Need assistance picking out the right hardware for me
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I have set up pfsense firewalls the past few months for some small offices and have been using the alix boards and they have been working great.
I have a new client that will have all their main servers in a data center and 5 offices connecting via VPN to the data center. There is a 100mb burstable connection at the data center and approx 5 meg at each remote office. This is just starting out so the remote offices may grow to 10 in the next year or so.
Would the alix boards be fine for the remote offices?
What would you recommend for the datacenter? would need to be a 1u unit rack mountable.If I left anything out pleas let me know
Thanks!
Jon -
How much bandwidth at the remote offices?
The ALIX can handle only up to about 80-85Mbit/s raw, or depending on the VPN type and encryption, 8Mbit-20Mbit encrypted.
When it comes to the main office, I am really fond of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.391833
It's a Supermicro dual core Atom 330. They run pfSense really well and would handle 100Mbit without a sweat, plenty of room to grow.
Though there are other devices from Netgate you might check out as well, like the Hakuma box.
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Thanks! I like that. only problem is that I was planning on using 2 of them with CARP, these have only 2 nics. Any suggeston for one with 3 or more nics? I see it has a pciex8 slot, do they make nics that will work in there?
will the RTL8111C-GR Gigabit Ethernet work with PFSense?
Thanks
Jon -
There is a riser you can get to put in any other PCI-E device, and there are a bunch of single or multi-port NICs you can add-on which are PCI-E.
I use pfSense on those Supermicros right now, and it works well, so the RTL8111C-GR works :-)
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sweet thanks. wasnt sure if a pciex1 nic would fit in a pciex8 slot. Thanks for your help :)
Jon
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sweet thanks. wasnt sure if a pciex1 nic would fit in a pciex8 slot. Thanks for your help :)
Jon
Yeah it will, it just won't extend the whole length of the slot. It still works. They don't have the riser at newegg.com for that, but they do have them at provantage.com.
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sweet thanks. wasnt sure if a pciex1 nic would fit in a pciex8 slot. Thanks for your help :)
Jon
Yeah it will, it just won't extend the whole length of the slot. It still works. They don't have the riser at newegg.com for that, but they do have them at provantage.com.
Thanks :) I also just ordered a few copies of your book yesterday for myself and my techs, looking forward to reading it
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Most of these use Supermicro boards (Intel NIC's), so if you didn't want to build it yourself it's an option.ย Plus you get a warranty on the whole thing.