pfSense / OPNsense Hardware - Your Recommendations?

[OsiMosi]

Hello everyone

In a homelab / home network, the main priorities are usually: energy-efficient, small, quiet. Noise isn't an issue for me, as it's absorbed.

As for hardware requirements, here's what I have in mind:

• pfSense/OPNsense
• Typically no more than 5 users
• The full bandwidth of the connection should be utilized (Down: 500 Mbps Up: 100 Mbps) with some headroom for a 1 Gbps connection
• IPSec & OpenVPN should be fast (>= 100 Mbps, AES-NI)
• IPS/IDS
• 19-inch / 1U-2U
• VLAN
• Nothing should be virtualized, so pfSense will get its "own hardware". I'm familiar with the various China and Aliexpress boxes, but I’d prefer a 1U solution that can go into a rack. In terms of CPU, it should probably be in the Intel i3+ range. With the 100N boxes, I might hit the limit fairly quickly. Upgrading a Dell OptiPlex from eBay with appropriate network cards could also be an option. The power consumption should be low, so no old PowerEdge boxes.

I'm currently using Unify APs, and the controller will later run as a VM on a home server (different hardware).

I'd be very grateful for any recommendations or experiences with specific hardware Ideally, the price should be as low as possible, but as expensive as necessary

 

[louie1961]

I have a N100 box with 16gb of RAM and a 256GB NVMe drive running my network and it is rock solid and not going to ever run out of CPU for my set up with pfSense Plus. I have it doing redundant WAN connections on the front end and 6 VLANs on the back end with about 50 connected devices/virtual machines/IOT devices. I don't use IPsec or OpenVPN, I use Tailscale, and the performance is great. So far the N100 has been bullet proof. My CPU usage averages ~4%, my CPU temps run around 41C, and I am running a LAGG/LACP connection between my pfSense box and my managed switch. I couldn't be happier. You could always get a rack tray and go with one of these Micro Firewall Appliance, Mini PC, Intel Alder Lake-N 12th Gen N100, HUNSN RJ34, VPN, Router PC, GPIO, TF Slot, HDMI, DP, 4 x 2.5GbE I226-V, Barebone, NO RAM, NO Storage, NO System - Newegg.com

 

[OsiMosi]

Thank you for your feedback! My original plan was to avoid the small Ali Express PCs and mini devices and instead build a server for Pfsense from an old Dell Optiplex with a suitable NIC in a 19-inch 1U rack. Alternatively, I considered using an old Sophos XG 106 or possibly converting a Dell R220 II or a Fujitsu S920.

However, I just won a bid on a new IPU445 (19-inch rack version) on eBay for just under €200. So, I guess the hardware question is settled now