Pfsense on Zotec Zbox

[AdvHomeServer]

Pfsense on Zotac Zbox

I had an idea for a project for later this year and decided to see if anyone has already done it.

A fully configured Zotac Zbox with 2GB RAM, a 64GB SSD (with room for a 2.5" HD), and twin GB network ports is available at amazon for $179. It has a Celeron processor with a passmark score of about 1500. With Pfsense I was wondering if this would make a decent router project?

I have no experience at this time with Pfsense so learning more about it beforehand would be a part of the project. Pfsense is said to have a version for an edgerouter lite available 'at a later date after V 2.2 is released'. V 2.2 was just released so maybe sometime this year I can use my edgerouter for experimental purposes instead of the zbox.

Any ideas about a zbox / pfsense home brew router?

 

[System Error Message]

It it came between a choice of intel atom or intel celeron i would choose the intel atom. Celerons dont have any of the hardware features that the other intel CPUs have that are useful such as SSE, hardware encryption and so on. Celerons have a lot of logic removed and crippled and also have less cache. This limits the amount of bandwidth the can handle and how much they can do.

Also instead of a board with 2 Gbe ports i could get an older intel low profile quad port server. It requires a PCIe x4 mechanical at least but really costs a lot less and if pfsense has the driver it should use a lot less CPU than onboard realtek or marvel NICs.

But a lot of people have made their own x86 pfsense boxes and have written about it, google searching and the pfsense forums may help.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

It it came between a choice of intel atom or intel celeron i would choose the intel atom. Celerons dont have any of the hardware features that the other intel CPUs have that are useful such as SSE, hardware encryption and so on. Celerons have a lot of logic removed and crippled and also have less cache. This limits the amount of bandwidth the can handle and how much they can do.

Also instead of a board with 2 Gbe ports i could get an older intel low profile quad port server. It requires a PCIe x4 mechanical at least but really costs a lot less and if pfsense has the driver it should use a lot less CPU than onboard realtek or marvel NICs.

The passmark score of 1500 is pretty high for a router, and even a small PC that has light demands. I would imagine an atom has one of maybe 600. A decent i5 PC has a passmark of 3000 and up. The pair of gigabit network ports is for wan in and wan out, with it going to a switch after that, in my mind. A zbox is about the physical size of a netgear AC router, but about an inch thick. For $179 plus some know how it seemed like a pretty good project.

As I said, I have no experience of any kind with pfsense and I recall it mentioned here in the forum occasionally. Seemed like a good place to ask.

 

[System Error Message]

Well for general tasks it should suffice and maybe might be better than the atom boxes from pfsense website not to mention cheaper.

If there is the same thing but with better CPU such as an i3 it may be totally worth it.

Still for a self project i dont think performance matters I'm going to try scavange parts to build one too.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Well for general tasks it should suffice and maybe might be better than the atom boxes from pfsense website not to mention cheaper.

If there is the same thing but with better CPU such as an i3 it may be totally worth it.

Still for a self project i dont think performance matters I'm going to try scavange parts to build one too.

zotac zbox comes with i3, i5, and i7 configurations. The cost goes up with each iteration. I'm thinking cheap, but not so cheap it's a waste of money. What is the advantage of an i3? I'm a little confused because a normal router has the power of an ARM at best, usually. What limitations does the celeron cause in this case? This one is about 2/3 the power of a common i3, although the i3 can get 2x to 3x as powerful.

 

[System Error Message]

AES acceleration
More cache (larger tables and more running at once)
hardware encryption
the latest SSE (If pfsense is compiled to use it, gives big boost in math and logic performance).
Better memory performance?
lower latency (still retains full logic and instructions).
Refer to intel ARK on the extra features before you buy.

For a mini project celeron may suffice.

The i3s, i5s and i7s have little differences between them like hyperthreading for most, better frequency, cache size (i7s have larger cache), and some management thing for businesses (for a few models) and turbo (auto overclock where possible) for some. So if you plan to use it as an actual router/server in the future you may benefit from the i5 or i3 but if you just want to try it out but not use it as a central server or similar than the celeron will do fine.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

I just had an inspirational flash.

pfsense can boot from flash drives and run self contained. When this project bubbles to the top of my list, I think I will load it on a flash drive and boot it from any available laptop to play with. This will provide a realistic trial experience, I would assume, without the need to spend anything. Using a VM is also an option, but I think the flash drive could then migrate to the zotac, if the project gets that far, and be put to use there without formatting the drive. I would not want to use a VM on a windows machine in production because of all the updates and necessary security software just to protect the underlying operating system.

