PfSense build

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Soldato
Joined
31 May 2005
Posts
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Location
Nottingham
Well, I finally got fed up of the Virgin Super ****, sorry, Hub and tried PfSense on a VM and fell in love so of course, needed a more "long term" solution as although hosting on VM worked, doing any maintenance on my system dropped the network for everyone else.

I did want to put it in a 1U rackmount chassis and stick in a data cabinet but decided against it for the time being. Just too restrictive (and expensive for no performance gain) and going 1U was forcing me to make concessions I did not really want to make.

Will still be getting a data cabinet in the near future for other gear but that is sorted with this build as it will still fit in the data cabinet.

Final build is:

Intel G5400T CPU
https://ark.intel.com/products/129949/Intel-Pentium-Gold-G5400T-Processor-4M-Cache-3_10-GHz
Running at 25w @ 2.1Ghz across 2 cores/4 threads.

The above will be passively cooled with a:
Arctic Alpine 11 Passive block of metal :D

r4e5OL8.jpg

https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/alpine-11-passive.html
This will be more than adequate for the required use, especially with the CPU running at 25w.

ASRock H310M-HDV mATX Mainboard
https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/H310M-HDV/index.asp

uilss2R.png

For this build, a more expensive chipset gives zero benefits for what is needed so cash saved to go towards other components.

A Micro ITX board would have meant a smaller case but mITX Boards and cases seem to have a premium over even mATX components and a smaller case also limited passive cooling options.

Aerocool CS-101 mATX case
https://www.aerocool.com.tw/au/chssis/pgs-c/cs101

uKd1EkJ.png

7mcNNQ1.png

A nice cheap mATX case which looks pleasant in my opinion, not too garish and will fit inside data cabinet by itself either on the bottom or on a shelf.

SFX POWER 2 300W PSU
https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/494

G06BGKo.jpg

Efficient and reasonably priced and quiet but is nowhere near going to be pushed in any way.

Kingston Fury Black RAM 4GB @ 1.2v

HDD is a WD Green 120GB SSD.

Network controller is an:
Intel® PRO/1000 PT Quad Port Server Adapter

I know the build is not everyones cup of tea and am sure many will do it different ways but for what I wanted for a PfSense build, lower power, low heat, low noise, it will get the job done.

Total build price:
£250

RAM - Members Market
Network Card - Refurbished from Ebay with warranty
Mainboard - Open box discounted

I have saved where possible.

Comparing this to a "Premium" router (Whatever that means), I am confident this will be much better at routing network traffic and running VPN than anything "off the shelf".

Relative to Netgates own SG-3100 which costs over £300 in the UK with only 8GB storage and 2GB RAM (still better than most off the shelf routers), even at over £300, persistent 1GB lan traffic might cause slowdown without adding VPN and proxy into the mix causing other issues.

Looking forward to getting her up and running :D

Will of course post pics.
 
Been using virtualized PfSense for years - previously on HP Microservers and now Dell T20 Xeon box. It's definitely at the stage that I now consider it to be a requirement over stock ISP routers for the nice little bits of functionality I need.

Paired with a Ubiquiti AP it's cracking for a home setup!

Looking forward to pics :)
 
I did consider building a more powerful server and virtualising PfSense and running other stuff on the box such as FreeNAS but settled on a dedicated box.

My primary reasoning for this was that PfSense as an operating system is ultra low maintenance unlike a host for virtualisation.

The irony is, by running separate boxes for each, I am increasing the chance of hardware failure but swings and roundabouts I guess.
 
Armageus said:
Had you looked into any other small form factors before going self build?
Click to expand...

I did.

It all depends on "what you want to achieve".

if size is an issue, I think you would do better to go with a mITX build for a few more quid.

Saying that, if you just want "something better" than your stock ISP router, then yes, I think that would be head and shoulders above anything else out there "off the shelf".

Personally, the T620 units, even at £250 (comparing new), I would feel short changed as they are such low spec and when you start using VPN and maybe a proxy with them, I think you would need a little more "oomph". I do also have my eye on 10Gb to have a play with in the future. I think 10Gb to some degree would be possible with what I have specced, on the T620, I think it would struggle.

I also have the advantage of if I want to in the future, I can re-purpose this gear/flog it. Embedded solutions like the T620s are a much harder sell.

Although, the plan is to just turn this on, shove it in the data cabinet and forget about it and it should be adequate for at least a decade.
 
Stelly said:
Did you have a look at the Ubiquiti Routers mate?
Click to expand...

Hi fella, how are you?

I did look at the Ubiquiti stuff briefly but having ran PfSense on a VM for a while to see what it was about, I found it really stable and "it just worked". I was dubious about PfSense and had put off trying it for too long. Wish I had used it sooner.

When you look at the price of the so called "premium" domestic routers, for what you get, someone is having a laugh :D
 
Stelly said:
@Gimpymoo Did you have a look at the Ubiquiti Routers mate? I think they are Linux based... you can shell into them as well.

I use them at home after hating the superhub too :)

Stelly
Click to expand...

Gimpymoo said:
Hi fella, how are you?

I did look at the Ubiquiti stuff briefly but having ran PfSense on a VM for a while to see what it was about, I found it really stable and "it just worked". I was dubious about PfSense and had put off trying it for too long. Wish I had used it sooner.

When you look at the price of the so called "premium" domestic routers, for what you get, someone is having a laugh :D
Click to expand...

Plus I think the Ubiquity EdgeRouter is literally just a router, with pfSense you can do unified threat management and lots of other cool things. I've built something similar but I'll be going down the Sophos UTM route :)
 
Any progress?
Since your last post I took your DIY as inspiration and spun up a spare server with ESXi and have trialled pfSense and then decided to run it as a CHR as that’s what I’m most comfortable with :D
 
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