New hardware?

[loganx1121]

I'm currently using a QOTOM box which is mostly ok.  It NATS and routes at gig speeds which I get from the ISP, but it only has 6 NICS.  I'm looking for some recommendations on an appliance type box that would give me 8-12 NICs.  Not sure if it's better to buy something or just build a server with NIC cards but I'd like to keep the 1U formfactor or even 2U if possible.  I was looking at some stuff on this site

https://www.firewallhardware.it/en/ 

Mainly the following -  https://www.miniserver.it/firewall/power-utm/firewall-appliance-power-utm-aluminum.html

but it seems a bit pricey for what it is considering it's DDR3, does't seem to have ECC, etc.
Just wondering what people's recommendations are for a box with 8-12 NICs in a 1U or 2U form factor.
Thanks in advance

[marjohn56]

You'll be moving into the 'pro' sector with that number of ports, and that's going to get expensive. It's far cheaper to just get a switch. There are a lot of good cheap low power switches, both managed and un-managed available.

[loganx1121]

I already have 2 layer 3 cisco switches I'm using, a 24 port and 48 port, core and access switches respectively.  Someone on reddit suggested just doing a LAGG on OPNsense between the switches, which I might do, but I still think a bit beefier firewall would be better.  I'm considering purchasing the following -

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32975669960.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.fc7435a0eku0jb&algo_pvid=6e80f769-775f-4722-8cb1-de5b8c236d90&algo_expid=6e80f769-775f-4722-8cb1-de5b8c236d90-0&btsid=0ab6f81e15983144670171621e299a&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

The 16GB RAM, 64GB SSD and i7-4770 CPU version.  CPU benchmarks shows the i7 4770 to be considerably beefier than the i7 7500U currently in my existing QOTOM box. 

[marjohn56]

Very pretty... shame about the fans, but if you don't mind them it looks OK. Not sure about your spec comparison, 15% is not that much, but should do the job just fine.


https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4770/m171274vs1978

[loganx1121]

Shame about the fans because of noise or as a possible point of failure?  The noise won't bother me as the firewall will be located in an alternate room with the rest of my network gear and cisco switches.