Intel i3 Firewalls on AliExpress

[lwscz]

Hi all,

I am putting together a design for a firewall in our new home. Our connection will be 20 / 8 Mbits and I plan on running snort, reverse proxy, DNS, DHCP and OpenVPN. My requirements are the case must be 1U and the firewall power consumption must be as low as possible. Noise is not an issue as the firewall will be installed in a cabinet in the garage.

I was originally looking at an Atom build, but dismissed this based on potential lack of power and the inability to upgrade the processor.

I have settled with using an i3-based build and came across this the other day:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/industrial-firewall-barebone-with-two-Fiber-SFP-intel-i350-six-Gigabit-lan-Intel-Core-i3-3210/1800110414.html

It suits what I need perfectly and I would appreciate it if anyone could give it a second look for me.

Cheers!

[stephenw10]

Probably be fine. You could probably get away with a less powerful cpu if yoy really want to minimise consumption.
The board appears to have lan-bypass relays which are of no use in a firewall but are a potential source of issues. They can usually simply be disabled though.
The cooling on that box looks to be an afterthought. Those radial fans are often loud (not an issue for you) but that one isn't even blowing towards the extraction fans at the back. I'd like to see a ducted solution that moves hot air out of the box directly.

Steve

[bryan.paradis]

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ADVANTECH-AIMB-272-MAIN-BOARD-/281364963292?pt=BI_Control_Systems_PLCs&hash=item4182a89fdc&_uhb=1

These have some quirks with standoff height in cases but otherwise these are fully featured industrial quality boards with adjustable fan speed. You can get an i5-2520m for less than $50 for it. It has full Intel AMT features with this such as serial over lan and full IP KVM.