pfSense on Dell Edge Gateway 5000

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BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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A family member upgraded their Comcast service to 1Gbps and needed a new router. So I just added another ethernet adapter to an older PC and installed pfSense to get him running. And now I am looking for a smaller less powerful (but still capable of routing 1Gbps) and hopefully passively cooled system to replace that PC with.

While browsing ebay I found a few Dell Edge Gateway 5000 systems selling for under $200.

The least expensive offering comes with Atom E3825 (6W Bay Trail 22nm 1.33GHz 2c/2t, AES), only 2Gb RAM (not upgradeable), dual 1Gbps ethernet onboard, no storage (takes M.2), no power (works with older Dell notebook adapters) for just over a $100 shipped. I almost pulled the trigger immediately but then decided to check the manufacturer of the ethernet chips.

Yep. It's Realtek. Why, Dell, why??

If anyone have any experience with the platform, please share.
 

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
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Realtek NICs aren't as bad as they used to be. I don't think that Atom CPU is going to cut it for 1gbit service however. Passmark puts it at the same level as an Atom 330, which was quite slow when it came out over 11 years ago.
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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This guy had no problem routing 1Gbps with his E3825 based appliance. Also he got over 300Mbps over SSL VPN. The difference is that his system had 4Gb of RAM, 2x Intel I211 NICs and run Debian.
But speaking of CPU performance alone - I am hoping that it would be sufficient for the task.
 
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BlueFox

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Bit surprised at those results, but I guess that's promising then. I doubt you'll see much difference with Intel vs Realtek.

I have a much higher end model (Dell Embedded Box PC 5000) and have been quite happy with it. Quality is good and who doesn't like fanless.
 

ReturnedSword

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Jun 15, 2018
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Realtek being terrible is one of those beliefs that won't go away. It's true that in the distant past, Realtek wasn't that great (mainly due to driver support), but presently the performance is acceptable even in NIX-like distros. Of course, Intel invests a lot more into assisting with contributions to Linux/BSD drivers, but this mostly is true for newer chipsets. On older chipsets, I'd expect the drivers for Realtek or Intel to be in working order already.

On 1 Gbps routing, you should likely have no issues (AES helps a lot here) until you start running a lot of packages.