Arestech MERA-3110-3L Intel Coffee Lake Core i3/i5/i7 Fanless Industrial PC with 3x GbE and 4x Drive Bays

Data-heavy roles such as image logging or line recording tend to fill drives faster than anyone plans for, and pulling a sealed unit off the wall to swap a disk costs downtime. The Arestech MERA-3110-3L handles that with four front-removable 2.5″ bays, making it the storage-led model with three GbE ports in the MERA-3100 series of fanless industrial PCs.

Compute comes from 9th or 8th Gen Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 desktop processors in the 35 W LGA1151 class, from the four-core i3-8100T to the eight-core i7-9700TE at up to 3.8 GHz, on an Intel Q370 chipset. Two DDR4 2400/2666 SO-DIMM sockets hold up to 64 GB, and Intel UHD Graphics 630 drives VGA and DVI-D at up to 1920 x 1200 plus a DisplayPort output at up to 4096 x 2160, so one MERA-3110-3L can drive three screens.

Storage is where the MERA-3110-3L stands apart from the base model. Four removable 2.5″ SATA bays support RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, so drives can be mirrored or striped and replaced from the front, and two CFast sockets, shared with mSATA, keep the operating system on a separate boot device. Networking runs on an Intel i219-LM and two Intel i210-AT GbE controllers with Wake-on-LAN and PXE. Six RS-232/422/485 DB9 ports with auto flow control, 8x isolated DI and 8x isolated DO, six USB 3.2 and two USB 2.0 ports cover peripherals. The enclosure measures 241.5 x 92.6 x 230 mm and weighs 3.95 kg.

Power enters through a 3-pin terminal block at 9 to 48 V DC, with ignition sensing, a PC/car mode switch and protection against over-voltage up to 52 V, reverse voltage and over-current. With a 35 W processor the MERA-3110-3L runs fanless from -40 °C to 70 °C, and Arestech offers an external fan kit for 65 W processors at up to 60 °C. Vibration is rated at 5 Grms and shock at 50 G, and the fanless industrial PC wall or stand mounts. For more network ports in the same enclosure, see the MERA-3110-7L, and for a lower 73 mm profile the MERA-3100-3L.