Router died looking to new hardware

[common]

I've been using an old wireless linksys running tomato firmware and it has finally died on me.

Looking to replace with a pfsense setup hopefully to manage:

2 ethernet connected pc's
2 wireless consoles
2 wireless devices (occasional)

I've been up all night reading, but need quick advice:

What hardware should I be looking at to get pfsense running.

Must be efficient - my linksys would only draw around 10w i think.

[tommyboy180]

It really depends on your budget and your needs. FreeBSD allows you to choose from a wide range of hardware and still get great performance.
Right now I have a $400 supermicro 1U pfsense box that is just so much overkill for my needs, even with my torrent addiction. I could easily purchase a used pos on craigslist for cheap and get the same performance that meets my needs.

Here are some things to consider when choosing hardware:

• power consumption

• stability/reliability

• performance

• expandability

Since you had/have requirements that were satisfied from a linksys device than my suggestion would be to pay no more than $40 on a used PC. You would get 10 times the performance with the used pc vs. the linksys device and power consumption would be comparable with reason (replacing the PSU with a low profile low energy PSU)

[eirikz]

Also look at the possibilites to have more playroom, a random server with ESXi will give you a lot more possibilities with running multiple servers, with x-number of nics and other goodies.

Atleast if you are interested in tinkering with different OS´and services.