Intel Rangeley (Atom server) availability

Rainmaker · 4 May 2014 at 15:01

I've been told by someone in the know in the pfSense community to try to source Intel Rangeley C2558 or C2578 boards/chips rather than go forward with my plan to use an AMD Jaguar/kabini A1 setup for my new hardware firewall/router build.

I'm struggling to find prices though I have come across a couple of business suppliers who have them available. Can anyone shed any light on the availability and pricing of this kit in the UK? The guy I spoke to seemed to think they'd be comparable in price to the AMD kit, but better for pfSense compatibility.

Thanks in advance.

Zarf · 4 May 2014 at 17:05

Rainmaker said:
I've been told by someone in the know in the pfSense community to try to source Intel Rangeley C2558 or C2578 boards/chips rather than go forward with my plan to use an AMD Jaguar/kabini A1 setup for my new hardware firewall/router build.

I'm struggling to find prices though I have come across a couple of business suppliers who have them available. Can anyone shed any light on the availability and pricing of this kit in the UK? The guy I spoke to seemed to think they'd be comparable in price to the AMD kit, but better for pfSense compatibility.

Thanks in advance.

I run pfsense on esxi on my 4 year old n36l microserver, and it's very happy. Low CPU usage even with squid on there.
Could be a useful workaround if esxi runs fine on the AMD setup.

Rainmaker · 5 May 2014 at 01:20

Zarf said:
I run pfsense on esxi on my 4 year old n36l microserver, and it's very happy. Low CPU usage even with squid on there.
Could be a useful workaround if esxi runs fine on the AMD setup.

Thanks.

Essexraptor · 10 May 2014 at 01:56

Unless you make the right hardware choices for your Esxi host your not going to go very far with a pfSense VM

Better off sticking with a live "hands on" box IMO

I'm looking to build my own pfsense box... I was looking towards this MB

Intel BLKD2500CCE ... it has twin Intel Gig NICs and works straight out of the box. If you want a bit of expandability... look at these

Jetway JNF9D-2550 Fanless Dual Core 1.86GHz Atom Mini-ITX Board

and

Jetway JNF99-525 Long Life Fanless Dual Core Atom Mini-ITX Board

Both are more costly but use Daughterboard Expansion to add up to 3/4 further NICS for DMZ or Wireless AP etc

If you want away from Atom... consider a

Gigabyte GA-C1037UN-EU Fanless Celeron 1037U Mini-ITX Board... it has Realtek NICs but could be a contender ?