OnLogic Factor 201 Fits The Raspberry Pi CM4 For Industrial Needs & Other Innovative Uses

The OnLogic Factor 201 transforms the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 into a well-engineered platform making it suitable for industrial computing needs, IoT, edge computing, and similar environments. This isn't simply a heavy duty chassis with passive cooling for the Raspberry Pi but the custom carrier board by OnLogic adds in an M.2 SATA storage slot as well as M.2 USB3, optional Power over Ethernet power delivery, and can also be fitted with a TPM 2.0 module and other extras. The dual Gigabit Ethernet ports provided by the OnLogic carrier board are great and certainly opens it to new use-cases and the USB-C management port allows for easily configuring the CM4 module.

The Factor 201 enclosure is well designed and constructed for industrial use with similar (great) build quality to the past OnLogic (and formerly, Logic Supply) devices we have reviewed. The Factor 201 enclosure allows for the device to be mounted to a DIN rail or wall-mounted and can withstand running in a wide range of temperatures and the lack of any active cooling / venting allows for the device to run within harsh environments.

The Raspberry Pi CM4 pricing is between $30 and $95 USD for the 32 different SKUs based on WiFi, RAM, and eMMC storage. In the case of the Factor 201, it has a $322 USD base price or $424 USD if going for the top-of-the-line 8GB RAM + 32GB eMMC + WiFi model. The base model from OnLogic comes with a 64GB M.2 SATA SSD but up to a 2TB M.2 SATA SSD can be added, TPM 2.0 modules, and other accessories can also be added.

The price gets you the industrial build quality we've come to love with OnLogic products as well as having a two year standard warranty. If planning to really stress the device, a three year extended warranty can also be purchased.

The experience with the OnLogic Factor 201 has been great over testing the past number of weeks. My only complaint about the Factor 201 is on the software side and simply that they don't offer Raspberry Pi OS / Ubuntu 64-bit options yet as a pre-load... Users can, of course, manually load up their OS/distribution of choice on the Factor 201, but for a nice out-of-the-box experience and helping with first impressions for users in performance-sensitive environments, it would have been nice seeing at least an option for the 64-bit builds. Ever since the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit public release, I've been hammering it with tests and the performance uplift has been great while continuing to be rock solid. The performance gains are significant and especially if going for the 8GB RAM version, it makes a lot of sense to go for the Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit build, so hopefully OnLogic will end up offering that as an option in the future. Aside from that note, OnLogic has clearly invested a lot into building the ultimate Raspberry Pi CM4 for industrial uses. (Update: I am told that OnLogic is currently vetting the 64-bit OS builds and will be available on their website soon.)

Thanks to OnLogic for sending out this review unit and will continue to be stressed and evaluated at Phoronix. Those wishing to learn more about the Factor 201 can visit OnLogic.com.