Dell PowerEdge R620 10GbE pfSense server

[aasimenator]

Hi,

We are planing on upgrading our rack at the Datacenter to 10Gb internet for that we need hardware that should support it. I spoke to our vendor and he is providing me with the following configuration:
DELL PowerEdge R620(4x 2.5') Chassis, 1RU
1x E5-2620v2 - 2.1 GHz Xeon Six Core, 15MB Cache
2x 8GB 1600Mt/s DDR3 RAM (16 GB)
1x No DVD ROM Drive
1x PERC H710p Mini Hardware Raid Controller w/ 512MB Cache
2x 300gb 10k SAS 6Gbps 2.5" HDD
1x Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet NIC Card
1x Intel X520/i350 2x10Gb DA/SFP+ + 2x1Gb Base-T NDC
1x iDRAC 7 Express (included)
2x Hot Swap Power Supply (750W)
1x Sliding Rackmount Rails
1x One year Component replacement Warranty(included)
Shipping Included
$900

I am also looking at adding 10Gb RJ45 NIC instead of the SFP+ any suggestions as to what NIC would be supported or not supported.

[heper]

Personally I would look for something with a more recent CPU. Also a higher clockspeed might be useful

[stephenw10]

@aasimenator said in Dell PowerEdge R620 10GbE pfSense server:

E5-2620v2

Yeah you won't get 10Gbps through that. I would guess in the 3-4Gbps range but that really is a guess I've never tested that CPU.

Any Intel based NIC should be supported. One that uses the ix(4) driver is probably preferred currently as ixl(4) can have issues with vlans. https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/9123

Steve
Steve

[aasimenator]

Is that so? a Six core Xeon wouldn't be able to handle 10GbE? what kind of a CPU would you guys recommend then? clearly we don't want to go overboard and have an overkill system. our current Netgate SG3100 system is able to handle all our requests and firewall filters without breaking a sweat at 1GbE.

We are not expecting 10GbE full utilization we are just adding it to have better throughput if we need it.

I manage the servers remotely 12000 Kms away so i cannot configure and build a system for 10GbE and ship to the Datacenter, and would have to rely on our vendor that sells refurbished servers like the above configuration to provide us with what we need.

So I am looking at pre-built systems with warranty. that should also support 10GbE.

[stephenw10]

Well it depends how you're testing of course but for a single tcp connection that's about what I'd expect for a 2.1GHz Sandybridge CPU. Without actually testing it I can't be sure.

[heper]

@aasimenator

a Six core Xeon wouldn't be able to handle 10GbE?

higher cpu frequency would be better
also a 6 year old cpu is far less performant then a recent one ...
i would even dare to say that a current-gen i3 cpu would perform better with pfsense than that xeon you are using