You know why I like SLC?  Because I've never had even 1 single failure with those.  Not 1. Doesn't mean the MLC in this unit isn't also great.

the people at the freenas forum went all anti Kingston after they messed around with their part numbers. most recommend crucial now. what i used on my freenas build

No, it doesn't need to be.

going for intel, hope it works thanks for your input :)

@eliteassassin07: @Wolf666: I have: http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure That is the case that I wanted to use, however you can not add a PCI Express card to that box… Which means no Intel Nic... You could of course go with the Mini Box M300 however that requires a riser card and a Pico power supply.. Mini Box M300 = $59.95 PCI Express Riser Card = $29.00 Pico Power Supply = $35.00 Total = $123.95!!! That is way to pricey for what you are getting (and for what I am using it for) Pair that case with a motherboard with dual Intel NICs on board.  This is the one I used. http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-D2500CCE-Mini-ITX-Motherboard

@kroberts: That minnowboard max looks interesting. I like the RAM sink glued on top of the CPU.  Really lets on how low the power consumption is.

No.  pfSense works on x86 & x86-64 systems.

Well the seller states: PfSense 2.2 (Final) Release Embedded Install w/ VGA output So that's almost certainly a Nano install (since the embedded kernel full install does not have VGA output) but it may have been modified by the seller. Just check yourself when you get it. Steve

Don't blame Watchguard it's Lanner's board.  :) Yes it's PCIe 8x. You should be able to use it with a gender changer or some type of riser but I've yet to find one. Which is odd because this arrangement seems common on embedded boards. Steve

Nice 1st post.  :) So it simply needs the virtual CD drive to be ejected to switch modes? Steve

@Cino: Thank you for sharing the wattage info.. I'm pretty much sold on this board, just need to get funds.. Keep an eye out on Newegg for open box.  I have now ordered three A1SAi-C2758F open box from newegg.  I know another forum user just picked up another one open box.  They usually go for around 260-280 open box. I haven't had any problems with my first two, which are currently acting as ESXi hosts.  I haven't tried the third yet, as I need to transplant that host out of my M350 case and into it's respective Supermicro 1U chassis (it's being delivered Wednesday.)  I'll post back with the results of the third (which is going to be my dedicated pfSense host.) Edit:  Clarified some poor grammar.

Yeah - I've been saying "Thank God I'm not using XEN" for a few days now. EXSi is working fine for me so far.  No issues.

Hmm…  Shipping in March.  Going to email them about that.  I was going to order a box from Lanner to play with but this meets my needs better since it ships with CentOS 7 installed and that's what I was going to load...

@pfBug: Now, what I want to do is use a different router than my ISP provided. I don't want to use the new router in AP mode because it locks out features that I specifically bought it for. I think I can set the ISP's Modem/Router to bridge mode and then connect my new router to it, but again, this is based on my minimal understanding at this point. If you set it to bridge mode, AFAIK it does become a simple modem.  You then just run ethernet CAT 5 from your (now simple) DSL modem to your WAN pfSense port.  It should already have one RJ11 jack for the telco connection and one RJ45 jack for the ethernet connection. I'm not sure I see how or what features would be used if you set it to bridge mode.  The modem just disappears and becomes part of the furniture :)

Thanks guys. I meant open source (free) version of OSSIM. It's still pretty good and I'm quite comfortable with it. I'm planning to mostly use it for SIEM purposes so it being pure IDS won't hurt. I do like pfsense's integration of Snort though :) Already tested it with some nmap scans and scapy. I've also used Security Onion before. I enjoyed with its large number of quite stable packages.

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