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    Athlon 5350 pfsense box

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    • M
      messerchmidt
      last edited by

      hi all,

      ok after much research, going with the Athlon 5350 @ am1 - low power, supports ecc and aes-ni.

      Asus AM1M-A as ecc is confirmed working (http://www.overclock.net/t/1495837/ecc-works-on-am1)

      An ebay dual lan intel EXPI9402PT Intel PRO/1000 PCI-e. - Will this work on the amd platform? (Intel 82571GB Gigabit Controller)

      I have an old atx case and will pickup an antec or seasonic 300w psu.

      Was going to use a Transcend - 133x 8GB+ CF card on a cd-sata adaptor. (http://www.amazon.ca/Bootable-Compact-Flash-Converter-Adapter/dp/B0030D3T16)

      Suggestions? its for home use.

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      • K
        kejianshi
        last edited by

        If you are going to go this route, just use a regular SSD say 64GB or more.  It will be more reliable.

        The network card is Compatible with x4, x8, and x16 full-height PCI Express slots - It will work in the video card slot.

        Why did you decide to go with this instead of a smaller lower power board with Dual Intel NICs ?  Money?

        I'm not sure if the board is super compatible with pfsense or not.  Not aware if others are already using this board.

        Lets say I had this board laying around and a power supply for it and a drive and old case - Sure, I'd make a pfsense wih it.

        But if I didn't already have all that laying around, I'd go a different route.

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        • M
          messerchmidt
          last edited by

          I am going to give it a shot. anything with similar performance costs 4x as much. At the end of the day, its for home use.

          if all else fails, I will use this to upgrade my freenas box which is running on an 8 year old core2 with 4gb of ram (my mext upg)

          I read that SSDs tend to die in pfsense boxes. I could use a hard drive. I am not sure what to use - a slc ssd ,even a small one, seems stupidly expensive.

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          • M
            messerchmidt
            last edited by

            the Athlon 5350 seems to eat the Celeron j 1900

            http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5334/24/amd-am1-vs-intel-bay-trail-d-review-cheap-desktop-platforms-benchmarks-truecrypt-71-aes-+-aes-ni

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            • K
              kejianshi
              last edited by

              I'm sure it will work fine - I have pfsense in a few places.

              The one I like the best is an old Athlon X2 with a bunch of intel NICs in all its slots.

              Including the video slot.

              Its old and ugly but it always works.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                What sort of throughput are you looking for?
                Are you going to be running any packages? VPNs?

                Steve

                Edit: typo

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                • M
                  messerchmidt
                  last edited by

                  cable @ 60/10

                  I run one vpn for my torrents

                  will be running a openvpm server to allow someone to connect to my network

                  this is overkill, but should work ok

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                  • M
                    messerchmidt
                    last edited by

                    what should I use for storage?

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

                      Depends what packages you're running. If you're not running Snort or Squid then just run Nano and boot from flash.

                      There is a tremendous amount of misinformation regarding SSDs floating about here. If you buy a decent SSD you will have no problems with it. Much of the bad rep is based on early SSDs with bad firmware.

                      Steve

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                      • P
                        P3R
                        last edited by

                        @messerchmidt:

                        cable @ 60/10

                        So the AES-NI-support (even when it comes to pfSense in the future) will make no difference.

                        I don't care what you choose and I'm not saying anything against the Athlon here, only recommending that you shouldn't over-interpret the AES-NI-difference.

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          ^ Exactly.  ;)

                          The Athlon has a lower idle power consumption for example so make sense from that point of view. AES-NI is going to make a huge difference in high end applications but for soho use most hardware is already easily capable.

                          Steve

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                          • K
                            kejianshi
                            last edited by

                            You have a computer the size of a house with real sata interfaces…
                            For god sake, don't run nano.
                            Run a normal full install - You will be glad you did.

                            Unless being pen pals with the nano support crew is how you want to spend your weekends at every update?

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                            • P
                              P3R
                              last edited by

                              @kejianshi:

                              Unless being pen pals with the nano support crew is how you want to spend your weekends at every update?

                              I'm nowhere near being as experienced as you but I run two nanos and one full install in production since the initial 2.1 release. I have (so far) experienced no upgrade problems with any of them.

                              I hope not but maybe it's just because I'm a very lucky guy my nanos work well…

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                              • E
                                Escorpiom
                                last edited by

                                AMD for home use may be OK.
                                For anything else, AMD is not getting my money. They may have improved over time, but I've had some real bad issues with AMD platforms in the past.

                                Cheers.

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                                • K
                                  kejianshi
                                  last edited by

                                  Different approach then…

                                  Why do you dislike a full install for your application?

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    @kejianshi:

                                    Unless being pen pals with the nano support crew is how you want to spend your weekends at every update?

                                    ;D Ha!
                                    Yes, the last two updates suffered an unfortunate error that affected some hardware. That was an exception though and the built in backup in Nano made it easy to recover (as long as you had local access to the box!).

                                    Steve

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                                    • M
                                      messerchmidt
                                      last edited by

                                      I have an old 60gb vertex2 that I can use.

                                      I will have local access, box will be in the basement by the cable modem

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        I have a couple of those and they haven't given my any trouble (not running under pfSense though). However they do not have a good reputation for reliability.

                                        Steve

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                                        • K
                                          kejianshi
                                          last edited by

                                          I've been interested to give one of these a try for a while.

                                          http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingspec-Industrial-Disk-on-Module-SATA-DOM-7Pins-16GB-SLC-1CH-for-POS-Machines-/161299486599?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item258e32d787

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                                          • E
                                            Escorpiom
                                            last edited by

                                            yes, afordable SLC at last.
                                            Found a larger one, two channels:

                                            http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingspec-Industrial-Disk-on-Module-SATA-DOM-7Pins-32GB-SLC-2CH-for-POS-Machines-/161279269555?talgo=origal&tfrom=151281943955&ttype=price&tpos=unknow

                                            I'll try one my SM2558.

                                            Cheers.

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