Netgate FW-7541D rack mount system - mini review
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I like it. No moving parts.
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Frankly speaking.. I don't see how $618 for a mere Atom system with 2GB RAM is considered affordable.
A good powerful i3 system with 4GB of RAM can be built for much less price than that.
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Its a question of ultimate reliability vs power. Anything without a fan can be installed and forgotten about.
This thing isn't near as powerful as my old system, but it would probability be ubber reliability unattended.
But yeah - for $600, I can keep a fan clean at home. Unattended, I like this one better. -
You are also paying for the fact that it's pre-assembled and tested and that it's been certified by the dev team as being all pfSense compatible. Those things can be worth a lot depending on your requirements.
Steve
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After a good workout with Snort over the next few days I'll see if it gets hot… I've got a 100MB connection and require Snort because I sometime need to visit hostile web sites.
Hey Kelly
Would you mind updating us on how Snort fared on your 100Mbit connection on this 7541? I've got a similar situation and was wondering if this low-power system was up to the challenge of running IPS at such high speeds without sacrificing too much performance. Thank you -
Frankly speaking.. I don't see how $618 for a mere Atom system with 2GB RAM is considered affordable.
A good powerful i3 system with 4GB of RAM can be built for much less price than that.
I wouldn't call it a "mere" atom system. Figure the cost of a supermicro 1U atom w/onboard Intel + RAM + Storage + new 4-port Intel NIC ($300-400 in some cases!), it would land somewhere in the same neighborhood, plus it wouldn't have the same level of integration and testing.
It's a great little box for what it does. Sure, not everyone needs that level of embedded system with that many NICs, but for those that do, it's worth the money.
Also not everyone is into building their own servers and they want something pre-loaded that's guaranteed to run and run well.
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I'm figuring its a cold running processor with probably all solid caps on the board and loads of aluminium to keep the heat away with no moving parts. I figure its a machine for people who can't risk things not working.
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I understand you are trying to support the company.. but just being honest (its my take) atom motherboards barely need any integration. CPU is already attached to the mobo.. no fans with passive CPU cooling it many of them. Just add RAM, HDD, NIC and plug in the PSU (no rocket science)
I would rather learn how to assemble a system rather than paying premium for a snail.
Same take on Apple Macbooks.. all companies offer 1 yr hardware warranties with additional warranty for $$. I can't find the excuse on paying more than double (may be at times triple) the cost for a less powerful laptop than Sony, HP, Asus..etc offer. No drivers issues on Mac is just coz they have nothing else to offer except one set of hardware.
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After a good workout with Snort over the next few days I'll see if it gets hot… I've got a 100MB connection and require Snort because I sometime need to visit hostile web sites.
Hey Kelly
Would you mind updating us on how Snort fared on your 100Mbit connection on this 7541? I've got a similar situation and was wondering if this low-power system was up to the challenge of running IPS at such high speeds without sacrificing too much performance. Thank youSure, it has been working pretty well and I've been happy with it. I'm running Snort with the paid VRT rules and the Emerging Threats database and it's configured with the IPS policy of Security, so it looks at everything. Performance "feels" very good but I haven't done any formal tests. I had to configure Snort with the "ACS" performance profile because the daemon just wouldn't keep running if I tried a higher performance setting. I suspect it was running out of memory, I only have 2 GB installed. One day I'll pickup another DIMM and try a new setting. I only have up to about 5 people on the system at once, and often just one or two people, but I'm a heavy user and work in IT so I figure I've given it a pretty good workout for one person. :)
Overall I've been pretty happy with things… that is, up until the pfsense 2.1 release, which killed my system and left me with hours of troubleshooting... that's another discussion altogether and I'm starting a separate thread about that later tonight to ask for some help...
Sorry for the late reply.
Kelly
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Frankly speaking.. I don't see how $618 for a mere Atom system with 2GB RAM is considered affordable.
A good powerful i3 system with 4GB of RAM can be built for much less price than that.
I don't disagree but I wanted a rack mount system, and it's not so much fun to build a rack mount 1U whitebox… having done that before, I told myself never again... :)
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Frankly speaking.. I don't see how $618 for a mere Atom system with 2GB RAM is considered affordable.
A good powerful i3 system with 4GB of RAM can be built for much less price than that.
I don't disagree but I wanted a rack mount system, and it's not so much fun to build a rack mount 1U whitebox… having done that before, I told myself never again... :)
Did you check out http://www.plinkusa.net/
All parts are listed. Straight forward shopping for all 1U parts. Easy assembly ;) .. lastly.. cheaper and way powerful than Netgate. 8)
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Did you check out http://www.plinkusa.net/
All parts are listed. Straight forward shopping for all 1U parts. Easy assembly ;) .. lastly.. cheaper and way powerful than Netgate. 8)
Thanks for that link, I haven't seen simple 1U cases and power supplies like that before. Their cases and power supplies look neat enough that I might be brave enough to build another whitebox 1U server one day.
However another big reason I bought the FW-7541 was simplicity, it's a single board computer with no moving parts so I believe it should be more reliable than other more complex systems that have many moving parts. The Atom processor is plenty power for my needs, I get good speeds on GigE, my Snort IPS works well, and it doesn't consume much power so it runs longer on my UPS when the power is out.
Now if I could just get the system to support pfSense 2.1… I'm stuck on 2.0.3 for the time being, since I use a non-standard config with a full install of pfSense (instead of the embedded version it shipped with), and an external SSD instead of the built-in CF card. It sounds like Netgate is working on an update.
Incidentally, the motherboard has 3G capabilities. Does anyone know what the 3G can be used for? I have visions of using this firewall at the cottage one day over 3G (some remote places up here in the mountains have no high-speed internet)...
thanks,
Kelly -
You mean it has a SIM card slot? Interestingly I can't find that referenced anywhere. It's probably so you can use a mini-PCIe modem, as you would in a laptop/netbook.
Steve
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Hello,
Just a quick question:)
The 6 LAN ports can they be changed to wan ports, as I have 4 ADSL at home and need to load balance between them, today I have pfsense setup on an old computer with 4 port network card and using the motherboard lan back to the switch ??
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Yes, pfSense just sees them as NICs. You can assign them to WANs or LANs or configure a more complex setup that blurs the lines. :)
Steve