Vault 4 Port, Firewall Micro Appliance/Mini PC - Intel Quad Core (Celeron J3160), AES-NI, Barebone

what to say, i ordered the afinity usb cooling fan to set on top but works just fine!

I was waiting to buy this lovely piece after many readings about the performance, and when I received it was a big shock. I had already a VM with 1 CPU and 4 GB RAM performing way more better than this tank, the speed of the internet was 80% reduced with a basic routing without installing any single application, while my VM is giving me 10% decreased speed with OpenVPN and pfblocker... It got hot also easily, the temperature got high above 50 degrees in normal operation. I am returning it because of the price, it is quiet expensive comparing to other brands and at the same price after buying the RAM and the mSATA, I can build a mini itx pc with proxmox server running pfsense and openmediavault having 2 TB cloud.

My trusty old Netgate sg-2220 died and I needed to get my hands upon a replacement ASAP. This little beauty had next-day delivery in my area, and I was up and running again in less than 24 hours after my original hardware failed. Everything you need is right there, and now I'm considering more of these for light automation duties around the house. HDMI output is useful, as fiddling around with the serial console with the sg-2220 was at times frustrating. Thought has been put into the rear-facing Ethernet and power as well, which works out well on a desk with your network cables facing to the rear.

Male, ale velmi efektivni, slaby navod.

Geschäftlich setze ich schon lange auf Sophos. Nun wollte ich auch unser Homeoffice besser absichern, bzw. die YouTube-Ergüsse unserer Kids ein wenig einschränken. Klappt hervorragend. Einfach das Sophos Home Image auf einen Stick herunterladen, Stick einstecken und hochfahren. Achtung: Ich hatte nach der Installation einen schicken Konsolenbildschirm erwartet und wollte das Ding schon zurücksenden. Einfach die Sophos Start-IP eingeben und siehe da, man kann dann über das Webinterface die XG Installationsprocedure durchlaufen. Und natürlich darauf achten, das WAN und LAN vertauscht sind (gerade wenn man sich per Browser einloggen möchte), dass kann man nach der Installation problemlos unter den Schnittstellen ändern. Das Teil läuft schnell (startet gefühlt schneller als unsere original Sophos XP Hardware aus 2022) und für den Heimgebrauch mit X Tablets & Handys ein paar Macs und IoT Geräten reicht es allemal (bis zu 50 IPs). Während des Betriebs wird es nicht warm und der Stromverbrauch hält sich mit unter 30W auch in Grenzen. Da kein Lüfter verbaut ist, vergisst man schnell, dass das Teil irgendwo in der Ecke vor sich hinbrütet. Also für alle die sich mit der Materie auskennen und keinen Bock auf eine Red haben oder unnötig noch Abos etc. dazukaufen wollen, ggf. ein paar Familienmitglieder ein wenig Einbremsen möchten und der normalen Fritz Firewall nicht trauen, go get it....

The barebones Protectli Vault is a fantastic piece of kit for anyone getting in to building their own firewall / router. You need to buy your own RAM and mSATA storage. Buying the barebones kit and getting the RAM and storage separately can work out cheaper than buying it includes, but you run the risk of compatibility issues. I settled on 8GB RAM and a 128GB storage drive and have had no issues. The device is delivered with the AMI bios flashed. If you buy directly from Protectli, you have the choice of AMI (similar to what would be on your normal computer) or Coreboot. AMI works with a lot more hardware but Coreboot has the advantage of being completely open-source. There's some discussion over whether Coreboot brings with it a slight performance increase but I haven't been able to prove it one way or another. I did choose to flash Coreboot to my Vault. This was an easy process of running a live USB with Ubuntu and following the instructions on the Protectli website. The process was a breeze and worked immediately. Once this was complete, I installed OPNsense. The process was as simple as following the install guide on their website. In theory, since this is an x86 platform, you could run almost any OS. Both pfSense and OPNsense work fantastic on the Vault. My Vault has been up for a few weeks now. It's running a number of VLANs with a DHCP server for each. I don't use it for IDS/IPS but plan to in the future. The system has been rock solid and I'm getting the full throughput my ISP advertises. The system idles around 2-3% CPU usage and occasionally spikes to 20% when changing settings in the web interface. Overall, the Vault (FW4B) has been excellent. You certainly don't need 128GB storage, but I'd suggest extending to 8GB RAM if you can afford it since most firewall operating systems load in to RAM when they boot, although 4GB minimum would suffice. This has been a fantastic upgrade to an old desktop running pfSense, the stability is unparalleled and price to performance is absolutely worth it. Whilst the upgradability is limited due to the form factor, the extremely low power draw of the integrated system makes it entirely worth it. I have absolutely no complaints regarding this product and thoroughly recommend it to anyone running a home lab or small to medium business.

This product is NOT fully compatible with Pfsense or OPNsense. During the installation procedure you can choose from several keyboard maps (Belgian, French, Italian etc) but none of them work. So configuring an Azerty keyboard via the installer is not possible. The same installation software does install correctly on other appliances so there must be an incompatibility. I contacted Protecli and they are aware of the problem.