Is is a good MB for a PFSense box?
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Picked up a cheap E3 1220v1 for $40. Finding a case proved to be a little more difficult. They're all overpriced. But as fate would have it I stumbled upon a deal on 4 Supermicro SC512 chassis with PSU's. 2 of which match the MB back panel. The other 2 only have holes for 2 NICs. I'll resell the other 3 and will most likely get my $140 back and then some. 
Be aware that the 1220 doesn't support hyperthreading, so you are limiting yourself to the 4 physicals with no logicals. Given how cheap that range is in general, you might want to consider stepping up a notch or two. The 1220's are super cheap for a reason.Picked up a cheap E3 1220v1 for $40. Finding a case proved to be a little more difficult. They're all overpriced. But as fate would have it I stumbled upon a deal on 4 Supermicro SC512 chassis with PSU's. 2 of which match the MB back panel. The other 2 only have holes for 2 NICs. I'll resell the other 3 and will most likely get my $140 back and then some.
Entirely a factor of how it's configured and how much traffic you are passing.
If you find that the box is struggling, simply jumping up to a 1230 will effectively double your number of active cores from 4 to 8.
Question though: if this is a border facing box, have you considered just going with a UTM like Sophos instead?
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Entirely a matter of preference, agreed. I migrated from Cisco ASA to Sophos UTM 9 about a month ago and, thus far, am pleased with it. The UI is honestly pretty intuitive, which was a pleasant surprise.
Likewise, although I'll admit to slogging it out through ASDM (which is just terrible). Sophos is just a pretty well designed webadmin page. You can tell they put a great deal of thought into making easier to administer.
I haven't played around with the XG stuff yet, but from what I've been told it's a further leap forward in terms of reporting capability & ease of management. It's a pretty straight upgrade from one to the other, so I'm stress testing the existing box to ferret out any problems now & get the rules tweaked / refined before I change over.
You should definitely go for a v2 cpu, idle power usage is a lot less!
A great pfsense box is the Dell R210 II. I use one myself, though it is FreeBSD, with OpenVPN, Bind DNS server and some Java web applications. Idle power is 22w! It is with a 1240v2 cpu with 16GB ram, and it is plenty for all that stuff. I could have managed with just 1 core.
A great pfsense box is the Dell R210 II. I use one myself, though it is FreeBSD, with OpenVPN, Bind DNS server and some Java web applications. Idle power is 22w! It is with a 1240v2 cpu with 16GB ram, and it is plenty for all that stuff. I could have managed with just 1 core.
+1 - I run Sophos on a R210 II 1280 v2 with 32gb. Love these servers. Currently have 3 x R210 and 2 x R210 II in my rack - very quiet and very little heat generated. Just remember to upgrade the memory to DDR3-1600 if you go with the v2's on the R210 II.
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How is the noise with the R210? I noticed they are substantially cheaper than the R210ii but have read they can be pretty loud.
What's a 'deal' for the R210ii ? I see some for $150 barebones (no cpu/ram/hdd) and others $200+ with various cpu/ram/hdd... not sure where the deal is. SuperMicro for similar spec seem to be $150-$200 with cpu/low-ram and no hdd.
I'm thinking of using one for my next pfsense too.
I'm thinking of using one for my next pfsense too.
Mainly a function of ambient, but it's the same case / same fans. The x34xx series can run somewhat hotter compared to an E3-12xx v2 (95W vs 69W) so maybe slightly higher fan idle speed.
Personally, I find both of them exceptionally quiet. Your tradeoff with R210 vs R210 II will be more one of heat than noise.
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I would avoid the barebones unless you just happen to already have the requisite parts already sitting around. By the time you bought them, you'd break even at best in comparison to the functional boxes. These recyclers strip them down because they're more valuable as parts.
Best advice - find an R210 II with ram already present and a low level CPU (some of them came with fricking Celerons ...), then just replace that one part with an E3-12xx v2 series.
Excellent. I was looking at a R210ii for a dedicated pfsense box and noticed the R210s are substantially cheaper. I may just get one of them for cost savings.