2.5G/1.0G SFP+ WAN

[CobraPL]

Hello, I will have 2.5G/1.0G internet connection delivered by SPF+ I'll use IDS and IPS.
I may also have second WAN (not faster than 900/300) from different ISP over copper NICs (intel planned). The setup should be able to handle it too simultaneously (rather light traffic, backup only, maybe DNS server).

Questions:
Should I use bare metal or should/can I switch to Proxmox (for max performance)?
X520-DA2 or Connectx-3?
In case X520-DA2 am I forced to use Intel's modules? Can I use (non-intel) DAC (w/o performance penalty)?
16GB ram or 32GB ram (may be ubuntu+pihole on on core/2t/4GBram in case I use Proxmox)?
Will 4650G be sufficient?

[jlab]

IMO,

I always use BareMetal for firewalls !  Others will disagree BUT IMO

[0n3man]

My experience on the Odroid H3+ was the system crashing when the system was put in line. The realtek driver seems to have a bug.  As a result I ended up going the Opnsense VM running on top of qemu kvm.  I wrote it up the install process here https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=31650.0.  I posted on the wrong page, so it wouldn't apply unless you're using realtek for the 2.5G.