Dell PowerEdge SC1425 (server) - supported and fast enough?

twarr

Hi!

I've just stumbled upon pfsense, and I must say that it is a genious peace of software. That said, I'm now looking for inexpensive hardware, which I can fit in a rack. I will use it for my home network, where I have a 200 mbit fiber connection. This connection I will divide into two or three vlans, where I need speed shaping, as the connection will be shared for two or three apartments.

I'm currenctly looking at the Dell PowerEdge SC1425, which has 2x Intel Xenon 3,4Ghz CPU, 2x74GB 7.2K SATA HDD, Adaptec HW Raid and 1GB ddr2 RAM. I was thinking about upgrading the ram to 8GB. The specs are here: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/sc1425_specs.pdf

So I have two questions:

Is all the hardware supported by pfsense?
Will this system (with 8 GB RAM) be fast enough to manage my 200 mbit connection?

Thanks!

razzfazz

As always, it depends on what you want to do. If you don't plan to run squid or snort, that machine will be massive overkill for 200mbps; a little Atom box can easily route and firewall that much.

cmb

It'll work well on those. But unless your electricity is free, a new low-power system of some sort, probably an Atom, would pay for itself in its lifetime in power savings vs. that beast of a space heater.