Zoom 5715 for DSL if you want pound on it and never see it lock up. Motorola for cable.

PFsense will run on just about any hardware that is still alive and functioning today. For example, I have several installations in various ranges of performance, two are running supermicro 1U units with 2xL5420 CPU and 16 GB ram (production units in colocation DC each serving 1/2 rack nodes with countless VM's / CT's) huge overkill but dirt cheap, and have yet to bottom out on GB lines with traffic in the range of 15+TB data/month, and bursts of throughput approaching 750MBps 500MBps +/- sustained. To an ASRock- phenom X4 home office use in front of several nodes containing various file servers, git repos and test CT's , all the way down to an age old AMD 500MHz 500MB ram serving 27 cam CCTV, several wireless repeaters and the local wired boxes. Which is a bit underpowered itself, yet flawless existence, for the most part. The latter gets a bit bound up at times, for obvious reasons. Get creative, grab anything you have laying around, no HDD just use a thumb drive and a couple GB nics.

Yes, 4G is enough. You need a null modem cable.  For example, a DB9 to USB serial adapter.  Make sure the cable is null modem, or you buy a DB9 F to DB9 F null modem adapter. http://www.gooze.eu/howto/alix-apu-settings-howto/introduction

This is why I never trust HDDs in appliances like pfSense. Thank God there exists such a great thing as NanoBSD! Running from RAM the whole thing.

:) Thanks so much.. It recognigned my NIC….

You may want to check out this post: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=67823.msg371086#msg371086 That isn't a supported configuration though. Your install may fail etc…  ;) Steve

I have a number of those "OEM production" units in service for some time, and they work great for me.  Not sure why you want to stay away from SSD.  I think the reliability issues have been solved. so mine are using SSD with TRIM enabled.  Would have preferred intel LAN chips, but the broadcom NICs are reportedly pretty solid too; they have been for me. The other system you linked to has only one built-in LAN port, so you need to budget for another card unless you are using VLANs.

@gonzopancho: @Jason: Everything works fine in 2.1.1 and newer.  2.1 and older will not see the NICs. please, please recommends 2.1.4 or newer.  The number of bug-fixes between 2.1.1 and 2.1.4 is enormous. Post edited.

we haven't gotten to 802.11n yet (it's in pfSense 2.2). 802.11ac:  not for a while (measured in years)

Yes, I would use a hypervisor like ESXi rather than running virtual box under Windows. That way you can reboot/update your Windows VM without killing your whole network. Steve

Nice one.  :) Having a serial cable that doesn't support hardware flow control can really give you a hard time. Steve

@matthew1471: Biggsy - I've never really seen good throughput from an Atom, it's not really what they're designed for The Rangley range is certainly designed for network communications, it is a shame they called it an atom because its nothing like the old atoms. Have a look and you may be surprised at whats changed. pfsense/ESF are selling them for good reason http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/ either way good luck whatever you decide on

This is Grande.  AT&T is also offering 1Gbps/1Gbps in ATX, but even though they have fiber on the side of my house, they don't want to offer me the service. When Google arrives, I'll be keeping both.

Yep, it's an Ultra Small Desk Top (USDT) in the picture.  There are no slots for a LAN card. You need a Small Form Factor (SFF) dc7900, which has one PCI, one PCIe (x1), one PCIe (x4) and one PCIe (x16).  Work very well as an ESXi host. Either that or use VLANs and a VLAN-capable switch.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ADVANTECH-AIMB-272-MAIN-BOARD-/281364963292?pt=BI_Control_Systems_PLCs&hash=item4182a89fdc&_uhb=1 These have some quirks with standoff height in cases but otherwise these are fully featured industrial quality boards with adjustable fan speed. You can get an i5-2520m for less than $50 for it. It has full Intel AMT features with this such as serial over lan and full IP KVM.

@chemlud: My deepest condolences! I couldn't survive something like that for longer than 1 week… ;) Rather thankful for this wonderful invention called air conditioning.  ;) Nevertheless, the Haswell setups are incredible at efficiency.  An i5 with a 3.5" HDD & a SSD takes up about 40W at idle to low loads even without a high efficiency DC PSU.