Gaming Desktop PC > PfSense
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ECC ram is always better when you are dealing with reading and writing mass storage - That said, I've never used it for a personal rig.
If the stuff I was dealing with was financial stuff for a fortune 500 guy, maybe I would.
You can also build chat servers, phone servers, email servers, whatever servers…
You can stick a windows machine in there headless so that you can use it remotely and no one can possibly access your desktop.
Run a vent server on the desktop - I do... Not for me. For the kids.Use your imagination.
Thanks man, you just opened up a new door for me. Im making server and firewall for my fast growing kid :)
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I know a lot of people run pfSense as a VM, as did I for a while, but consider running it on dedicated hardware. Why?
If you have a problem with ESXi, say, due to an upgrade issue, or due to a mismangement of a virtual switch, your access to the Internet will be down. If you have a second way to get to the 'Net, you are OK, but if you do not, you won't be able to use a search engine to help you figure out how to fix the problem that took down your ESXi box.
I say this from experience: With ESXi 5.1, VMware dropped support ~and~ drives for my onboard Intel NICs one of my ESXi servers. I had to find the workaround, which is to load up 5.0 drivers onto a USB key and mount that on the server. A year or so later when I upgraded to 5.5 the same thing happened (I had forgotten about it completely).
When I ran pfSense in a VM, for a while I had it clustered using CARP to a low power, slow ALIX system. That way I had the speed of the VM, and when rebooting my server, I'd fall back to my older pfSense platform.
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While potentially veering off topic;
I know vmware is the most popular virtualisation platform, but KVM is way more flexible than exsi, in that wireless with relatively up to date drivers can run on the linux host along with lots more services/hardware that are not readily available on pfsense and pfsense can run virtualised dealing with the ethernet connections.
Host upgrades also tend to be somewhat less complex than esxi.
But yes, when any virtualised setup does goes down, it's a pain to get an internet connection to be able to research & fix the problem. -
Im still learning about VM, so the way Im looking at it is this( from what I learned so far) my ESXI server will connect to a ISP modem( the way im thinking is it directly connected then I don't see the firewall making sense, since its not really behind it) The way Im planning is, create pfsense in esxi, specify which ports for wan and lan, and then connect ISP modem to wan and lan to router/switch(w/e the case), I just don't want my whole network to get compromised :)
** EDIT **
Forgot one more thing, so if pfsense is on own hardware and my ESXI is behind it, which makes more sense, basically im trying to learn and understand in the same time. Looking for a way to not compromise the net. Thank you gents -
I've currently have pfSense running as a VM on a Supermicro Atom A1SRI-2758F. I'm loving it right now. That being said, as someone who is gearing up for the VCP, I'm moving this onto hardware as soon as possible, given that I will be likely killing my VM host at some point in my tinkering/studies. Luckily, I found another A1SRI-2758F as open box on newegg for 266, so that is going to become my dedicated pfSense appliance; hopefully on Friday.
Sorta got off topic. pfSense works great as a VM, but it's about weighing your needs. In my case, I wanted to side on the option that makes sure I have internet at all times.
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I've currently have pfSense running as a VM on a Supermicro Atom A1SRI-2758F. I'm loving it right now. That being said, as someone who is gearing up for the VCP, I'm moving this onto hardware as soon as possible, given that I will be likely killing my VM host at some point in my tinkering/studies. Luckily, I found another A1SRI-2758F as open box on newegg for 266, so that is going to become my dedicated pfSense appliance; hopefully on Friday.
Sorta got off topic. pfSense works great as a VM, but it's about weighing your needs. In my case, I wanted to side on the option that makes sure I have internet at all times.
Thank you, this is all tempting, and im going for it. If we wont have internet my wifi would probably kill me hehehe
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Yep that hardware is total overkill for just a pfSense install. Running as a VM with other VMs will at least allow you to use the hardware better. I would have some doubts about running FreeNAS as a VM though if you're hoping to get the most out of it:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/please-do-not-run-freenas-in-production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/Steve
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A dual-core haskwell celeron @ 2.8 ghz stays at 500mhz during normal use with 1000/1000 internet fiber connection. What you have is surely overkill :)
If you want to run nas4free / freenas as a vm you would need VT-D support in esxi to allow direct access to the drives BUT the risk of data loss is high - on the nas4free forum there are alot of people that lost data that way. Go to nas4free and freenas forums and read every topic on the matter and if you feel comfortable with it go for it - i run my second nas4free home server like that but i backup daily my data over to my primary nas4free server.
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thank you guys for your suggestions and time to reply. i have some old pc's laying around with ddr2, so ill guess ill use that for freenas and my gaming machine ill use vm all kind of OS's :)
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Try to measure your power power consumption with the older hardware. Some use so much power it's not worth using it over buying a new small board that uses 1/10 of the electricity..
