Need help in making sure this would work (I am new to this)

[yomitancho]

This is what I plan on doing

The Minisforum MS-01 will have Crucial RAM 64GB Kit (2x32GB) DDR5 @5200MHz. I don't have any SSD/NVME for it yet, I am looking for recommendations on storage for installation and some kind of backup for to make sure everything is runing smoothly. I am 100% sure you all have more knowledge on this than me and im always up to acquiring new knowledge. I plan on run pfsense and pihole for now, I am sure I will be adding more as time goes and I acquire more knowledge. I have all equipment here for the exception of the SSD/NVME.

 

[DavidWJohnston]

I don't see anything obviously wrong; especially if it's going to be just a flat network with NAT out to your ISP, it's pretty simple.

I would say though:

- The diagram doesn't show how the modem connects to the pfSense box (ex. Gigabit?) Use a fast enough wired link.

- Even though pfSense is pretty reliable, if other household members rely on the internet through it, and it breaks, your ISP will not be able to help them over a service call. Your ISP's modem is almost certainly more reliable than a PC running pfSense, and your ISP knows how to troubleshoot it.

- Any SSD will work for pfSense - I would suggest creating a small partition for what you need, and leave the rest empty space - This will give the drive's write leveling algorithm the best chance to keep longevity high. With modern SSDs the write endurance should be sufficient to run pfSense for a reasonable amount of time before failing. (i.e. several years)

- If you really want maximum reliability for SSD, use an Intel Optane drive for your critical path workloads (pfSense, DNS, etc) which has an exceptionally high write endurance

- pfSense has a backup capability built-in to it, including a free cloud-based backup service. Repairing hardware, reinstalling pfSense, then restoring from the backup is a manual process.

- Are you running something else on your Minisforum (pfSense?) box? 64G and that hardware is beyond overkill for that.

I hope this helps, good luck with your project!

 

[yomitancho]

I don't see anything obviously wrong; especially if it's going to be just a flat network with NAT out to your ISP, it's pretty simple.

I would say though:

- The diagram doesn't show how the modem connects to the pfSense box (ex. Gigabit?) Use a fast enough wired link.

- Even though pfSense is pretty reliable, if other household members rely on the internet through it, and it breaks, your ISP will not be able to help them over a service call. Your ISP's modem is almost certainly more reliable than a PC running pfSense, and your ISP knows how to troubleshoot it.

- Any SSD will work for pfSense - I would suggest creating a small partition for what you need, and leave the rest empty space - This will give the drive's write leveling algorithm the best chance to keep longevity high. With modern SSDs the write endurance should be sufficient to run pfSense for a reasonable amount of time before failing. (i.e. several years)

- If you really want maximum reliability for SSD, use an Intel Optane drive for your critical path workloads (pfSense, DNS, etc) which has an exceptionally high write endurance

- pfSense has a backup capability built-in to it, including a free cloud-based backup service. Repairing hardware, reinstalling pfSense, then restoring from the backup is a manual process.

- Are you running something else on your Minisforum (pfSense?) box? 64G and that hardware is beyond overkill for that.

I hope this helps, good luck with your project!

Thank you

The modem will be using the second RJ45 - 2.5Gbps on the MS-01. I got interested in running proxmox on the MS-01. Then running the pfsense and pihole in vm on it, for now at least until I feel more comfortable in my knowledge. Not sure if you would know but i keep reading that in proxmox I should have separate disk for os and vms. If that is the case I am thinking of putting a Intel SSDSC2BX800G4 DC S3610 Series 800GB as the os drive and a 1.92TB Samsung PM983 for vm. Now for backup I am working on that I have an old pc here I can turn into a storage. Do you think those 2 drives should be fine or should I go with different ones, If so do you have any recomendations?