pfSense hardware unit - ALIX 2D13?

[chinny]

I know there are a few pfSense users here so figured it's a good place to ask.

I've got a little project which requires a separate guest wireless/wired network. I was just wondering if anyone here had used/owned an ALIX 2D13. I can't find many reviews but on the surface it seems good.

It'll be connected to BT Infinity so I don't want something that doesn't have the throughput going forward. It seems to tick that box as well though.

Just wanted to canvas some opinions from people really. If there's better hardware around I've missed please let me know.

Cheers!

[watercooled]

I've been using a 2D13 for years, and they're rock solid boards. TBH I think the only times I've had to reboot and because of software updates, or external issues. However bear in mind it 'only' has 100Mbit Ethernet ports, so that's a hard limit which may become restrictive going forward. However it copes fine with my 60Mb VM connection, although the web interface gets a bit sluggish when I'm maxing download.

PCEngines, the makers of the ALIX boards, are currently developing an upgrade, but it might still be some way off (they won't release something half-finished or without proper testing), and you won't find much better than the current ALIX series for the job in the meantime IMO.

m0n0wall is another excellent distribution to try, and it may offer slightly better throughput than pfSense (ipfw vs pf).

[chinny]

Thanks very much or the reply. The main use is just to separate the guest network so the throughput shouldn't be too heavy. There probably won't be too much else (if anything) running on top so I'd have though the 2D13 should be fine.

The upgraded version got me Googling - I guess you're talking about the APU board. I see there were some beta boards available (due to be restocked this month). I'm in the market for a replacement home router so might well hold off getting anything for myself and wait (impatiently) for the APU to get released.

Didn't know about ipwf vs pf before. Interesting reading about the differences between them so thanks for that.

[Splash]

Not running on an Alix, but a few months back I canned my Draytek 2820 when I migrated to Virgin as it couldn't handle the WAN. Now running on one of these with a WLAN card installed, couldn't be happier.

[herulach]

Not running on an Alix, but a few months back I canned my Draytek 2820 when I migrated to Virgin as it couldn't handle the WAN. Now running on one of these with a WLAN card installed, couldn't be happier.

How are you finding the wlan capabilities? I'm tempted by something like that to replace the craptastic SHUB2, but I kind of need at least a 5GHZ (ideally ac) and a 2.4GHZ network, otherwise the mrs streaming vids off the microserver makes it basically impossible to play games etc online.

[Splash]

How are you finding the wlan capabilities? I'm tempted by something like that to replace the craptastic SHUB2, but I kind of need at least a 5GHZ (ideally ac) and a 2.4GHZ network, otherwise the mrs streaming vids off the microserver makes it basically impossible to play games etc online.

To be honest the wireless is no better or worse than the Draytek was (that said... I didn't have any issues with wireless on the Draytek) but I'm using an N card rather than an AC card. Atop that: I don't do anything really network intensive over wireless: the missus might watch some stuff on her tablet, but my PC is cabled.