Purchasing hardware to run pfsense thoughts?
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Basically what i want to do is be able to shape and track the traffic of my home network due to the fact i run voip and ftp servers.
Another reason is router based anti-virus looks pretty cool and would help the aggravation of fixing the house computers.
The way i want it to be setup is WAN –> pfsense machine http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TYlj –->e4200 router for wireless
Is it realistic to run this hardware for a powerful router? keep in mind i have 7 people in the house, 1 desktop running servers, laptop viewing hd video
3 xbox 360 consoles that could all be going at the same time and 5 smartphones updating and doing whatever the user uses the phone for, youtube
facebook etc. -
Not an expert, but you also have to consider power consumption and noise. I run this baby:
http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-DN2800MT-Mini-ITX-Motherboard
It has on-board power and is fanless and silent. It uses < 20w. I have Verizon FIOS and see 84 Mbs downstream, 39 Mbs upstream. I have one additional Intel NIC installed (same as you listed) and use it for WAN. The onboard Intel NIC connects to a Netgear GS116E switch and it breaks out VLANs for data, VOIP, TV and Camera.
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I recently switched to a used HP DC7800 (intel core 2 duo, 3 gig ram) that I picked up off of eBay. Added a 16 Gig SSD and a dual Intel NIC card (total 3 ports) for a build that cost me just a little over $100. It's a relatively small form factor (although not mini-itx in size), performs very well running pfsense with squid and dansguardian, is very quiet, and draws around 40 watts at idle. So far it has been rock solid.
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Well all totaled out, i got the rig at $270, which is a good cost for a router, i switched in a 300 watt 80 plus bronze power supply.
So power and cost isn't to much, i mean its not idle amount of power but still.
I was wondering though whats the options for streaming files over the network? Like if i wanted to have a large hard drive in my pfsense
machine and streaming music or movies to other computers in the house, is this possible?Also if anyone knows for sure that the Amd A4-3400 APU is compatible that would relieve some stress.
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I'd get a separate media server. I use nas4free http://www.nas4free.org/ on a mini-itx platform with mirrored 2 terabyte drives. It's very solid.
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There are no good options for hosting files on the pfSense box. If you search the forum you'll see this is a common question that usually receives the same answers:
It is possible to do it but it's very much not recommended. It reduces security and it probably wouldn't survive a firmware update.
It you want a single box solution for firewall and media servers by far the best way is to run both pfSense and nas4free, or whatever, virtualised.Steve
