Thank you very much for the reply.  Networking is not my strengths and I'm still learning.  I was debating about putting an Ubiquiti Edgerouter behind the pfSense to handle internal network traffic and VLANs.  Do you think this would assist in the Throughput concerns you mentioned?

WAN <–> pfSense(NAT/Firewall/VPN) <--> EdgeRouter (as router only) <--> LAN

I was interested in the original UP board, not necessarily for pfSense.  The original board had a single Realtek NIC.  I'm assuming the NICs on this one are Realtek too, but having two of them certainly makes running pfSense on it a little more palatable; not having to use VLANs for even a basic config is nice.  I'm glad I waited on buying the original; I intend to pick up one of these and give it a shot.

Not sure about the kickstarter thing, but 89 Euros gets you the base model.  I'd pay that.  But then again, I'm a guy who bought the original Sheevaplug dev kit in 2009 for $100 and am still using it today.

Makes no sense I buy it then. Gonna have to continue using the realtek nic I have.

No idea. I'm running pfSense under ESXI 6.0 and haven't tried that.

We use the Digi's to connect a realtime USB clock to a virtualized Windows server.  Our solution is a data retention dealie and it's critical that the user cannot change the system time.  Since most of our customers are virtualized and you can't plug a USB dongle into a VM, we use these to connect the VM server to the USB device over the network.  I used to use Digi multiplexers back in the day when I worked for an early ISP (very early 90's) and we had dozens and dozens of racks of 28.8k modems, all tied into a *BSD box with Digi serial muxes.  Great hardware.

There is a better way I just did not post it.  It is also posted at my wiki (https://wiki.hackspherelabs.com/index.php?title=U620L_Novatel#U620L_-_Set_CDC-ECM_Permanently):

=U620L=
==Put into CDC-ECM Mode==

Go to:  http://192.168.1.1/fieldtest/ Click Debug Mode You will have to restart your modem so unplug and re plug I usually wait at least 10 seconds before unplugging and 15-30 seconds before plugging back in By default the modem will not work in Windows as Windows does not like this mode.  Plug into a linux box or BSD box though and ask for a DHCP request and everything is cool!

You should still be able to access the web interface after this.

==Take out of CDC-ECM Mode==

Plug into linux box or a box that interacts with CDC-ECM mode. Grab a DHCP release so we have access to the correct network (I think it uses NAT redirection) Go to:  http://192.168.1.1/fieldtest/ Click End User Mode

==Research Study==
I hope that they do not disable this feature in an update.  I also wonder if having the modem in diagnostic mode disables firmware upgrades so I am going to track some firmware versions:

===Modem A===
Current Software Version:
1.3 (L1.218.1 M9x25MET-2.44.3 1 [2015-05-13 13:56:54])

Configuration Version:
I14.NVT,USB620.0

===Modem S===

Current Software Version:
1.3 (L1.218.1 M9x25MET-2.44.3 1 [2015-05-13 13:56:54])

Configuration Version:
I14.NVT,USB620.0

==Notes==
*I do not see a way to tell if the device is in debug mode
**This also gives you serial access too:  screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200
**I do not know the password

sounds like a win win  ;D

It's what's called a "shared port." igb1 can have either the SFP or the RJ45 active. Pretty common. Lots of switches work the same way, for instance.

There are 6 ports.

Two SFP+ (ix0, ix1)
Three Gigabit Copper (igb0, igb2, igb3)
One shared SFP or Copper (igb1)

2 + 3 + 1 = 6

Not sure what to tell you about which modules to get. Probably the ones you can add to the order would be a good place to start.

@berlyn0963:

Has anyone ever had issues getting the keyboard to work? It doesnt recognize any inputs when installing pfsense so I cant do anything at this point. I tried usb and ps2,.  I must be missing something simple here. Any help at all would be great . Thanks

I have managed to use a USB keyboard on an XTM 510, in the BIOS and on the install screens of a full install using serial redirect to putty.  I cannot recall if I did anything (BIOS is still locked) to get it working other than plugging it in.

I should really put that in a signature oh something like that.

I'm using a AMD A6-6400K APU with an extra TP-link NIC (realtec) and 2x4GB  RAM  (It's what I had laying around that would take up a midi tower place.

That should handle 50Mbps just fine.  We've done 100 Mbps on an APU1D and it worked just fine.  You'll just be looking at longer boot times but once it's loaded you shouldn't have any issues with it.

Well…..never mind I guess.  :D

Turns out the problem wasn't the NIC and PFSense, it was my test-bench switch going bad.
Stupid thing suddenly decided to only let devices connect to it at a 10Mbs, which I guess made PFSense just go "Nope, not gonna play that slow" and showed as no cable connected at all.

I'm up and running now with a different switch, so all good!

@KOM:

With ease.  I can't find the link anymore, but Jim Thompson posted some performance metrics that showed it could handle your requirements without breaking a sweat.

Alright, sounds good! Thanks for the help  ;D

If you need 802.11ac then yes because there is no support for it in FreeBSD (yet).

If you can use 802.11n (or g) then you can use an older Atheros card in most cases.

Steve

Yup.  Drive finally gave out.  Odd.  Never had an SSD fail until now.

@Derelict:

However, are there any benefits to going the multiple NIC route rather than a switch?

If what you want/need are switch ports, not really any benefit at all. A layer 2 bridge implemented in software will pretty much never perform as well at forwarding frames as even the cheapest switch.

I took this to mean that OP was asking whether to use a NIC per lan segment vs using a managed switch (as the title suggests) and VLANs.  Guess some clarification is necessary.

Hi Harvey, thanks for your response. Your layman's understanding is still way above my head! As far as I can tell, you are discussing the virtual network communications between guests OSes on a single host. Apologies if my questions were unclear or if I'm just not understanding your response.
My question is regarding pfSense's ability to utilize the Chelsio's onboard switch between it's two ports and pfSense's ability to bridge these ports to one or more ports on a separate PCIe (in this case Intel) 1Gb ethernet card. I've proceeded to order the Chelsio. If anyone has suggestions on configuration to keep the traffic between the two 10Gb hosts off the PCIe bus and away from the CPU (plus adding a bus/CPU bound 1Gb bridge), this newb could use any advice you have.

Thanks a lot.

Resolution  has bee accomplished.  Thanks to all who responded and gave suggestions

Thank you jimp.

Eh, there's an air gap. Plus I made sure that the bios would shut down the computer if the processor and case fan become jammed… they do. there's also a in front of the heat sink on the intel pcie nic

I adhered a piece of parchment paper like for cooking to a piece of printer paper to give it traction and cut it to size. I then flipped the image and printed it on the slick side, using tape to hold it in place I used a credit card to scrape the back side, and leave the ink on the wood. it gave it a worn sort of look. I then hit it with some clear enamel spray paint in a thin layer to set and seal it.