Just go for something solid with an existing community. Synology is good for beginners, or you could just build one and install the NAS OS of your choice like TrueNAS or OMV.
Pretty loaded package. Love how expandable it is.
In its current configuration, it looks a bit underpowered for local AI (16GB), but there are a lot of slots to add your own M.2 board.
I’d be concerned about driver support. Given all the hardware, the burden is on the admin software to help with configuring all the knobs and buttons. Didn’t see any mention of that on the KS page. Mostly hardware specs (which again, are pretty good).
I’d want to know more about the software. If it requires downloading tar archives and manually configuring things, it’s not meant to be used by non-devs. They claim it was designed for medical office use, but for that they would definitely need an end-user friendly interface with a LOT of sane defaults.
Also, allowing only 15 days for a hardware KS is a bit strange. It takes a while to spread the word in the device community and get backers. Not much time to make a decision or get budget approved for a $2K+ device.
Well there are 15 days left on the kickstarter but it has been up for a while. I didn’t catch the medical office thing before, but makes perfect sense, they are clearly a commercial/enterprise targetted business and this is their first kickstarter. They just don’t know how to market to the masses.
I agree the software documentation is lacking, they claim it is easy to setup but they don’t show what it is actually like.
I get a sense that this could be a diamond in the rough but to your point about drivers I agree support is going to make or break this device. I think there are some indications that could be decent, the company itself appears to be software-first and targeting highly regulated industries (medical and transport) that require zero downtime. So long as the company itself survives I would guess drivers will likely stay updated. As long as the company survives.
To that point, it seems like this kickstarter is a line in the water for rebranding their enterprise “private cloud” hardware for general use, but they half baked the launch.
IDK, I’m tempted, but without better documentation it’s hard to spend that cash.
Only 6 takers on the KS with a long way to reach funding level. My guess is they’ll have to relaunch while focusing on end-user benefits and software instead of hardware specs.
The Qualcomm IPQ9574 is a pretty high-end WiFi 7 platform. If someone already has a decent router, it’s a bit of a waste. The main processor is the Rockchip RK3588 module which already has dual NPUs. Adding another AI coprocessor means the system drivers have to be tweaked properly to use the right coprocessor. That’s why I think it’s important to see how they’ve implemented the software.
The RK3588 is a couple years old. Rockchip already announced the RK3688 but my past experience with them was they first released mobile versions and it took a while (1-2 years) before they made dev boards and server BSPs available. The 3688 also has a much better, faster NPU w 20 TOPs – not as beefy as the Metis with 214 TOPs – but OK for basic local inference.
All the communication slots are good for remote office or High Availability – a bit wasted IMO for home use, unless you need LoRaWAN, satellite, or multiple 5G lines.
If you badly want to use a 3588, BananaPi makes a pro board at a fraction of the price. Otherwise, for basic home server use, an old Intel laptop or headless desktop, reflashed with Debian or Ubuntu will do.
Again, I really like the hardware mix they have. It’s great for a small office or a research lab, but IMO a bit overkill for home use.
Do you want to double check that url it gets a 404 error in Europe.
Thanks, try now
What do you think? It isn’t cheap but seems like great hardware to a n00b like myself, I like the future-proofness and repairability of the slots it has. Possibly worth it?
For a turnkey device there is far too many options for a non technical person to successfully get what they want. It seems like it is aimed at the technical person to run for the non technical person.