The best alternative hardware

TomaszM

Hi Everyone,

I would like to get one of those thin clients to use for pfsense. The hard requirement is that it must be able to route 1gbps traffic. Any recommendation within some reasonable price range?

Thanks

johnpoz

@tomaszm said in The best alternative hardware:

reasonable price range?

And what is that - price is always relative, what you assume reasonable might be no where close to what I consider, etc.

TomaszM

@johnpoz around 100 USD. Including used stuff from ebay etc.

Gertjan

@tomaszm

You'll be using an old(er) stripped down desktop PC.
Take some of the 100 $ and get your hands on a dual or even quad Intel NIC (env 75 $ ?).

Or get lucky, and find a second hand SG2100 (at least) on ebay or friends.

TomaszM

I am actually looking into these mini ITX motherboards now.. Which CPU do you think is sufficient for handling 1Gbps traffic with pfsense?

Would this suffice?

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/77490/intel-core-i34170-processor-3m-cache-3-70-ghz.html

AndyRH

Based on my previous use of really old HW, any "i" CPU with an Intel NIC will do 1Gb without trying hard.
I used a gen 1 i3 and 1Gb with no packet inspection required less than 30% CPU.

TomaszM

@andyrh

Thats great. I am going for the below motherboard most probably then. Which NIC (4 slots) do you recommend?

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/H81I/Specification

AndyRH

@tomaszm Sorry, but I do not remember the exact card I used, it was an older 4 port Intel card.

viragomann

@tomaszm
Commonly they say, Intel GbE NICs using the igb or em driver do a good job.

For reference check the FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE Hardware Notes.

stephenw10

Do you have power consumption or noise level restrictions?

TomaszM

@stephenw10

Noice no, but power and size yes. Those dell optiplex boxes seem to be great for this, but a bit too large. On the other hand buying one of those mini itx motherboards and all parts separately, at the end it might come quite expensive and not worth the hustle..

stephenw10

Hmm, yeah limited size rules out a bunch of options. I assume 1U devices are out.

Not sure I can suggest anything that meets that at $100. I suspect you'll have to move on one of those things.

Steve

TomaszM

@stephenw10
Lets say we are talking 200$ without any other limits (size, power consumption). What would be your options then? :)

TomaszM

So I think I got to the bottom of it now.

There is protectli which is a bit more expensive. There is also qotom and kettop. The main questions are.

What is the difference between qotom and kettop. They look to me like the same thing.
Does any one have experience using those with 1Gbps link

Thanks in advance

qysotyvah

I advise you to look at HP T620 thin client. Use eBay to find some cheaper used options.

TomaszM

@qysotyvah

Thanks for your answer.

I am actually considering that one for purchase now just it needs to be with "plus" at the end as the thinner version doesnt have PCI.

If I understand correctly you use or used to use this for Pfsense. How is it behaving? Especially since it is with AMD CPU. AES-NI should be supported but I was reading different opinions about how AMD is working with Pfsense.

Another thing is I want to use it as main WAN router and I have 1gbps uplink. Do you know how it is handing that? Will I be able to squeeze maximum out it?

Thanks in advance

stephenw10

AMD works fine with pfSense in general. I wouldn't expect any issue there unless you needed some more obscure part of the hardware like graphics drivers. But pfSense doesn't use that.

Steve

TomaszM

So one major question remains, what goes the best with it?

INTEL PRO 1000 VT or i350-T4? :)