Supermicro X10SBA
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Hi all!
Looking to build my box for the first time, and my primary considerations are low power draw and also being able to keep up with my 200mbps fibre line.
I'm very drawn to the J1900 because of it's 10W power consumption, and the Supermicro in particular because of the onboard dual Intel NICs, but is it fast enough to handle 200mbps LAN-WAN?
Been searching around the forums, but found nothing conclusive from other X10SBA owners, so hoping to garner more feedback before I pull the trigger on this.
Thanks!
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You should probably get yourself a nice power hungry I5 or I7 powered box because if you start running VPNs and using packages with that much bandwidth on tap, you will max out low power processors in a hurry.
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Shucks, I was hoping I can do it on this little CPU, never thought that 200mbps is a lot of bandwidth, it is one of the cheapest price plans available! :P
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Well - You would probably be fine pulling that much bandwidth through that board IF you are not running VPNs and CPU hungry packages.
But people who bother to pay for that much bandwidth usually want to use it alot.
So my guess is you will find a way to keep both cores maxed all the time.
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Suppose I do go down the Haswell i5/i7 route :-X
Will the dual NICs on this board work with pfsense?
http://www.gigabyte.sg/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4993#ov
Intel
GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)(LAN1)
Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)(LAN2)Not both Intel, but at least no RealTeks
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Hmmmmmm - Can you do me a favor so that I can be sure we are measuring in the same units.
If you are on that connection now, can you run a speedtest at speedtest.net and post results here?
like this chews a pretty good amount of processor if I am really pulling bandwidth.
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3734835992
But thats measured in Mb/s, so I want to be sure you are not talking about a much lower speed.
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Sure!
Seems like my connection is nowhere near the 200mbps advertised too. Perhaps the Supermicro might suffice?
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Well - What kind of router are you using right now?
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Apologies, just discovered that the router has QoS turned on to a much lower traffic capacity.
This result should be more sensible.
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3734854084
At the moment we're using a ISP provided Asus RT-N56U.
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Yeah - Maybe you would be getting a much faster speed with a different router? Not sure if your router is creating a bottle-neck.
At 100 MB/s with you can still give that low power board a pretty good workout depending on what you do with it.
If your line speed does actually get up to 200 MB/s, then definitely you want a board/processor with guts.
And it probably will not be fanless either.
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Main reason why I'm eyeing that pfsense rig is to do traffic shaping and QoS prioritisation. Is that something that requires a lot of grunt? I won't be doing much of OpenVPN on this box, and even if I do, I don't require the box to give me a full 200mbps worth of VPN traffic anyway :)
Snort on the other hand might be something that I'd try. But I'm not sure if we really need it.
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Snort? Its a pig for processor.
Get the Second board you listed that supports I7 and get a nice heatsink for it….
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I prefer to have my pfsense have too much processor than not enough.
Then you know its going to be able to serve your needs for years.
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As a more powerful alternative you could look at the ASUS Q87T.
It has dual LAN (Intel / Realtek) and a lot of features.
You can stick an Intel socket 1150 processor on it.So my guess is you will find a way to keep both cores maxed all the time.
That processor is a 4C.
Cheers.
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haha. Seems so.
Yep - 4 cores.
Still, I think he would work it to death.
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Assuming we are talking 200Mbps (megabits per second) the j1900 would have no problems for straight firewall/NAT.
Once you start adding Snort or VPNs things get a lot tougher. I still think you'd be fine though. There are a number of threads here with numbers, for example:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=73518.msg443981#msg443981Steve
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Its a weak processor - Better safe than sorry.
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I agree, finding out your CPU isn't up to the job after you've bought your board etc is bad. However it's all relative. In that same thread it's tested pushing >1Gbps of firewall/NAT. Next to my underclocked P4-M it looks pretty fast. ;)
Steve
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He could certainly try it and see how it goes.
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You should probably get yourself a nice power hungry I5 or I7 powered box because if you start running VPNs and using packages with that much bandwidth on tap, you will max out low power processors in a hurry.
I run several 1Gbps/1Gbps links (one at work, another at home) over C2758 SoCs.
not power hungry, at all.
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Use an Atom based board. Makes no difference to me. I'm not the one that will be looking for a new board six months later (-;
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I think the old notions of atom processors need to re-evaluated or thrown out the window entirely with the silvermont architecture (avoton and rangeley).
From everything that has been posted by ESF recently, I expect the C2758 to be a workhorse for pfsense users
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Indeed, it seems somewhat farcical that Intel desided to group them in the Atom family. These are far far away from an N270. ;)
Steve
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Heh, I've actually decided (in the end!) to go with the original Supermicro.
Power here costs a bomb (about 25 cents per kwh). Hence, even if I throw boards away when newer more power efficient ones enter the market, it still isn't too bad a proposition to not "future proof" and just get the board that works for now while upgrading in the future as needs increase. Anything is an improvement over the current Asus elcheapo, and this will help me get my feet wet with pfsense first.
If I feel the thirst for more power, then… someone will get to buy my Supermicro off fleabay :P
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I agree with wshyang.
My monthly power bill is half a workers monthly wage. Yes it's that bad. And its just a small shop.
LED lightning is extremely popular here, and people even turn off the fridge at night to save on electricity.
So also a X10SBA for me. Perhaps even two boards.Atom syndrome is today like the Celeron syndrome from a few years ago (socket 370).
A few weeks ago I build a Celeron based system for a friend. It had to be cheap.
At first, he frowned upon the Celeron processor I used for the build.
I explained that the Ivy Bridge Celeron today is already faster than the E8400 core2duo, consuming less power.So yes, I think it is time to review the Atom processor.
Cheers.
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After you build it, tell us how it works.
I'd be interested in CPU load when transferring files at gigabit speed from one VLAN to another or from LAN through WAN.
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I think the old notions of atom processors need to re-evaluated or thrown out the window entirely with the silvermont architecture (avoton and rangeley).
From everything that has been posted by ESF recently, I expect the C2758 to be a workhorse for pfsense users
I've got a C2758 board here with embedded Intel 10G. It's my new toy. With luck, I'll get things 'tuned' (likely: rewritten somewhat) to be able to packet filter and VPN at 10Gbps throughput.
