Upgrading pfSenpai: Current pfSense setup
Upgrading pfSenpai: Current pfSense setup
At first I had Gigabit internet, but my old Asus AC66U struggled with the high volume of packets passing through NAT. I built a repurposed ITX motherboard with a Sandy Bridge i5 to host pfSense, though over time the heat became an issue because the case lacked proper airflow. Now I own an ASRock J4005 board as an upgrade. It’s not a major speed boost compared to the i5 2510E it replaced, but it uses less power and features a newer design from seven years ago. The original setup was an iStar USA model in ITX form, with a riser cable allowing PCIE cards to fit inside. It’s compact enough for a small networking device without taking up much space. The interior retained the recycled board and an Intel dual NIC above it. This model is a mobile i5, so it stays relatively cool, though the case isn’t ideal. I had to trim the fan housing around the Noctua unit and the HDD tray, which got stuck because they collided. After cutting, it now supports a PCIe card for future upgrades without needing a full replacement. Compared to older setups, the new board is quieter—its PCIE slot only doubles the speed but still delivers 1000MB/s full duplex. If internet speeds exceed 1000MB/s or 8000Mbps, I’ll be happy. The NIC itself looks cheap on eBay, but it’s a decent upgrade. The new board uses less power: it draws just 13.5 watts under load and only 16.5 when downloading at 1Gb, thanks to its improved rear IO. The PSU also switched to a quieter 40mm Noctua fan. Overall, the case is cooler, more efficient, and should keep running smoothly until around 2030. I can easily swap NICs as speeds increase, and I’m planning to move to SFP+ in the future. I’ll use a media converter to turn fiber into copper before sending it to pfSense. It seems this hardware completely eliminated my ISP’s interference—except for the SFP+ transceiver from the ISP itself. Everything else runs independently now.
The collection of networking equipment in the heart of my home is open for anyone interested. Eventually, I plan to switch to 10Gbps switches, though it might take some time.
Consider using a dual-port SFP NIC to eliminate the need for a media converter.
The eventual strategy is to stick with the Intel enterprise NIC instead of switching to the Realtek onboard solution currently. Once 'More than 1gig' becomes available, I expect to consider replacing the copper NIC entirely. This decision stems from the networking on PCIE offering flexibility for future upgrades. I'm uncertain about whether my setup will eventually use SFP+ followed by an SFP+ to a 10G RJ45 adapter, or if it will remain SFP out. One of the 10 gig switches from Netgear includes a shared RJ45/SFP+ port—keep that in mind as we move forward.
Unfortunately, the SSD in pfSenpai failed last night. This caused confusion about internet connectivity—should it be the network, ISP, or something else? After rebooting pfSenapi, it entered BIOS and didn’t recognize any bootable devices. With two other 120GB SSDs unused, I decided to use ZFS RAID1 for redundancy. I’m curious if pfSense can alert users when a drive fails.