Still hoping the edgerouter gets a pfsense bump this year. Or maybe the Ubiquiti people take a stronger interest in the gui. A little Vyatta is fine with me. The need to be a Vyatta expert is not an interest of mine. If they could add no-ip in the DDNS list and add a OpenVPN tun with custom certificate interface, I would be a happy camper. For real fun down the road, a radius server with policy management would be great to play with.

 

[messerchmidt]

unless you have a gigbit wan, it will be fine.

the previous gen atoms seemed to max out at 400-600mbs, and less with vpns.

there is a dual realtek lan celeron j 1900 quad core board from gigabyte that people are raving about on the pfsense forums. add 4-8gb ram, itx case,etc and you have a fairly powerful unit.

it does not have aes-ni, but can push greater than gigbit speeds via truecrypt benchmarks. the main issue is the realtek nics cannot go as fast as the intel ones. again, if your at a regular 30/3 or 60/10 mbs internet connection, it is overkill.

 

[Jay_S]

A fully configured Zotac Zbox with 2GB RAM, a 64GB SSD (with room for a 2.5" HD), and twin GB network ports is available at amazon for $179. It has a Celeron processor ...

Which Zbox has two Gb LAN ports? I've scanned their product line and don't see this model/config.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Which Zbox has two Gb LAN ports? I've scanned their product line and don't see this model/config.

http://www.zotac.com/en/promotion/ZOTAC-ZBOX-EI750#slide1
and
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JN1SWMK/?tag=snbforums-20

These for example. Others that are lower in the food chain are also said to. I have seen many others, but can't say for sure that every model does. I will look closer now based on your research.

*********

After looking a bit more, it appears that the low end zboxes are hit or miss. Thanks for saving me from a mistake. I like the idea of a pint sized desktop that is all powerful, but I also like the idea of a cheapo for other purposes.

 

[Jay_S]

Were you by chance referring to the ZBOX-BI320-U-W2 originally? It's got the 64GB SSD, 2GB RAM, Haswell celeron 2957U, Win8 w/Bing... but only a one NIC.

Anyway, I've been struggling not to buy the ZBOX-BI320-U-W2. In recent past it's gone on sale for $150-160 at Amazon and Newegg. I have zero need for it, but sooo tempting. Serve The Home's review just makes me want it more.

I will probably buy the next time it's on sale, if only for a cheap Win8 box to play with Win10 when the free upgrade debuts.

But in the back of my mind, I sorta want to built 2 simple NASes (there's a 2.5" HDD site in addition to the preinstalled 64GB mSATA) - a primary NAS + backup NAS.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Were you by chance referring to the ZBOX-BI320-U-W2 originally? It's got the 64GB SSD, 2GB RAM, Haswell celeron 2957U, Win8 w/Bing... but only a one NIC.

Anyway, I've been struggling not to buy the ZBOX-BI320-U-W2. In recent past it's gone on sale for $150-160 at Amazon and Newegg. I have zero need for it, but sooo tempting. Serve The Home's review just makes me want it more.

I will probably buy the next time it's on sale, if only for a cheap Win8 box to play with Win10 when the free upgrade debuts.

But in the back of my mind, I sorta want to built 2 simple NASes (there's a 2.5" HDD site in addition to the preinstalled 64GB mSATA) - a primary NAS + backup NAS.

I must have assumed that the high end models with 2 rj45 ports were universal throughout the product line since the cases were basically identical. I doubt I looked closely at the cheapo that got me thinking.

For other purposes, it looks like a good machine for certain uses. I don't recall the exact model I saw when I first got the idea. It had a celeron with a pretty good passmark, 64gb ssd card with room for a hard drive and a couple of GB ram, upgradable. Win 8 might have been included.

 

[System Error Message]

Well the celerons do a lot better job than atom for general stuff and throughput but they can lose out on hardware accelerated things. For other things you should compare cache sizes and hardware features. Personally i think its better to use an i3 than celeron.

Hardware acceleration would usually be things like encryption. Be sure to refer to intel ark for those features.

If only my motherboard works i would already be trying out pfsense on a quadcore iseries xeon. The CPUs support dual processor configuration but the only server motherboard out there that can overclock them is unavailable in the UK. Running them at 4Ghz in a 1U chassis with good cooling would be great and using RAID0 drives for cache.

Some systems that are prebuilt and come with windows may have a vendor lock that prevents you from installing other OSes but i hope zotac doesnt have that.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Some systems that are prebuilt and come with windows may have a vendor lock that prevents you from installing other OSes but i hope zotac doesnt have that.

I doubt zotac has that problem since they sell a lot of barebones systems.

I know what you mean. Once I installed Windows Server 2012 Essentials on a recent vintage HP i5 laptop. I had to jump through hoops to get in installed because Win Server 2012 was not considered an approved OS in the bios. (I had to add the serial number to a file on the DVD which then bypassed the bios validation. It took hours to figure out and more time to burn the new DVD.)