SSDs for caching? Is cashing useful?

[RickNils]

Hi all, I love using OPNSense, I'm an amateur, and I switched from pfsense, which I used for a decade or so. Now I'm building a new gateway server with OPNSense. Thanks in advance for your guidance!

Should I include a pair or more of SATA SSDs in the build for local caching?  Is there a guide that describes the big ideas and how to set up cashing on an OPNSense box?

My build and installation will serve my SOHO / HomeLab (Small Office/Home Office /HomeLab).  So I want a SOHO LAN, Guest network, and Personal/Home network.

The system is built on ASRockRack: E3C246D4U2-2T server board specs
It is a pretty cool mATX board with two onboard 10GB RJ45 ports. I love that. CPU: ntel(R) Xeon(R) E-2126G CPU @ 3.30GHz, Memory: 4x2666 MT/s 16GB

The hardware might be overkill (?!) The last gateway server I built lasted almost a decade...so why not?

Can I set up the basics first, then add drives and configure local caching later?  Or should I add the drives now before I install OPNSense?

Thanks again!

Rick


I'm sure I can build and load and configure things for basic firewall/router stuff, I'm not sure about anything else ;-)

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

OPNsense is a firewall. It forwards or blocks network packets. It does not store much local data apart from log files and potentially netflow (also log files but more detailled) records.

What is it you would want to cache?

[pfry]

[...]Should I include a pair or more of SATA SSDs[...]

I wouldn't tend to recommend SATA SSDs for anything new (-ish, as the Skaboffeelake/C246 is from ~2018), but one or two (for a boot/system mirror) would work OK for OPNsense. Are you looking at SATA because of the particular I/O available on the E3C246D4U2-2T?