Intel NUC with StarTech USB Gigabit NIC (chipset ASIX AX88179)

[Philip7]

Would it work to take a NUC and add a StarTech USB Gigabit NIC (chipset ASIX AX88179) to create a fast OpenVPN pfSense box?
My Zotac CI 323 works fine but the cpu is still the bottleneck when downloading via my VPN provider (17 MBps).

[NOYB]

Have you considered a VLAN instead of external USB NIC?

[gcu_greyarea]

I have a Skylake NUC with the Star Tech USB Adapter running ESXI 602.
I use the driver from here:

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2016/03/functional-usb-3-0-ethernet-adapter-nic-driver-for-esxi-5-5-6-0.html

While I appreciate the work by William Lam I'd prefer two onboard NICs.

Some google results suggest that there may be functioning free BSD drivers for the Startech Adapter, but again - an onboard intel Nic would be my preference.

Perhaps have an eye on this
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=116015.0

See if user Spencer1990 has any luck with the dual NIC Skylake Brix…

[W4RH34D]

Don't those have thunderbolt?

Will an external pci-e drive cage via thunderbolt work in pfsense?

[jalyst]

Some of the Brix Skylake-U models do, though I think the ones that do, drop the 2nd Intel NIC (& mSDXC).

[mauroman33]

@Philip7:

Would it work to take a NUC and add a StarTech USB Gigabit NIC (chipset ASIX AX88179) to create a fast OpenVPN pfSense box?
My Zotac CI 323 works fine but the cpu is still the bottleneck when downloading via my VPN provider (17 MBps).

What is the speed of your line? What is your VPN provider?
My mini PC with the same processor of your Zotac CI323 (Celeron N3150), which runs the latest version of pfSense, is able to reach full speed line (100Mbps) connecting to PureVPN or PIA.
It's capable to run snort, pfBlocker and a couple of OpenVPN clients smooth as silk.
Snort is the process that takes more CPU resources under heavy load, while downloading to 100 Mbps the CPU usage barely exceeds 90% if Snort is active, and 40% if Snort is off.
I don't know your needs, but maybe the problem is in the client configuration or in your VPN provider.
Here something about the OpenVPN performance:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=115673.0