@Philip7: Would it work to take a NUC and add a StarTech USB Gigabit NIC (chipset ASIX AX88179) to create a fast OpenVPN pfSense box? My Zotac CI 323 works fine but the cpu is still the bottleneck when downloading via my VPN provider (17 MBps). What is the speed of your line? What is your VPN provider? My mini PC with the same processor of your Zotac CI323 (Celeron N3150), which runs the latest version of pfSense, is able to reach full speed line (100Mbps) connecting to PureVPN or PIA. It's capable to run snort, pfBlocker and a couple of OpenVPN clients smooth as silk. Snort is the process that takes more CPU resources under heavy load, while downloading to 100 Mbps the CPU usage barely exceeds 90% if Snort is active, and 40% if Snort is off. I don't know your needs, but maybe the problem is in the client configuration or in your VPN provider. Here something about the OpenVPN performance: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=115673.0

Well right before a workout I had no internet connection.  After making my way through the house to my horror this machine was loop rebooting. I just started a diet and let's just say my mind isn't 100% atm. Anyway - I reconfigured an access point to be a router while I went to the closet and pulled an old machine off the shelf. I took the same quad nic that was in the t3500 and put it in the "shelf" computer.  I loaded the lastest iso cd of Pfsesnse and with a usb stick including the /conf/config.xml the pfsense rig was up and running literally within 10 minutes. Gave me time to figure out that the t3500's PSU died. Something to note about this particular computer is it doesn't require a proprietary PSU and I slammed in something I had in a closet. (cooler master 750)  Works great! Yes it's a mess in there - I was in a hurry! [image: boneyard.jpg] [image: boneyard.jpg_thumb]

About 100 users It might be more interesting to know how much traffic they are producing! Multi-WAN (load-balancing) scenario with 3 connection of 500Mbps each Might be more tended to the rest of the clients and services that are offered! Load balancing can be done in three different ways such; policy based routing (many clients in/out sending) service based routing (different services by different ISPs in usage) session based routing (server session based and more for many devices in the DMZ) Router redundancy: I would need extra Ethernet port and 2 servers Ideally two identically units such 2 x 4860 or 2 x 8860 and using CARP then OpenVPN server: roaming and point-to-point Also an Xeon E3-12xxv3 system or an Intel Xeon D-15xx platform will be good then Snort or Suricata IDS Captive Portal Squid (possibly, not sure yet) 50% - 50% I will say it is not really even clear to me what services are running, what protocols are in usage and how many and what exactly of traffic will be generated, in some times it will be wise to buy and go with a SG-4860/SG-8860 unit from the pfSense store and/or a self made Xeon E3 unit that will be for sure hard and strong enough plus you may be able to add some RAM later on top if really needed!! So it would be more or less a question what is really going on in that network. I would assume that also the SuperServer 5018D-FN8T or the SuperServer E300-8D would be ideally together with two D-Link DGS1510-24 layer3 switches! enough power enough ports enough space enough RAM capacities Intel Xeon D-1518 4 Cores / 8 Threads up to 128 GB DDR4 2133 RAM M.2 socket, mSATA or SATA-DOM 2 x SFP+ & 10 x  GB LAN Ports Intel based Cool solution in my eyes.

so I was wondering if there was anything I could run on it that would use some of the extra ram to improve the network in some way? Thanks in advance for any help :). high up the mbuf size to 1000000 high up the Squid RAM size more RAM disks or for caching Using Squid, Snort, pfBlocker-NG and VPN will be fine with that amount of RAM the first thing I would realize is the mbuf size increasing.

Do I really need AES and QI Might be that you are not needing it really, but if you are using IPSec it will be perhaps better to have AES-NI to speed up your IPSec VPN and if QI is fully integrated and will be used in pfSense it might be fine pushing up more then only one or two things how knows it really? As an WiFi ac AP you might be better sorted with your old one, that will be pimped up with OpenWRT or DD-WRT regarding to the given functions and options. Otherwise UBNT and MikroTik will be able to serve you better too in my eyes according to the range of WiFi options.

Bug has been open 1 year ago. Not much progress on this by now. Hope in the new major version to get some improvements.

Never mind. After putting 1 unit with the vent down and discovering it was a pop rivet, I did the same with the other and with a little gentle shaking, got the second one out as well.

Are you attempting to use Suricata in inline mode? There are known issues with that configuration (in Suricata, last I heard)

Try a 2.4 snapshot: https://snapshots.pfsense.org/amd64/pfSense_master/installer/?C=M;O=D Hopefully that works. If it does boot, the installer there has UEFI support. It's in an alpha state so expect a lot of things to be shaky, but it's worth trying.

Hi Just an update.  I installed Windows 10 and have run CPU-Z which is showing DRAM Frequency at 1599.3MHz, so all seems good and the 1066MHz is an incorrect value in the DMI table.  This is using Crucial/Micron memory. Regards Phil

I'm interesting to by this limilary devise. It's to replace 4 pair nic on my cluster Pf on Fo mode. If it's run on well. ^^

I have the same issue on my zotac ci323. Doesn't bother me at all, only happens during pFsense installation. Probably driver issue. How's 2.4 running on ci323. I'm keen to try it.

It's not quite clear from your wording what you're asking. Do you mean the RPI2 is a serial client connected to the USB serial console port on the SG unit? … and the console is no longer working? ... and the RPI2 is no longer working? ... and the SG-4860 is no longer working? ... and the SG-4860 is not connecting to the Internet? Reset what port? The serial port? The WAN port? something on the RPI2?

I have an N3150 based mini-PC as a firewall, and as far as I can tell, it can handle 1Gbps throughput just fine. I could run some tests if you have something in particular in mind.

there is no pfSense that is able to run on ARM (except perhaps development builds at netgate HQ) as for filling the 300mbit: that'll depend on the type/brand of vpn you wish to run ==> IPSEC vpn has aes-ni support that can dramatically speed up crypto / openvpn doesn't currently support it. i haven't tried aes-ni ipsec on any of the c2758 atom boards at work  (see https://store.pfsense.org/SG-8860-1U/ )… others could probably confirm of deny if that'll be able to handle what you need

@lojden: Will it handle 250/100 at full speed up/down over openvpn (AES 256)? If you mean the J3710, likely yes, but you may have to use multiple tunnels combined into a gateway group to get the DL speed.

www,serverthehome.com is a good source for hardware used 6 core dell westmere systems off ebay seem to be popular picks

Take a look here https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=114202.0

Would you say this setup is overkill for home use by one person on a 100/100 connection? below are the applications I'll use pfsense for. Would be ok Firewall, Snort, Squid, pfBlocker-NG and SquidGuard The amount of devices that must be served is counting here more then other things, also the used protocols and services might be counting too. OpenVPN with 100Mbps throughput It might be something less than 100 pointed to your 100/100 Internet connection line speed. External ac-AP Might be better as an internal because ac isn´t supported yet.