Soekris 6501 and 500Mbps+ route

acharge · Apr 6, 2014, 11:07 AM

Dear pfSense enthusiasts,

thanks a lot for this community.

I need to find an embedded board to route a 500Mbps / 200Mbps internet access with PPPoE authentication ( on a VLAN ).

I use a lot of soekris boards ( 5501 / 6501 ), and I like soekris hardware and pfSense use.

Do you think 6501-50 ( 1Ghz Atom CPU - 1Gb RAM ) can route this access ? Must I choose a 6501-70 ( 1.6Ghz - 2Gb RAM ) ?

It's for home use, 2 or 3 VLAN, 1 OpenVPN server with less than 10 remote clients, and 3 LAB servers.

Perhaps you know another embedded solution ?

Thanks a lot and have a nice day

A.

jasonlitka · Apr 6, 2014, 2:07 PM

Neither one will come close.

acharge · Apr 6, 2014, 2:11 PM

Hmmm, Thanks.

But do you think it's capable to route full duplex this kind of bandwidth ?

I don't want to be at 100% CPU when I use full bandwidth ! ( no squid / snort )

Thanks a lot

Armel

jasonlitka · Apr 6, 2014, 5:15 PM

If you're talking about Firewall + NAT on a single core 1.0 or 1.6Ghz Atom, no, it's not possible, even if you give up snort, squid, and VPN. If I had to estimate, I'd say no more than 300Mbit/s total on the 1.6Ghz model, and that's based on my own experience with the 1.0Ghz. If you add OpenVPN in the mix (and have pfSense be the server, not a simple port-forward to another box) then you'll see that drop to 40-50Mbit/s (at which point, be prepared for the box to overheat unless you added a larger heat sink).

If you need to push that much traffic then you need to either look at one of the newer Atom C275x or C255x boards or at a Core i3. I'm using a C2758 right now and am very happy with the performance. Based on a few early tests (I've only been using this a little over a week) it should be able to push about 400Mbit/s of my fairly aggressive Snort rules or 500Mbit/s of OpenVPN (without AES-NI) per CPU core. The C2750 would likely be able to do a bit more, 8% or so, because it has Turbo Boost enabled. If all you need is FW+NAT then this thing will easily push that across Gig-E at wire-speed.

acharge · Apr 7, 2014, 5:32 PM

Woaw,

thanks for you reply !!

Atom 8 cores are awesome ! I will check that. Do you know a very cool embedded board with this processor ?

Have a nice day

A.

jasonlitka · Apr 7, 2014, 6:36 PM

@acharge:

Woaw,

thanks for you reply !!

Atom 8 cores are awesome ! I will check that. Do you know a very cool embedded board with this processor ?

Have a nice day

A.

C2758 - http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2758F.cfm
C2750 - http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SAi-2750F.cfm