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    ESXi pfsense VS standalone (power savings)

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    • P
      pooperman
      last edited by pooperman

      hi Folks,

      currently I have an ESXi all in one system

      Xeon E5-1620v4 3,5GHz 2011-3
      Supermicro X10SRA-F
      4x 16GB Samsung DDR4-2133 reg. ECC Ram
      LSI Megaraid 9207-8i
      Seasonic X650 ATX PSU
      6x 10tb WD red RaidZ2
      2x Samsung Evo 860 1tb (Jails Mirrored)
      ESXi 6.7 with FN 11.1, pfSense, Debian (nextcloud, plex), Windows 10
      256gb SSD (boot)
      

      the power consumption jumps from 90 to 110w depending on pfsense load.
      Without pfsense VM running it is around 80.

      I have installed

      pfblockerng around 200k entires
      snort
      own dns server
      squid
      

      I would like to use suricata to break encryption and monitor the traffic.
      But my Server cannot handle the load with 2vcores and 10gb RAM

      so my question is:

      • will a dedicated box be more efficient in terms of power saving?
      • what HW would be recommended for the above targets and 10gbit
      • will a CPU upgrade be more beneficial than standalone in order to save power?

      would appreciate some discussion on what you think and why

      smb1.JPG

      provelsP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • provelsP
        provels @pooperman
        last edited by

        @pooperman Why not add at least 1 more virtual processor? They share. Mine runs pretty bad with only one.

        Peder

        MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
        BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

        P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • P
          pooperman @provels
          last edited by

          @provels
          sorry I did a mistake, there are 2 vcores and 10gb RAM allocated for the VM

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • provelsP
            provels
            last edited by provels

            Short answer, you would save a few watts, but I doubt enough to justify the expense. How many clients on your network?

            Peder

            MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
            BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

            P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • P
              pooperman @provels
              last edited by

              @provels

              it is for private usage only. So max 4 clients in parallel

              provelsP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • provelsP
                provels @pooperman
                last edited by

                @pooperman I'd stand with what you got. See the specs and packages I use in my signature. You don't really need to overload pfSense with packages.

                Peder

                MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
                BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • P
                  Pau1l
                  last edited by

                  You will also need a WAN connection, as well as a switch or device to connect to the LAN port.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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