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    4 ports mini PC recommendations

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • johnpozJ Offline
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @chudak
      last edited by

      @chudak my 4860 is getting long in the tooth as well. If I had to replace it today I would go with either the 4200 or 6100 from netgate. Prob lean towards the 6100 because it comes with more ports mostly.. Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 25.07.1 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07.1

      chudakC AndyRHA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • chudakC Offline
        chudak @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

        @chudak my 4860 is getting long in the tooth as well. If I had to replace it today I would go with either the 4200 or 6100 from netgate. Prob lean towards the 6100 because it comes with more ports mostly.. Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

        Will a netgate router be able to not pfS?

        I’m understanding that it won’t.
        I’m not suggesting I will stop using pfS, not all is possible and I don’t want to be limited

        And it’s they are pricey

        johnpozJ patient0P 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • johnpozJ Offline
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @chudak
          last edited by

          @chudak well more than likely it would run that other distro I don't name.. But I have no plans of moving away from pfsense. But interesting that you could leverage the hardware for a different distro.. But to be honest, the hardware isn't some sort of proprietary hardware that only the pfsense distro runs on..

          You could prob more than likely run some linux based distro on it pretty sure - the guy I would ask that sort of question would be @stephenw10

          He would prob know..

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 25.07.1 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07.1

          dennypageD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • patient0P Offline
            patient0 @chudak
            last edited by

            @chudak said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

            Will a netgate router be able to not pfS?

            It does run TNSR which is Linux based and someone benchmarked it: Debian and VPP on Netgate 6100 (back in 2021).

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • provelsP Offline
              provels
              last edited by

              I run mine on a used Adlink MXE-5401 industrial PC from Ebay ($2000 new, got mine for $65). I love these boxes. Used in manufacturing, transportation, etc. Cast chassis, fanless, all solid caps, ton o' ports. They even tack the SODIMMs in with a spot of glue. Meant to be set/forget.

              link

              Love these units so much, I bought 3 more of an older series with i5s just to mess around with, $45/each! Got one running as a 5G AP, another running KVM and the third, Openmediavault.

              There's a new, current production MXE-5500 with i3 on the 'Bay for $150 now, no affiliation. Would love that instead of the i7 I'm using now.

              Peder

              MAIN - pfSense+ 25.07.1-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
              BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • dennypageD Offline
                dennypage @johnpoz
                last edited by

                FWIW, I've run Linux on every Netgate box I've had after it stopped being my principal firewall. I haven't tried with a 6100 yet, because it's still in use as my primary firewall, but I have no reason to believe it would not work as the prior generations did.

                The biggest issue is that you have to specify the console via the command line (console=ttyS1,115200) when booting the install medium, but you have to do this with any device that doesn't have a frame buffer.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • stephenw10S Offline
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Indeed the 6100 can be purchased with TNSR so it definitely can run Linux. I would expect anything Debian based to run fine. Or just about any OS really.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • AndyRHA Online
                    AndyRH @chudak
                    last edited by

                    @chudak There is a newer version: Qotom Q20332G9-S10

                    o||||o
                    7100-1u

                    chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • AndyRHA Online
                      AndyRH @johnpoz
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

                      Like the possibility of those 2 10ge connections.

                      On my 7100, I only use the 2 10Gb ports. 1 fiber in from the ISP and 1 DAC out to my switch. The switch in the 7100 is my emergency in for when I screw up the config. 😊

                      o||||o
                      7100-1u

                      johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • johnpozJ Offline
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @AndyRH
                        last edited by

                        @AndyRH just had to rub it in huh ;) heheheh

                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                        SG-4860 25.07.1 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07.1

                        AndyRHA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • AndyRHA Online
                          AndyRH @johnpoz
                          last edited by

                          @johnpoz Just encouraging the use of 10Gb ports and Netgate devices. Also having only 2 cables in the FW is kinda cool. 😁

                          o||||o
                          7100-1u

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • chudakC Offline
                            chudak @AndyRH
                            last edited by

                            @AndyRH said in 4 ports mini PC recommendations:

                            Qotom Q20332G9-S10

                            Do you use it?

                            AndyRHA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • AndyRHA Online
                              AndyRH @chudak
                              last edited by

                              @chudak No, but it seemed the logical next step since you are retiring a device from the same company. It is also the best one I have seen on the serverthehome reviews.

                              o||||o
                              7100-1u

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • chudakC Offline
                                chudak
                                last edited by

                                Anybody is using Protectli Vault V1410-4 Port ?

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