Another Firewall Hardware Recommendation
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Hello Everybody,
I have used pfSense in the past on a J3355 but its been a few years since I have had one deployed. Im looking to place a firewall on my home network. I have a 1 gig fiber connection. Here is what I am looking to accomplish:
- Reliable hardware (no Chinese junk)
-Some traffic will be routed via VPN (would like to accomplish ~500mbps not mandatory)
-As close to gig speeds for standard activity
-Use of packages like pfBlockerNG and IDS/IPS
-Small footprint
I see the Netgate 2100 but I wish the VPN speeds where a little better. If I was to pick the 2100 would the standard 8gb of storage be enough? Then there is the Netgate 4200 but that is overkill I think in my opinion. But, Netgate doesnt have anything in the middle. Or is there a mini PC out there that I am overlooking?
- Reliable hardware (no Chinese junk)
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@wayne622 The 2100 won’t do 1 gig. 700ish.
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@SteveITS So the advertised speed isnt what it is in the real world. Would you happen to know of a product other than the 4200?
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@wayne622 usually I expect about halfway between the numbers.
2100:
IPERF3 Traffic: 964 Mbps
IMIX Traffic: 249 MbpsWe use Netgate hardware so I don’t have an answer to your question. The Protectli brand I think comes up here a lot.
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Hi, currently in my opinion, you can’t build a reliable router with good hardware cheaper than the 4200. Once you start specking components, adding them up, I think you will find the price of the 4200 is forcing you to buy it.
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I don't quite understand how the 2100 has better numbers than the 1100 when they seem to be the same SoC. That's neither here nor there.
@Uglybrian makes a good point about building something basically being a ~$500 affair. The 4200 is not a bad deal when you consider it's a certified thing that will just work with no fuss. I love cobbling together something that works out of trash, but I'm also battling some missed packets I can't explain. Sometimes the thing that just works is nice too.
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@GeorgePatches said in Another Firewall Hardware Recommendation:
how the 2100 has better numbers than the 1100 when they seem to be the same SoC
The 1100 has one switch and uses VLANs to separate the three ports. So speed is limited because they are sharing the internal interface. The 2100 adds a WAN interface so has two 1 Gbit interfaces but is still CPU limited.
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I don't know if this is uncouth to say here, but the new line of Protectli boxes with the N5105 cpu seem to be quite capable and reasonably priced. $230 for a 2 port model and $280 for 4 ports.