Time for a new router

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TuxDude

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2011
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Hey all - it's been a long time, maybe some around here still recognize me...

Anyways, my home pfSense router died last night - was one of those little quad-port mini-PC devices from ali-express. Ran great for the last 5 years or so, so I figure I got my moneys worth there - but now I find myself needing something to replace it on rather short notice and am trying not to spend a week researching options. For now, I've stuck my previous-gen box in its place (an old Supermicro Atom D525) - traffic flows again at least.

So - I need some recommendations. Must run pfSense. Must have at least 4 1gpbs ports (2.5bge or 10gbe-sfp+ would be a bonus). Am on the fence about getting another mini-PC vs doing another 1U supermicro - it is going to end up in a rack either way and live in a noisy room. Cost and time-to-receive are both important factors as well.

Thanks for any help.
 

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
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What's your budget and any requirements for performance (say VPN)?
 

TuxDude

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2011
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Well - budget is $0, this is an unplanned purchase, but gotta have a router so I'm buying one anyways. As I mentioned - cost is a factor, cheaper is better, but it's gotta happen.

Performance wize - must keep up with my 1gbps internet service, and I do like having suricata running on there (thats off for the time on the old D525). I only use VPN for remote-access to my house, not to encrypt outgoing traffic, so VPN performance is nice, but not critical.
 

Stephan

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2017
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At budget $0 and 1 Gbps Uplink you probably want cheapest Skylake-era (6xxx CPU) PC or later from ebay with two 1 Gbps ports, or one extra 1 Gbps card. Maybe some Lenovo M900 SFF. Will probably cost not $0 but $100 but for $0 you'd need some STH closeby willing to donate a box and shipping.
 

TuxDude

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2011
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No - budget of $0 just means it wasn't budgeted for, so needs to stay cost-effective. But like it or not (in this case, not), I'm buying a new router to replace the dead one, and I'm buying something of quality that will be a reliable router for the next 5+ years. It's gonna cost me a few $$$ I know.

Looking around more, kinda leaning towards just another quad-port ali-express unit. Does what it needs to do on minimal power.

Having looked over the recent STH articles on a few of those topton boxes, am looking at a N5105 unit with the newer i226 nics in another tab right now. Price is reasonable for the hardware that's in there, free shipping, and I can live on this older atom till it gets here. The old D525 can still handle gig traffic fine, just no crypto offload for VPN and not enough power for IDS.
 

Markess

Well-Known Member
May 19, 2018
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Northern California
You mention articles on the STH site, did you see this thread on the forum (https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-jasper-lake-quad-i225v-mini-pc-report.36699/)? Mostly concerning the newer 6xxx CPUs, but maybe also some good nuggets about sellers that have been problematic. Seems like 5105 is still the safer bet ATM.

Enough horror stories in that thread that I decided to hold off on new and went with a repurposed appliance (Cloudgenix Ion 2000) when I swapped hardware a few months back. A member here gave me the idea.

Its older (Atom C2558 & Gigabit NICs) but new enough that it doesnt suffer from the bug that early production chips in that generation had. Keeps up well with my symetrical Gigabit and modest homelab needs. But, I'm not running any extra packages or VPN.

Definitely inexpensive (was $80 shipped), and never breaks 15% for any resource (CPU, RAM, etc.). MIne even came with ears for rackmounting.
 
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