XG-7100 Questions

[alfred0809]

Hi everybody,

I was looking at one or two XG-7100 1U appliances from Netgate for a new installation.

We are looking at using one of the SFP+ ports as our WAN interface since we may upgrade to 10Gb down the road (1Gb for now over the same connection). I have a couple of questions now to which I couldn't find a comprehensive explanation anywhere.

Max routing capacity? If I understand it correctly it should be 10Gb/s right, or is it higher?

Can I add the intel NIC expansion card down the road myself or do I have to order it like that from Netgate? If I don't have to is it known what Intel NIC is compatible or is it any that works with FreeBSD?

Has anyone any thoughts on the storage options? I guess the eMMC option is cheaper but also a bit slower? Since pfSense shouldn't access the disk much I guess this doesn't matter too much?

RAM: 8GB vs 24GB? Is anyone running this appliance in production and what is the RAM usage like...?

Is it known which Intel SFP/SFP+ modules come with it or which are compatible?

If any of the upgrades are needed for "smoother" operation I will happily buy it but I have the feeling that some aren't really necessary for most applications.

[stephenw10]

The XG-7100 will route traffic at >10Gbps (depending on packet sizes etc) but that's probably not what you mean. If you are using it as a firewall and include NAT it's closer to 6Gbps, again depending on the traffic.
See: https://www.netgate.com/products/appliances/

You can add the expansion card yourself but you would need to order the fitting kit (contact sales):
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/xg-7100-1u/optional-expansion-card-installation.html

Indeed, the eMMC is slower but that really only significantly affects boot time. You would want to use an SSD if you plan to run any packages that need to write to the drive such as Squid or something that logs a lot like Snort.

8GB is sufficient for almost everything. It's possible to upgrade that too, the SODIMM slot is on the top of the board.

The Intel NICs in it will work with a wide variety of SFP+ modules but those we sell in the store are tested to work.

Steve