A low-power firewall box that can sit in front of a Mac mini server
A $290 1U firewall appliance ran pfSense for one year without stability problems. Its main parts include an Intel Alder Lake N100 processor, four Intel i226-V 2.5 gigabit , and a PCIe x8 slot that can take two or four SFP+ modules. It also supports M.2 NVMe, SATA, and Mini PCIe storage or expansion, plus HDMI and VGA for direct console access.
The only fan is for the processor, so the machine stayed quiet. It also stayed cool in a home office without air conditioning and used little power. It worked with a wide range of SFP+ modules, but it may be more powerful than many small need.
For pfSense, a small fast SSD or is enough, and 2 GB of memory is enough, so buying 8 GB is unnecessary for this use.
Key points
- The appliance ran pfSense for a year without freezes, reboots, or other issues.
- It uses an processor and stayed quiet, cool, and low power.
- It has four 2.5 gigabit ports and room for SFP+ expansion.
- Small fast storage and 2 GB of memory are enough for this pfSense use case.
- It is a possible network-front-end companion for a Mac mini .