Looking for Low Power Budget Build Suggestions (BC, Canada)
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@strigona Am running an often maligned (everybody has an opinion) MiniSys 4 port, cheapest from AlliExpress, I've seen under usd$200, add your own SSD+Ram. 10 WATTS! and a side benefit NO FAN, although it does run a little warm (50c idle) but if u have fan-ed rack it should be fine, be sure to get the AES-NI ready, Intel NICs favored by Pfsense. You maybe able to get away with it looking for a used Atom-class, 300+ Passmark fine, from eBay. Just don't buy anything proprietary, Pfsense loads on any standard PC box fine.
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I like the Qotom boxes myself, especially the i3 which has AES-NI and uses Intel NICs.
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@rnatalli until they fail.
I have just replaced my current system (n54l) with an i7 4770 with multiple intel pcie nics 80+ PSU so its low power with way more grunt than I will ever need.My current system CPU is always above 60% and 8gb out of 16gb ram usage. that's without snort or vpn active.
edit. around 300aud
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@SLIMaxPower Curious what package you are running to have 60% load on i7. From experience, the cpu intensive application is ips/ids (Snort,Suricate) and VPN.
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@mdahal Sorry I was talking about the N54l with 16gb ecc and intel nics. I am running a large list through pfblockrng, plus snort (not actively blocking), schedules (which don't block udp - apparently fixed in 2.5+, plus some less intensive options.
The QotoM and PFsense etc appliances are fine for basic/intermediate stuff. Packages should be run off other clients/vm's to take use of performance.
The i7 will not even struggle even with 6 intel nic's - still deciding on how much ram I should jam in it though.
To me it's a an investment for something I know will run for years and is generally cheap on power once configured, and easy to replace if your a smart.
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@slimaxpower said in Looking for Low Power Budget Build Suggestions (BC, Canada):
schedules (which don't block udp - apparently fixed in 2.5+
Hmm, I'm not aware of that. Is there a bug open/resolved for that? I don't see one. And do you mean in 2.4.4?
Steve
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@stephenw10 If you check the firewall/schedule thread your will find many users with complaints about traffic not getting cut off when schedules expire. udp traffic seems to be the main culprit.
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@stephenw10 said in Looking for Low Power Budget Build Suggestions (BC, Canada):
Hmm, I'm not aware of that. Is there a bug open/resolved for that? I don't see one. And do you mean in 2.4.4?
Blocking scheduling not quite working and https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/8820
Some issue with "pfctl" ....
This issue isn't a goal for the upcoming "2.4.4" ( https://redmine.pfsense.org/projects/pfsense/issues?fixed_version_id=46&set_filter=1&status_id=o ) -
@gertjan that is only part of the problem. even after manually resetting the states udp reconnects.
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@slimaxpower said in Looking for Low Power Budget Build Suggestions (BC, Canada):
@rnatalli until they fail.
I have just replaced my current system (n54l) with an i7 4770 with multiple intel pcie nics 80+ PSU so its low power with way more grunt than I will ever need.My current system CPU is always above 60% and 8gb out of 16gb ram usage. that's without snort or vpn active.
edit. around 300aud
Hi @SLIMaxPower would it be possible to get some more details of your build please? I'm also in Australia, finding it hard to put together something low-power for around the $300 level that would suit.
Thanks!
