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    Hardware for new PFSense box question

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    • T
      thafener
      last edited by

      Hi @ll

      I am planning to buy new hardware for our PFSense installation :

      Came across a Supermicro 5015A-EHF-D525 Dual-Core Atom D525 Barebone. I'd like to
      fit it with a 60 G SSD, 2 Gig RAM and 4 Intel 82574L Gig Ethernet Adapters.

      Here's what it should do :

      LAN 1 : LAN with 40 Worstations and 5 Servers
      LAN 2 : Captive Portal for up to 500 Clients/Devices
      DMZ : Security Surveillance Cams
      +WAN

      Will the machine above fit these requirements ? Does anyone have experiences with
      a similar configuration ?

      Thank you all in advance

      thafener

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        The number of clients or machines on a network is not the limiting factor in pfSense (no per machine licence!)  rather the required bandwidth through the box.
        You haven't mentioned what your internet connection is. However it looks likely you will want to access data between local interfaces, DMZ to LAN1 for example, so that will probably be your limiting factor. The D525 is capable of firewall/NAT around 500Mbps. Perhaps more with some tuning.

        Of course if you need to run VPNs or Snort this value will be lower.

        Unless you want to run Squid you won't need a 60GB drive.

        See: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,42853.0.html

        Steve

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        • T
          thafener
          last edited by

          Thank you Steven, at this time our Bandwith is 50 MBit/s but we're planning to get 100 MBit/s.

          As we are a Hotel with 200 rooms we need the Proxy and are already using it.

          The big task for us is that every the guests often have a Laptop, a Tablet and also a Smartphone
          and so I am plannign for this big number of clients.

          Regarding VPN I have 1 or 2 roadwarriors using VPN

          Regards

          Thafener

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            You'll get 50-60Mbps VPN throughput but that will max out the CPU. Thus you can have, say, 25Mbps or VPN and 250Mbps of other throughput.

            With that many clients you will need to use some form of bandwidth limiting to ensure everyone gets something.

            You should at least consider a Core i3 based machine. They are often around the same price and with similar power consumption but far higher computational ability.
            See: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,45452.0.html

            Steve

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