First build, need advice
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Hey guys, new to the forum. I'm interested in do my first build and am hoping someone here can give me a hand. I work for an ISP and get free internet connections. My free connection is 240/15 and I pay for a fiber connection of 150/150. I'm looking to build a load balancing rig as future proof as possible for my budget(roughly $500-$700). We are launching 2gig up and down here soon so it's going to need a lot of processing power from what I've read( Octa-core 3.5 GHz bare minimum). From what I've read RAM isnt that important and I should be able to skate by with only 4-8 gigs. Where I really need help is picking out the mobo, NICs and case. I have a 19" server rack and would like to be able to put it in a 2U case if I can. I'm looking to do 4 WAN/1 LAN. So I guess what I'm asking is can anyone make some suggestions on what I should get? If anyone has any questions feel free to ask away!
Thanks, ToXZiN 1
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You don't even need that much RAM if you're just going to route & firewall at home. The addition of extra packages may use some of that. I'm running on 2 GB with 9 packages installed including squid, and I'm using about 30% of 2 GB.
I can't recommend any specific mainboards but you should look for something with AES-NI support in the CPU if you're going to do any VPN, and get good NICs such as Intel or Broadcom. If you want to drill down to the nitty-gritty, make sure the hardware you choose is supported by FreeBSD.
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yeah, that's a crazy amount of ram. a default install with a few packages and a VPN server typically uses ~300mb
Don't think I've ever given a pfsense VM more than 2gb in my several years of using it
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^^^^
Mine has 4 GB, but that's just because it's what the refurb computer I used came with. -
Cool. I'll just go with 2GB of RAM then. Thanks for the replies guys and if anyone can recommend a motherboard I'm all ears.