Small 4 NIC (AES-NI) system
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Hi,
I have pfsense running on an apu2c4 board which I really like, but the one thing that's bothering me is that I don't have 4 NICs. So I'm looking for an alternative that has 4 NICs and a CPU with AES-NI. I would like to stay with Quadcore if possible and I will add a small SSD and at least 4GB RAM. Price should be close to the apu2c4 setup and not double the price. This excludes the nice supermicro boards like Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F. I found some J1900 systems with 4 NICs but that CPU has no AES-NI, the Atom E3845 is getting old as well.
It should handle 2 WANs (200/25 docsis, 100/40 vdsl) and the normal LAN traffic. The NICs are WAN1, WAN2, LAN and DMZ. I would like to avoid the workaround with VLANs since I already use them for the LAN and wanted to have the DMZ split in a nice way.
Thanks
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I just did one of these-
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31594920-
HP t730 with an HP 4 port interface. Working quite well.
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pfSense SG-2440 would be nice matching too, to that case of usage.
Here is a nice case for setting up an APU2C4 board with 2,5" SSD and two extra GB LAN Ports
over a miniPCIe card. Store Calexium APU2C4 case ~42 (amazon.de)miniPCIe 2 GB LAN Ports ~60 €
DeLock miniPCIe 2 GB LAN Ports ~60 € -
Have you seen the QOTOM topic? https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=132528.0
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@BlueKobold:
pfSense SG-2440 would be nice matching too, to that case of usage.
My first thought also, but they are no longer available. They were also more than twice the cost of an APU2. The SG-3100 is twice an APU2, and it's ARM. Even something like a QOTOM or Protectli is going to be around twice an APU2.
The only thread I remember detailing using a miniPICe card in an APU noted they tend to overheat and fail. -
The cost of the APU2 really depends on your location. Here, it is more expensive than any Qotom box.
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I was writing, "pfSense SG-2440 would be nice matching too, to that case of usage." and not to the wished
price range. Sorry for being so unclear. It must be owed to my poor english language skills.They were also more than twice the cost of an APU2.
Nearly all with 4 Intel based NICs or GB LAN Ports is much more or double the price of an APU2C4
or not with so strong horse power as the APU2C4.The only thread I remember detailing using a miniPICe card in an APU noted they tend to overheat and fail.
I konw one guy personally that is using this custom based case and an Intel based miniPCIe card with
2 GB LAN Port and then I was reading about it here in that forum one or two times again about it, but
noting wrong with it.The cost of the APU2 really depends on your location. Here, it is more expensive than any Qotom box.
Well this is right and also owed to the on top coming shipment fee, tax and customs for that packet to the USA.
Able to get for ~179 € here for the case, board and PSU. -
@BlueKobold:
The cost of the APU2 really depends on your location. Here, it is more expensive than any Qotom box.
Well this is right and also owed to the on top coming shipment fee, tax and customs for that packet to the USA.
Able to get for ~179 € here for the case, board and PSU.It's cheaper than that to the US.
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@BlueKobold:
Sorry for being so unclear. It must be owed to my poor english language skills.
No problem. In your country, the best I can manage is ordering two wheat beers and explaining that I don't speak the language well.
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I've just checked again to be sure, and a new shop in my country actually imports them in volume. They are (at current exchange rates) 160 USD for a bare APU2C4 board, excluding tax, shipping and import. When adding tax, shipping and a case, it's over 290 USD making it about the price of an i5 Qotom with SSD and RAM included, which is 301 USD.
But it really depends on needs, location and if you have issues dealing with china directly ;) So tell us more norg ;D
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@johnkeates:
I've just checked again to be sure, and a new shop in my country actually imports them in volume. They are (at current exchange rates) 160 USD for a bare board, excluding tax, shipping and import. When adding tax, shipping and a case, it's over 290 USD making it about the price of an i5 Qotom with SSD and RAM included, which is 301 USD.
But it really depends on needs, location and if you have issues dealing with china directly ;) So tell us more norg ;D
+1 for the Qotom, and I own two APU's as well.
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To be more specific, the APU2c4 would cost me ~190 Euro (~225 US $) with case, power supply, 16gb msata ssd. So seems to be quite cheap.
Which quotum do you recommend? The Q190 would be nice if the J1900 would include AES-NI although it might be fast enough even without it. I also saw that Intel QA might also help with Crypto.
I would like to buy it in Germany or at least in Europe, aliexpress might have nice offers but I'm not a huge fan right now. Maybe I should invest more and get the supermicro SYS-E200-9A.
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To be more specific, the APU2c4 would cost me ~190 Euro (~225 US $) with case, power supply, 16gb msata ssd. So seems to be quite cheap.
Which quotum do you recommend? The Q190 would be nice if the J1900 would include AES-NI although it might be fast enough even without it. I also saw that Intel QA might also help with Crypto.
I would like to buy it in Germany or at least in Europe, aliexpress might have nice offers but I'm not a huge fan right now. Maybe I should invest more and get the supermicro SYS-E200-9A.
Well, a ton of consumer european import comes form Aliexpress already so all you'd be doing differently is cutting out the middle man ;D Anyway, a Qotom i5 with 8G RAM and 30G SSD cost me about 240 euro and that's with DHL shipping and taxes included.
The thing with some manufacturers in China is that they only have an official store on Alibaba and Aliexpress because that's native to their business. The only reason you'd see their products on other websites is because someone is buying them from their store, rebranding them and slapping on 100 bucks of profit. Often they'll even dropship meaning they order it for you on Aliexpress and have it delivered to you meaning they only have to relay the orders and wait for the money to pour in.
The classical way would be vendors and retailers setting up businesses in target countries and having products manufactured somewhere and distributing them everywhere themselves, but unless you are a big player like Microsoft, Apple, Sony etc. that no longer makes sense as you can't really make any money off of that unless you have a very large volume. That is why for the USA you have Amazon and maybe Newegg, but for products out of Asia it's mostly Aliexpress/Alibaba and Ebay, even for new, direct from manufacturing products. Most OEM/ODM companies and manufacturers are in China and other asian countries nearby, it's where the stuff is made, and they all use Alibaba/Aliexpress and maybe Taobao (where they ironically often use generic white people to show off clothes for the Asian market). It used to be problematic to buy stuff directly from the manufacturer, but with the current state of eCommerce and the guarantees those giants like Amazon and Aliexpress (and PayPal) can make it's just as easy to buy it directly from the people that make the stuff. The one very big difference is support, but a ton of people buy stuff from retailers and vendors in their home country and never use their support, which makes it a useless service since you pay for it but never use it. I know that Microsoft has support for retail Windows licences, you can call them and they'll help, but practically nobody uses it. They might get a million calls a day vs. the billions of people that are entitled to support.
So if you can live without western technical phone support, buying directly will do just fine.
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Do you mean the Qotum Q355G4 with that? seems to fit the specs you mentioned and yep unless I add taxes that's a nice price.
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Do you mean the Qotum Q355G4 with that? seems to fit the specs you mentioned and yep unless I add taxes that's a nice price.
Yep, the Q355G4.
