Hardware for 1gbit/1gbit connection

Selbach

Hi everyone.

I am looking into using a pfsense box for traffic shaping/limiting/QoS on a 1gbit/1gbit connection.
It will be shaping the traffic for up to 250 ip´s.

I got an dual cpu opteron 265 (1,8 ghz) in spare, but as I can read it will not be able to handle it.

I was thinking of using an Intel or Supermicro Motherboard with a Xeon E3-1245V2 and 8gb of ram.

Would that be able to handle it?

A Former User

we currently have 1Gbit connections to our pfsense boxes…

Supermicro 1U
Dual L5420 Xeon Cpu's (8 cores total between the 2 cpu's)
48G of ram
Intel Nic's built into the motherboard
we dont run QOS/IDS...
most of our links are at 80% utilization

stephenw10

You could handle a 1Gbps connection with much lesser hardware though. Your original suggestion should do it easily.

Steve

Selbach

#1 thanks for the info.

That sounds like the E3-1245V2 should have no problem doing this.

#2 if my old hardware (1,8ghz) should be able to handle it how come this link says that I should use 3ghz?

http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=49
"501+ Mbps - server class hardware with PCI-X or PCI-e network adapters. No less than 3.0 GHz CPU."

chpalmer

@Selbach:

#1 thanks for the info.

That sounds like the E3-1245V2 should have no problem doing this.

#2 if my old hardware (1,8ghz) should be able to handle it how come this link says that I should use 3ghz?

http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=49
"501+ Mbps - server class hardware with PCI-X or PCI-e network adapters. No less than 3.0 GHz CPU."

Your original suggestion should do it easily.

Intel or Supermicro Motherboard with a Xeon E3-1245V2 and 8gb of ram.

;)

Selbach

#4 thanks for writing that in bold for me :)

It must have been to early in the morning when I read the post ::)

It could actually be great if they did update the guidelines for 1gbit

stephenw10

Ah, yes I should have made that clearer.
You can achieve 1Gbps throughput with even a low end Sandy Bridge CPU like the G530. Once you add traffic shaping you'd want something a bit more powerful though. The hardware guidelines are, unfortunately, out of date. I would guess that's based on a single core CPU.

Steve

Selbach

#6

Thanks for clearing it up, I will use the E3-1245V2 for the project an see how much power is left when it is being hit by that amount of traffic :)