New user questions/advice
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Hello all. I am looking to go to pfSense for power and flexibility. I only have 100Mbps Internet, soon going to 500, but I want 10 Gb speed internally for file transfers between my Plex Server, Backup Server and Desktop PC. I have an i5 with 8GB of RAM that I can use, would that be enough for GB routing? Do i just need 2 cards, 1 for WAN and 1 for LAN? Can I set up 4 for LAN like a standard router? What is a economical 10GB card I can get? Finally, I am setting up a Raspberry Pi to run Pi Hole to block adds. Will pfSense do this or do i still need the Pi? Thanks in advance for and help you can provide.
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@ssnyderu2 said in New user questions/advice:
but I want 10 Gb speed internally for file transfers between my Plex Server, Backup Server and Desktop PC.
How do you plan on connecting these 3 devices together for 10ge? Do you currently have a 10ge switch? Are you looking to multiple nics in your pfsense box and use those nics as a switch (ie bridge?) Not optimal..
10ge switches are not all that cheap, unless your planning on getting something off ebay? Are you planning on doing fiber, sfp+ direct attached cable types?
For routing gig you don't really need much umph..
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I had 2 ideas.
The first was put in a single 10GB card for WAN, since my speed is going to top at 500 Mbps the built in gigabit port could work for WAN. Then add a 4 port 10GB card using Ethernet. Either built in or SFP modules. 1 to my PC, 1 to the Plex Server, 1 to the backup server and 1 to the standard GB switch. Thats if that all works together.
The 2nd idea was to put in a single 10GB card for WAN, since my speed is going to top at 500 Mbps the built in gigabit port could work for WAN. Then add another 10GB port for LAN and send that to a MikroTik 5-Port Desktop Switch and populate it with 4 Ethernet SFP's.
Not sure if either of those ideas would work as I have have never worked with 10GB. I would be open to fiber SFP if that is cheaper, but would still need to hookup to the standard 8 GB switch for other items. However most stuff is wireless and I have an AC access point for that.
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There is absolutely no point in adding a 10GbE NIC to use for WAN if the connection is 500Mbps. It will just be more expensive and run hotter. Just use a 1G NIC for WAN.
Using a 4 port 10GbE NIC as a switch, which it sounds like you are considering, is a very bad idea. It probably won't pass 10Gbps and will use all the available CPU trying. If you want 10GbE internally use a 10G switch.
You don't need a 10GbE NIC for LAN either since it will only ever carry the traffic to/from the internet, 500Mbps. Use a 1G NIC there too, at least to begin with. If you decide you need more than one 10G segment you might upgrade to a 10GbE NIC and add VLANs at that point.
DNS-BL in the pfBlockerNG package can do much the same job as a PiHole.
Steve
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^ all great points!
Also what is the estimated budget for this project? 10ge while can be done with limited budget.. Still really need to spend some $ compared to how cheap you can do 1ge..
Your plex server for example - does 10ge make sense here? 1gig is more than enough to stream multiple 4k videos at the same time..
Your PC and NAS have what for disks.. Can they even really push/pull speeds that would come close to 10ge?
If your like me I move lots of large media files between my PC and NAS all the time.. Manipulate the files on my PC - then move them to my nas, etc.. And while would love to have 10ge for this - not sure could really even leverage it anywhere close to its potential.. So 1ge can do about 113MBps via smb file transfer.. Pretty much any sort of modern disk can do that..
If you have multiple nics in your PC and NAS you could leverage smb3 multichannel.. With 2x1ge you should be able to do 220MBps without too much effort.. I was seeing this myself and its a nice bump for almost zero effort other than a couple extra switch ports, and maybe some cheap gig nics..
So to move files between your 3 devices and plus gig speeds cheaper option could be to just get a switch that has some extra ports so you could leverage smb3 multichannel.. 2x or even 3 or 4x will prob give you the bandwidth to exceed your drives capabilities.. At most likely a fraction of the cost of going full blown 10ge..
Now if you have the budget for 10ge - then yeah go for it!! You can never have too much bandwidth ;)
But in your router with only 500mbps internet, doesn't make a lot of sense there at all.. Unless you plan on going +gig for internet in the very near future? On the lan side more than gig doesn't make a lot of sense either unless your going to put multiple vlans on this interface and route between them.. Which can also be done with just multiple gig interfaces..
Copper 10ge switches are not really home budget friendly lets say ;) Now there are for sure some options with sfp+ models that you just load them up with what you need, be it 1ge or 10ge interfaces..
Prob the cheapest option to get you some sfp+ ports would be something like CRS305-1G-4S+IN, goes for the $140 price range.. 1ge copper and 4 sfp+ ports that you could do 1ge, 10ge fiber or copper in..
If you wanted to get something easy peasy, that can do 10ge for your router and some switch ports prob look at the xg-7100 either the desktop model or the rack model.
Lets us know what direction you go, some idea of your ballpark budget your willing to do would allow for some more examples of what you could do for that specific budget.
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Lots of good information, thanks guys. From what you are saying I have way over thought this whole thing. Looking at the router Im a bit embarrassed that it didnt click with me that all its doing is routing my traffic in/out of the house and with it capped at 500 down and 50 up and no chance of ever going over gigabit speed (at least in the next couple years), then 10GB is overkill. My PC has an SSD for the main Hard Drive and a standard 2GB drive for storage. Plex has a cashe SSD and 6 4TB Red drives 7200 RPM. Back up server is just a few standard hard drives. After reading what you guys said, 10GB is overkill. I have several GB switches and a box full of GB NICs. So it sounds like using smb3 multichannel is the way to go. Save me spending money that could go to other places. Also i will look into DNS-BL. I have not yet setup PiHole, so one less device.
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@johnpoz - solid advice!