1Gbit WAN - hardware help

Hi there everyone,

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The current machine

I've currently got PFsense running on a small fanless industrial PC I bought a year or so ago.

It's an Atom D525 (dual core w/HT), 1.8Ghz, 4GB of RAM and four onboard gigabit realtek NICs. I'm pretty sure it's this motherboard: http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NF38.html inside it, but can't be certain.

I know I know, realtek and FreeBSD aren't best friends. However, I compiled realtek's latest drivers for FreeBSD, sideloaded them and have had stable & sufficient performance for my (previous) WAN speed.

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My current use

I don't really do much clever stuff, but it's all on the "to-do" list, which is why I ultimately am using PFSense.

My ISP (hyperoptic.com) installation is a cat6 socket on the wall, which I believe connects back to a gigabit switch port somewhere in the block I live in. I'm paying them for a static IPv4 address (which is handed out via DHCP) and IPv6 is coming "soon". So I'm currently using NAT with port forwarding, the firewall, and I have Snort turned on - just to block the script kiddies. I've got a couple of ports forwarded.

I was on the 150mbit/150mbit package, and was happily getting this throughput through the router.

I'm not doing any VPN stuff at all yet, but I might be doing. Not for heavy traffic levels, so not worried if it only manages 40-50mbit; it would only be for my laptop when I'm away from home.

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The situation

A good deal was offered on the gigabit symmetric package. So obviously I said yes. For those interested, the deal was £39/month with the static IPv4 included, unlimited usage.

The throughput I managed was around 220-230mbit each way. I disabled Snort entirely, and got 340mbit.

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Now, what I want to know is: Should I expect this hardware to do more? Or am I pretty much on the limit of what it can reasonably achieve?

If I need to start looking at new hardware, what sort of spec would you suggest? I'm also thinking of replacing my general purpose server (file store, download box, etc), so I'm wondering about combining the two and running a VMHost for PFSense, NAS etc, but I want to understand where I currently stand before I start to shop for more hardware!

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Thanks for any advice you can give!