DYI request - pfSense hardware for 1000Mbps / Giga peformance? (LAN party)

henrik_meyer

Hi,

I need som help finding new hardware for our LAN party pfSense boxes.

Curently we are using two HP DL380 G6 servers with CARP, but they are to heavy moving around (and also a bit noisy ;))

Requirements for the pfSense: it must be able to run full load on a 1000/1000Mbps connection with approx 500 users.
Featureset installed:
FW/NAT
Traffic Limiter (dynamic bandwith sharing)
CARP
Captiveportal

The "fun" part:
I would like this to be in a as small formfactor as possible, and with a as low power consumption as possible. (when not in use at the LAN party, this will be a home LAB)

Thanks in advance guys

mir

Try take a look at these boards:
"cheap" http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2550D4I
2 nics (i210)
"expensive" http://www.asus.com/Commercial_Servers_Workstations/P9AIC25504L/
4 nics (i354 using Marvell 88E1543) + 1 dedicated ipmi nic

All nics works with pfsense >= 2.1.x

asterix

If you are not installing any resource intensive packages, for gigabit up and down an i3 will suffice. You can check out the new Rangley Atom boards but I recommend you go for an i5/i7 with 8GB RAM… more RAM if you will be installing Snort as the UTM needs room to breathe serving 500 users.

henrik_meyer

Thanks for the replies.

I found out, that a Intel G3258 CPU is fairly cheap (half price of the cheapest i3) - would that CPU work?

Any suggestions for motherboard and PSU to that CPU)

asterix

That's comparable to i3. Go for it.

Keljian

There are a few differences, notably ecc memory compatibility avx2 and aes-ni. Your call if you need these

messerchmidt

buy a 4 or 8 core supermicro atom board and add ecc ram, be done with it