@dpsi: Hey, I came across this system aswell but I passed once I saw that it did not have atleast 2 NICS. I found something similiar with dual intel NICS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107095 Typically you want to use Intel over Realtek as they use less CPU interrupts which equate to better performance for the overall system and not just the network. I'm currently setting up another jetway, also with dual Intel NIC. It has a better CPU and is part of their longterm support program: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107148 Setup was a breeze, both hardware and software. The wireless card that comes with it doesn't work with FREEBSD though.

It's either something new or I go and buy a 2-port intel NIC and drop it into a Pentium D tower I have, although I am concerned about how much power its going to guzzle hence my aim for a newer processor with a lower TDP.

I just bought one of these: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRM-LN7F-2758.cfm Reviewed here: http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/supermicro-a1srm-ln7f-2758-review-awesome/ I bought 16g ecc registered memory and an ocz vector 150 240gb ssd.  Nobody had msata that I liked. My intent is to put Gentoo 64-bit hardened on the bare metal as a minimal KVM host, and use PCI passthrough to one or more router VMs.  One will be pfSense at least as a trial, and if I get serious about it I will probably pay support.

Take a look also to C2558 board. C2558 has Intel QuickAssist Technology but not Intel Turbo Boost (C2550).

That will be far in excess of what you need. A huge upgrade on the ALIX.  :) You would have no problems if you decided to run Squid or Snort on that box at 50Mbps. Though if you were more ram couldn't hurt. The only reason to get something more modern would be power efficiency or possibly looking to a faster WAN in the future. It will cost significantly more to run that than the ALIX. The ALIX uses very little power, ~5W, where as a C2D will likely be ~40-50W though that is very dependent on the system it's installed in. Steve

It should be in the boot log. : grep ^Geode /var/log/dmesg.boot Geode LX: PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.99h tinyBIOS V1.4a (C)1997-2007

My condolences to you. I know that pushing your head in a totally different direction helps to get over it. Why do you use the switch in L3 mode? Doing it that way means pfSense shouldn't do the routing and thus can't do filtering if needed. And you will want to use a single interface to your pfSense only, no Trunk/Etherchannel/whatever_vocabulary_Cisco_uses. Routing is done by the switch and has to be defined there! You cannot use pfSense's DHCP server on a second subnet then (without hassle, that is), as well as DNS and whatever pfSense offers. Putting the switch in L2 mode probably is way easier for you! It can be done with the switch in L3 mode. Better start simple and evolve from there if need be.

Well the SRW2008P is what i found to be reliable. I could sell them a newer cisco version the SRW2008P-K9 or SG300-10. One of these is mounted in a foundry and the fan requires constant upkeep. Nasty enviroment. I was hoping on going to a sealed fanless pfsense rig with an POE adapter. I could do more to protect the current rig and probably will. They use Arecont cams throught the facility.

Exactly. All three devices Virgin have labeled 'superhub' seem to have a gigabit switch so you should have no issues with LAN side traffic. It hints at some underlying problem in your network, a bad cable or NIC for example. Are you using other switches internally? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "LAN game streaming at 60mbps". Is that streaming the video between devices on your LAN or actually maxing out your WAN bandwith at 60Mbps? Steve

I want 250 gb/s…

for a basic system not running squid,etc - it will be sufficient edit: see if you can add another 512 or 1gb of ddr1 for cheap for wifi, you may want to use an external router as a accesspoint with the pfsense doing the DHCP,etc

I think I better go with known hardware vendor such as SuperMicro with x86 arch. They have barebone kits same as in pFsense store. Thank you both for your replies. If anyone interested in banana pi + pfsense, then please refer the link posted by stephenw10. Its not about porting, but using virtualization technology (QEMU) to run pfsense.

Many teachers have students to call the same movies e.g. Youtube. In addition, updates will be stored from Microsoft. Yeah, they might have to figure out another way.  You should probably look at WSUS instead of depending on a web cache for the windows updates.

I've been obsessing over this board for a few days now.  I think I'm going to get one. Any idea how noisy it is in a 1u setup?  I have a home office, would like to go to a bigger case if that can make it silent or nearly so.  Fanless would be great.

@altiris: @sogseal: @altiris: Is the Realtek RTL8111GR LAN chipset supported in FreeBSD 10/pfsense 2.2 RC? Id like to know before I order parts for a computer id like to build. Thanks! do more research, mine worked… how did you find if yours worked? Just bought it and tried it out? I've looked on double of forums and mailing lists or whatever they are called and there's never a definitive answer ifit works. It's sort of hit or miss many times. yes, i just bought and used 2.2RC( completely forgot about the NICs)

buy a 4 or 8 core supermicro atom board and add ecc ram, be done with it

@stephenw10: Check the boot logs for errors. Which NICs are showing up there as recognised? Try running 'pciconf -lv' at the command line, what NICs are shown there? Steve no need for this actually, I switched the cards around in different slots and it recognizes both for now. Odd lol but that fixed it. Thank you for your support though.

Do you have some iperf performance results on this machine?

My SSDs are all going strong but I'm only running SLC SSDs. I don't like trying to repair things from far far away.

If you're looking for a project you might be able to put OpenWRT or DD-WRT on there. Doesn't look like it would be easy though, it's not on the tested hardware list. Steve