Question about requirements for Snort+Squid and other packages
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I am looking to buy this setup http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=36701.0
I was wondering if this will be powerful enough for a FIOS up to 50Mbps along with Snort, Squid, and all that good packages. Would there be any performance problems?
I also read that SSD's are could die quick with pfsense?
Any help would be appreciated.
SPECS:
HARD DRIVE:
Kingston SSD 16GB Hard Drive SSDNOW100SMOTHERBOARD/CPU
SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-HF-O Mini ITX Intel Atom D510 processor Server Motherboard
NewEgg Link- Intel Atom 510 Dual Core processor
- Dual Intel 82574L Ethernet Ports
- PCI Express x16 slot
- Supports up to 4GB Ram DDR2 So-DIMM 667
- 6 SATA 3.0Gb/s ports which have built-in RAID support
- no fans needed, totally silent computer and cool computer
- Low Power Consumption
- Integrated IPMI 2.0
RAM:
Kingston 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) KVR667D2S5/2G:POWER SUPPLY:
PICOPSU-150-XT With 102WPOWER Kit Includes Pico PSU 150W DC-DC ATX PSU & AC-DC Power BrickCASE:
MINI-BOX M350 Universal MINI-ITX Computer Case Black 1X2.5INT Works With Pico PSU-
Black
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Mini-itx
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Plug USB drive right behind the front of the case (Can run OS from a usb stick)
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VESA mountable
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Comes with one hardware bracket if you wish to install a ssd drive
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Area for a 40mm fan if you want to run one
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VESA Mounting screws for Mini-box case. (You can attach it to the back of a monitor)
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According to the hardware guidance it should be a good start. It will depend on how you configure Snort in particular, and Squid and what other packages you intend to install of course. My 1.2 GHz single core VIA box (with a whole 512 MB of RAM) coped with a 50 Mb/s download while running Squid+SquidGuard and a handful of other low impact packages. Performance took a major hit however when I used it as a VPN server.
As for SSD, what you've read is wrong - the topic has been covered here on other threads.
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This in my option, but I wouldn't use a SSD drive if you plan on using Squid with caching. It will kill the SSD sooner then later. I have the same MB and it rans great with 2g of memory. I upgraded it to 4g since I will be installing AMD64 sometime in the future. I have pfSense 2.0 installed with snort(4 interfaces), ntop, few other packages, 2 openvpn connections. It uses about 15-20% of 3g of memory it sees, and cpu is anywhere from 10-20% on idle. 20% to 80% with heavy downloading of bit torrents. I haven't used Squid in a while so I can't comment on that right now.
Edit: Forgot to add, I have a 50/5 cable connection and I can max my connection with cpu cycles to share… Having Traffic Shaper enabled, i've had 5 bit-torrents d/l while 2 netflick streams running with no issues...
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I was wondering if this will be powerful enough for a FIOS up to 50Mbps along with Snort, Squid, and all that good packages. Would there be any performance problems?
I also read that SSD's are could die quick with pfsense?
Any help would be appreciated.
On the SSD, no. If you manage your Squid settings well and make sure you clean up the SSD before installing (use Parted Magic to Zero write using the drive internal algorithms). I doubt the SSD has had any form of garbage collection run on it since it was purchased.
This drive (SSDnow S100) has an unimpressive 4K random I/O performance. You would want to beef up on ram and allocate a larger RAM cache for squid for smaller files.
Configure larger files, say 32KB and larger to cache on the SSD instead. This allows you the reap the benefits of the SSD's better performance with large files whilst keeping small files in memory where no flash SSD can match up.