PfSense on laptop – Which NIC to get?

doremi

Hello, super n00b here. I have an old laptop (HP dv5-1250us) that I'd like to turn into a router. I'm told that I need at least two NICs for this. I'm at a loss of what NIC to get for my laptop. Any help?

I'm sorry if this is really nooby, but I'm just getting into this. ):

stephenw10

pfSense 2.0.1 (the most recent release) is based on FreeBSD 8.1 and hence supports hardware listed here:
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.1R/hardware.html

It looks like you have an express card slot which would be the best expansion option for you though I've never tried that with FreeBSD. :-\ USB NICs are generally regarded as poor performers both in terms of reliability and throughput. Some people are using them with no problems though so YMMV.

Another possibility is to use a VLAN capable switch to create VLAN interfaces. In this situation you only need a single NIC.

Steve