Need help with pfSense build

[amrogers3]

OK, going another route since I can't find a way to put a NIC in my X7SPA superMicro board. Found a jetway that has a 3 Gig-E expansion card option.  Trying to build a small quiet case. Here are my two options for a pfSense with Snort, Squid, (and other packages in the future) package install:

superMicro X7SPE-HF-D525 mobo
AOC-SG-i4 Quad-Port 1Gb Ethernet card
CSE-502L-200B chassis
ASUS external USB drive
SSD

Jetway NF99FL-525
daughterboard with 3 Intel Gig-E adapters
Antec ISK300-65 (replacing fan with ENERMAX UC-8EB 80mm Case Fan)
SSD
Slimline CD/DVD drive

I think either should be sufficient for a pfSense/Snort install. Comments are welcome :)

Need some recommendations on 4GB RAM, an SSD drive, and a slimline CD/DVD drive please.

[wallabybob]

What sort of bandwidth are you expecting to get through the GigE ports? I SUSPECT (don't know for certain) that the Jetway daughter board has the the three GigE ports sharing a single PCI bus which would limit them to an aggregate of no more than 1Gbps across the three ports (not 1Gbps per port).

If you really don't need Gbps on each port then you could consider using VLANs and a VLAN capable switch to get more ports. This would probably expand the range of mother boards you could consider. You can probably get a good 8 port VLAN capable switch for quite a bit less than a 4 GigE port expansion card.

[amrogers3]

@wallabybob:

What sort of bandwidth are you expecting to get through the GigE ports? I SUSPECT (don't know for certain) that the Jetway daughter board has the the three GigE ports sharing a single PCI bus which would limit them to an aggregate of no more than 1Gbps across the three ports (not 1Gbps per port).

Hi again wallabybob, I am aware that I will not get full gigabit speeds across the 3 GigE ports. I don't even think the Atom will be able to handle gigabit speeds across the board. I am mainly trying to fix what you and I talked about in a previous post. I need an additional port (one for LAN, one for WAN, and one for VLANs). I do have an 8 port GigE switch, however, I also wanted a few extra ports for expansion later.

[wallabybob]

I'd use an onboard GigE port for VLANs and WAN and use an expansion card (10/100 even) for LAN.

I suspect you won't need the full GigE capability for WAN.

On my "production" pfSense I have rl0 as the parent device for a VLAN to a DMZ and a VLAN on which I run pppoe to my ADSL modem. So WAN is pppoe over VLAN on rl0. The VLAN capable switch strips the VLAN tags from traffic to the modem so the modem doesn't know it was accessed over a VLAN.