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    Hotel with 300 people max, 2 VDSL lines, PC Engines APU4 enough?

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    • C
      costasppc
      last edited by

      Hello,

      We are going to set up WiFi APs in a hotel with 300 people capacity max (sometimes is full). They will get 2 VDSL lines. As for pfsense (WAN routing and firewalling, no IDS), do you think that a PC Engines APU4 is enough to handle the load, or shall we check for a regular small factor PC, like an HP Compaq 8200 Elite Small Form Factor PC?

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      • P
        pfBasic Banned
        last edited by

        How much bandwidth on the WAN?

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        • C
          costasppc
          last edited by

          Waiting for ISP to respond, but it will be either 2 x 24 or 2 x 50 Mbps.

          Best regards

          Kostas

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          • P
            pfBasic Banned
            last edited by

            That connection should be easily attainable on just about any hardware.

            That being said this is the first time I've heard of the APU4, https://store.netgate.com/APU4.aspx

            I don't really know how the netgate / pfSense integration works as that is sold on netgates site but not the pfSense store?
            So I guess it is offical-ish?
            I don't know why there is a

            netgate.com/products/pfsense-appliance.html
            and
            store.netgate.com/pfSense/systems.aspx
            Selling the same stuff?

            I find it strange that a netgate pfSense box would be sold with realtek NICs.

            Hopefully someone else can chime in on this product, seems weird to me.

            Again your needs won't require a high-end firewall so it should be fine. Your main concern should be getting quality WAP's (ubiquiti).

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            • DerelictD
              Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
              last edited by

              The Netgate APU4 was a PC Engines AMD T40E APU with 4GB RAM. The Netgate APU2 was the same unit with 2GB RAM. Both had three Realtek NICs. They were generally not of the problematic variety.

              PC Engines later shipped an APU2 board with Intel NICs to add to the confusion. Netgate never shipped anything based on that board.

              An APU4 should handle that workload. I would probably want to run a standard install on mSATA instead of SD/NanoBSD though.

              An SG-2440 or SG-4860 would be what I would use, however. Maybe even a pair of them configured High-Availability. I question the plan to deploy an essentially-obsolete device in a new installation.

              Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
              A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
              DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
              Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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              • P
                pfBasic Banned
                last edited by

                Thanks for the clarification!

                The APU units get recommended a lot on here because they are relatively cheap, very low power and can handle the load of most home users not interested in heavy duty packages. Derelict has a great point about them being obsolete though. The SG units also come with support and a year of Gold, the APU4 does not.

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