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[Ronski]

Thanks, if I ever switch to 1Gbps internet will the N100 cope with that?

@Chrysalis given you're on 1Gbps Virgin, and you said this is more powerful than what you have I'll assume the answer to the above is yes.

[Alex Atkin UK]

The N5105 copes with Gigabit PPPoE without a sweat, I can pull about 1.4Gbit balanced with Smarty 5G (so half PPP and half plain ethernet).

Its only OpenVPN that falls short and I'm not even sure its my-end given the high load is a problem both sides, so could be my VPN providers server is limited (even Wireguard falls short which shouldn't be CPU limited).  Frankly being limited over the VPN is not a big deal as 600Mbit is plenty.

The N100 seems like its about 23% faster.

[Ronski]

Thanks Alex.

I've ordered this one bare bones https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005931578327.html N100

[Alex Atkin UK]

I was brave and got the N5105 with RAM and SSD, it also cost about 2-3 times what it does now which was cheap for the time.  I hadn't realised they'd fallen so much, its amazing they can make anything profitable for those prices.

[Ronski]

The memory/drives you get seem a bit random going by the Serve The Home reviews.

[Ronski]

I've ordered

Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 SODIMM 8GB (1x8GB) DDR5 4800MHz C40 for £27
VIATHAN 256GB M.2 PCIe 3.0 Gen3 NVMe Internal SSD - Up to 1500MB/s for £12

Never heard of Viathan, but it seems to be a UK company, its only a Pfsense router so I'm sure it will be fine.

[Chrysalis]

Thanks, if I ever switch to 1Gbps internet will the N100 cope with that?

@Chrysalis given you're on 1Gbps Virgin, and you said this is more powerful than what you have I'll assume the answer to the above is yes.

Yeah I checked the bench data for both CPU's on single threaded, and its comfortably better whilst having a lower TDP, and as a bonus it also has more cores (4 cores 4 threads vs 2 cores 4 threads, I have htt disabled due to the heat it generates so running at 2/2).  (N100 vs i5 5250u)

Please let us know how you get on Ronski as I am certainly tempted.

The N100 should have no issue with VM gigabit, my existing CPU handles it and is weaker (that also whilst I dont let it use turbo clocks for power efficiency).

Also just checked, supports AES, VT-x instructions so wont have issues there.  As I might use a VM for pfsense if I bother replacing the unit so I get more fuller use out of the hardware.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I avoid VMs personally, but that's easy to say when I already have a 12400 server and Mac Mini.  I just prefer having zero additional latency and one box going down not taking out everything at the same time.

I'm kinda tempted with the N100 just to have a backup router I can easily swap in should things go pear shaped.  Of course because you bought one its done up in price, its weird how Aliexpress does that.

[Chrysalis]

Yeah I am not sure on it, that second unit Ronski picked out looks much nicer than the first for external connectivity with no price bump, thanks for sharing it Ronski.

[Ronski]

I paid £177.03, subject to any import duty.

There were cheaper options, but this looks like it will have better cooling, also 5 ports in case I ever wanted to use it as a switch as well.

I'll let you know how I get on once it arrives, and  I may need some help setting it up, hopefully I can just restore my latest backup, and its straight forward.

[Chrysalis]

The only issue I can think of is the port assignment, but can just move the cables around until they in right ports in case the port ordering is odd (on my unit they not in order 0-3).

There is a feature where if config is on inserted USB stick then it is auto applied on installation so dont even need to manually restore.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/backup/restore-during-install.html

[Alex Atkin UK]

Interface names are a pain on pfSense as they are named differently depending on what driver you are using.  I think when I moved from Intel Gigabit to Intel 2.5Gbit I had to do a find/replace on the xml file as its such a pain adjusting it via the UI.

[Chrysalis]

Ahh so you think they might end up totally unassigned due to the device id change, good tip on the XML then.

Looks like will be igcX instead of igbX.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I can't remember if I tried the auto-reassign (from the console after boot), just that it worked out easier editing the config as my LAN was a bridge with VLANs, etc.  I don't think it handles that sort of configuration.

[Chrysalis]

Yeah edit XML is the way to go for least hassle, reassigning interfaces has always been clunky in my opinion either using the CLI menu or the UI.  Its what I will be doing.