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    Returning user needs a new pfSense box!

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    • B Offline
      bluepr0 @bluepr0
      last edited by bluepr0

      @stephenw10 thanks a lot for your reply! I've checked but both of these go way too much over my budget, sadly. Just as a constructive critique would be great to get a performance chart on the Netgate shop for each device, like the max routing speed, the OpenVPN speeds, adding Suricata, etc. I think that could make people's life easier when trying to pick a device right for them

      Anyway! I found 2 boxes that seems to be quite interesting and I was wondering what do you people think about it based on my needs? I'm not entirely sure which one I should pick up:

      Qotom Q355G4:

      • Intel Core i5-5200U Processor, dual core,3M Cache,2.2GHz up to 2.7GHz, Intel HD Graphics 5500.
      • 4 LAN Ports
      • 4GB RAM
      • 32GB SSD
        Price 237€ including shipping

      or

      Qotom Q530G6:

      • Q530G6:Intel 6th Gen Core i3-6100U Skylake Dual Core, 3 M Cache, 2,3 GHz.HD Intel® 520
      • 6 LAN Ports
      • 4GB] RAM
      • 32GB SSD
        Price 226€ including shipping

      Looking at the ark.intel.com comparison (see https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=88180,85212) the i3 is newer and got more memory bandwidth as it uses DDR4 so looks like the better choice... or am I getting blind by numbers and should consider something else?

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      • stephenw10S Offline
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Mmm, I can't really advise you there. 😉

        Qotom have long been in our bad books for trademark abuse.

        Steve

        B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • B Offline
          bluepr0 @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 oh wow, why is that?

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          • stephenw10S Offline
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by stephenw10

            Why did they abuse our trademark? To sell more hardware without contributing in any way to the project I would guess.

            I can't advise you to buy from them as it directly conflicts with Netgate's interests and they pay me so I can eat! ☺

            I rather see you buy a second hand Watchguard box really. But I have weakness in that area. 😉

            I'm sure someone else can let you know if either of those would be suitable, there are many people running them.

            Steve

            B 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • B Offline
              bluepr0 @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 oh I didn't know, I don't feel comfortable buying from such a company now. Will see what else is around, thanks!

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              • B Offline
                bluepr0 @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10 that being said, if I would be interested in the SG-3100 where I could get numbers regarding routing speeds without anything installed, with OpenVPN, with Suricata, etc, etc?

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                • stephenw10S Offline
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  On the SG-3100 I have here which is configure in quite a complex way I see close to Gigabit with firewall+NAT using iperf3. >900Mbps. ~100Mbps OpenVPN and ~300Mbps IPSec using AES-128+SHA1.
                  Numbers can vary wildly using Snort/Suricata depending on what rules you have loaded and the detection tuning. However with a fairly default Suricata install on WAN I see 750-800Mbps.

                  Those are all tests with iperf3 so TCP with 1500B packets.

                  Steve

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                  • B Offline
                    bluepr0 @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 Thanks a lot!

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                    • B Offline
                      bluepr0 @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 so I really wanted to buy Netgate product but the price in Spain is just insane honestly. Got a quote from one of the resellers: 500€ + Shipping (around 520€) for the SG-3100

                      That's more or less around 600$ for a product that costs 349$ in the official online store.

                      I will really need to look up for other options sadly :(

                      jahonixJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S Offline
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Well we appreciate you trying to go that route even if it eventually proved impossible.

                        Steve

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • jahonixJ Offline
                          jahonix @bluepr0
                          last edited by

                          @bluepr0 said in Returning user needs a new pfSense box!:

                          Got a quote from one of the resellers: 500€ + Shipping (around 520€) for the SG-3100

                          Don't know where you looked ... but since we're all EU you could easily order from https://www.voleatech.de/de/produkt/sg-3100/ for:
                          € 415,31 (€ 349,00 excl. 19% VAT)
                          Shipping to Spain shouldn't add too much to that, € 20 - 30 maybe, unless you need UPS Express morning delivery.

                          If you (your company) has a valid EU-VAT-ID you get it for € 349,00 + s&h which seems fair.

                          B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • B Offline
                            bluepr0 @jahonix
                            last edited by

                            @jahonix thanks for the info! That's WAY more reasonable... I'm looking at virtualization now so might put this on hold for now.

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                            • RicoR Offline
                              Rico LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance
                              last edited by

                              I can also recommend voleatech, ordered 8 Netgate devices so far (more coming soon) and everything was smooth.

                              -Rico

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                              • B Offline
                                bluepr0
                                last edited by bluepr0

                                Hello!

                                I thought I should update this thread on what I've finally settled after trying a few different routes.

                                • First I tried to go the official way, which ended up being super expensive if you live in Spain. There's some more accesible options on Germany through Voleatech but still quite a bit with the power you get. Don't get me wrong, this would be the perfect option if this was a mission critical equipment, but this is just for my home network.

                                • Then I tried going the virtualisation route but I found some problems and/or limitations with KVM when trying to route gigabit speeds. I'm currently on 500/500 but pretty sure in a few years from now we will have 1000/1000 as my ISP has been almost duplicating speed between 2-3 years. Not so future-proof. Also was a bit of a pain in the ass if I had to do stuff on the server that my internet will be also off.

                                • And finally arrived to what I think it will be the perfect solution, yes you guessed it: bare-metal installation. I had lying around a cheap PC I built last year for my crypto miner project: Asus prime z270-p + Intel G4400 + 4gb RAM (that was around 160€ new). I'm going to add a SF450 PSU, SSD next week but already got the Intel i350-t4. Power consumption currently is around 28w on idle and 35 when routing gigabit with ntop, suricata, pfBlockerNG and a few more). Should be a bit less when I receive the SSD, currently is on HDD.

                                Hope this could be helpful for someone else looking at build its own pfSense box. I will update with final numbers once I've all in place. Maybe even some pics!

                                Thanks :)

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