Watchguard Firebox performance
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Hi,
I've tried reading through some of the watchguard posts…. :o some are very long anyway wondering if anyone could help me.
Trying to determine whether i should go down this path and if it is going to work for me. Appart from these I was looking at supermicro 1U cases with the atom CPU.
The plan is for 2 x firebox in a load balance sync.
Throughput around 500GB per month, It will need to run Squid and squidguard, ntop usage and a few graphing addons, snort etc etc.
Will they handle it or should i look for something else?
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I would say get one of the Firebox X E series, and you shouldn't have a problem.
I have the X1250e and have throughput of approx 10 gig a day and it is fine.
I don't run squid/snort but I have in the past and the CPU usage was quite high but it didn't overload it, but for approx £5 you can stick a 1.7Ghz celeron in there which should easy cope or I believe you can go even higher processor wise if you wish.
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Thanks, i've read somewhere that all firebox's are the same from 500 up to 1100's ? its just the licensing that changes, watchguard of course?
I'll plan on putting the biggest cpu most ram in these too, figure they are still much cheaper then a new machine.
Not 100% on how the load balancing will work but i could run a VM with a 3rd pfsense for the squid.
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Yeah, the ranges are the same hardware:
X500 X700 X1000 are all the same hardware
X550e X750e X1250e are all the same hardwareI would steer clear of the X500, X700, X1000 as they have the rubbish realtek nics the newer e-series boxes have broadcom's IIRC
So pick up a X550e, X750e or X1250e
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Great thanks for that, thats going to make thing harder they are like rocking horse shit over here :(
Will have to search overseas ebay.
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:( there are usually loads on the UK ebay
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got one for $1000 and another for $9999 australian ebay :o decisions decisions.
Thanks i'll have a look on the UK site and hope someone will post to me.
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Blimey!! I paid about £200 GBP for mine!
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got one for $1000 and another for $9999 australian ebay :o decisions decisions.
What! :o I paid £40 each for mine and one of those was an X5500-E originally far more expensive.
The value of the Firebox units is entirely in the software licensing, if it comes with a years subscription it's going to be valuable.They're Marvell NICs in the X-e boxes and two different types. There is currently a driver problem with the additional 4 NICs found on the X750e and higher boxes that can cause lockups. The other four work perfectly and the driver problem will almost certainly be fixed by the move to FreeBSD 9 for the upcoming pfSense 2.1.
Steve
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Sorry yes Steve is correct they are Marvel, which arnt great but a lot better than the realtek's!
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got one for $1000 and another for $9999 australian ebay :o decisions decisions.
What! :o I paid £40 each for mine and one of those was an X5500-E originally far more expensive.
The value of the Firebox units is entirely in the software licensing, if it comes with a years subscription it's going to be valuable.They're Marvell NICs in the X-e boxes and two different types. There is currently a driver problem with the additional 4 NICs found on the X750e and higher boxes that can cause lockups. The other four work perfectly and the driver problem will almost certainly be fixed by the move to FreeBSD 9 for the upcoming pfSense 2.1.
Steve
So i should be after the X5500-E is what you are saying? hows this one http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/WATCHGUARD-FIREBOX-X5500E-FIREWALL-W-3YR-UTM-BUNDLE-NEW-/170536869134?pt=AU_Networking&hash=item27b4ca1d0e
Geez feel like finding me a few for $40 or f?
I did have a X500 but i had to let go of it…. by let go i mean holding it in two hands and bridging the power supply with the lid open while it was running, the electric shock threw it out of my arms :D ::) Anyway that was a while ago i haven't touched one since.
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I forgot to mention there will be about 10-20 IPSEC VPN tunnels hanging off these too.
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The X5500 is the firebox peak they are better because they have intel nics IIRC but they are expensive, the X550e X750e X1250e should be fine for you.
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thanks for your help, i'll see if i can't find one.
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Steve is right with the watchguards the cost is in the software/licences you are best off trying to find a x550e or x750e without any subscriptions as it will be a lot cheaper.
Quite often they come up pulled working from environments but without any subscriptions or even the passwords, they are the ones you want :)
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the electric shock threw it out of my arms
Well that doesn't sound like fun!
Like their previous range Watchguard released the X-e boxes in two groups, X-Core-E and X-Peak-E. The two look identical from the outside and use the same motherboard. The peak units have a faster CPU, 2GHz Pentium-M vs 1.3GHz Celeron, more ram and VPN accelerator card.
Almost none of that is any advantage for pfSense! The VPN card isn't supported, RAM can be had for pennies on Ebay and the CPU (at least under 2.0) doesn't throttle correctly so it runs hot.The X-Peak-e boxes are not worth buying for pfSense. Stick to the X-core-e boxes. You can add ram if you find it's not enough, any old DDR2 sticks will work, and swap out the CPU.
The VPN performance is not great TBH. See my test results here.
What is your conncetion speed?Steve
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Steve I thought the Peak had intel nics?
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The previous generation X-Peak (no E) had 9 all Intel NICs and a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 CPU. Not as fast as the E box and uses more power. They are incredibly rare it seems. I have one, it's great! ;D
Steve
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Ahhh ok, I will stop looking out for a cheap one on ebay then if the newer peaks are the same mobo etc as the cores :D
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Yep don't bother. I only bought one because it was really cheap, it had a dead CF card which wasn't a problem for me. I was hoping the vpn card might be interesting but I think it's proprietary. When I connect it I just get an interupt flood and it's not seen by the OS. It is quoted as supporting 600Mbps VPN throughput though, which would be nice.
Steve
