Recommendations on a 1U configuration and motherboard
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Hello,
I'm considering putting together a 1U configuration for a pfsense install, using an atom board.
I see a lot of info is on the forums regarding supermicro boards, however, unfortunately lots of those always have 2 nic's.What I am basically looking for is recommendations for:
- A 1U chassis
- A mITX or ATX board, not a "real" 1U board that is essentially as long as a rack in a datacenter is deep (it needs to be 1U but for home use). This board needs to be atom based but most importantly, it needs to have 3 nic's on board (wan, lan, dmz).
- needs to support at least 4 GB RAM memory.
- possibly I'm willing to go to an i3 board, but preferably atom based.
Thanks in advance for any tips you can provide!
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Hi aquilares,
You don't mention your price range, but how about this one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2758F.cfm ? I have one of those, and I'm extremely satisfied (installed ESXi on it, and running pfsense in a VM). I think it's the same motherboard that's used in http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/.
Edit: That motherboard might be somewhat overkill, depends on if you're going to run cpu intensive packages or not.
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I use an intel Atom motherboard in a 1U box, I went with a single on-board interface and added a PCIe 4 port Sun Microsystems 10/100/1000 nic. I wanted all on-board nics, but wound up doing it this way for cost reasons, it would have cost me a few hundred more to go with all on-board interfaces.
the specifics are.
Intel D525MW motherboard
4GB Ram
Sun Microsystems GigaSwift Quad Port PCI-X Adapter (501-6738-10)
Plink Computer 1U rack mount case w/power supply, and riser for PCI-E Slot
250GB HDD (some used as storage space)It does well on my home network, I have 1 40Mbit Wan, and use 3 of the PCI-E interfaces for different LANs, the 4th is a Trunk for several VLANS going to my Cisco practice lab. I run Snort on the WAN, have 2 VPN connections, one from an Identical PFsense box, and one laptop.
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Hi aquilares,
You don't mention your price range, but how about this one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2758F.cfm ? I have one of those, and I'm extremely satisfied (installed ESXi on it, and running pfsense in a VM). I think it's the same motherboard that's used in http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/.
Edit: That motherboard might be somewhat overkill, depends on if you're going to run cpu intensive packages or not.
That board is what I use at home as well, bare-metal though, no VM. It's an absolute screamer. Intel did themselves a disservice by calling Rangeley an "Atom" CPU. They should have walked away and rebranded.
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Hi aquilares,
You don't mention your price range, but how about this one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2758F.cfm ? I have one of those, and I'm extremely satisfied (installed ESXi on it, and running pfsense in a VM). I think it's the same motherboard that's used in http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/.
Edit: That motherboard might be somewhat overkill, depends on if you're going to run cpu intensive packages or not.
That board is what I use at home as well, bare-metal though, no VM. It's an absolute screamer. Intel did themselves a disservice by calling Rangeley an "Atom" CPU. They should have walked away and rebranded.
So you can confirm the A1SRi-2758F works bare metal with pfsense? No drama with the nics?
I'm looking to buy this board and that's what has been holding me back.
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Everything works fine in 2.1.1 and newer. 2.1 and older will not see the NICs.
EDIT: Do not actually install 2.1.1. Use whatever the newest build is at the time you read this message.
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@gbh:
Hi aquilares,
You don't mention your price range, but how about this one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2758F.cfm ? I have one of those, and I'm extremely satisfied (installed ESXi on it, and running pfsense in a VM). I think it's the same motherboard that's used in http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/.
Edit: That motherboard might be somewhat overkill, depends on if you're going to run cpu intensive packages or not.
That board is what I use at home as well, bare-metal though, no VM. It's an absolute screamer. Intel did themselves a disservice by calling Rangeley an "Atom" CPU. They should have walked away and rebranded.
So you can confirm the A1SRi-2758F works bare metal with pfsense? No drama with the nics?
I'm looking to buy this board and that's what has been holding me back.It's what we sell at Netgate (http://store.netgate.com/Firewall/C2758.aspx) and the pfSense store (http://store.pfsense.org/c2758/)
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Everything works fine in 2.1.1 and newer. 2.1 and older will not see the NICs.
please, please recommends 2.1.4 or newer. The number of bug-fixes between 2.1.1 and 2.1.4 is enormous.
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@gonzopancho:
Everything works fine in 2.1.1 and newer. 2.1 and older will not see the NICs.
please, please recommends 2.1.4 or newer. The number of bug-fixes between 2.1.1 and 2.1.4 is enormous.
Post edited.