Protectli Vault FW6B - 6 Port, Firewall Micro Appliance/Mini PC - Intel Dual Core i3, AES-NI, Barebone

So I bought this and some 3rd party RAM and SSD for pfSense. Overall, I was really impressed with the build quality and price/performance. I did some performance tests and they all met or exceeded the numbers Protectli posted on their website.If that was the end of the story, I'd be really happy. But after a few months my box started crashing/hanging really hard a few times a day. No kernel panic, nothing in the logs, just dead. I realized this was most likely a hardware problem, but I did the basic things like making sure it wasn't running too hot (a potential issue since it is in my closet) or a software issue.But the crashing persisted so I reached out to Protectli to see what the process was going to be for an RMA. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was afraid of a lot of finger pointing or me having to ship my unit back and then pay for them to ship a replacement- a process which could easily take over a week.Much to my surprise and joy, Protectli support was extremely responsive. They asked me to run a memory test and verify the SSD via smartctl (and even provided instructions on how to do so which was a nice touch). Considering I had purchased those separately on Amazon that seemed fair. Once I submitted the results showing everything was clean they asked for my order number and in less than 24hrs from the time I reached out to them they had sent me a tracking number for a replacement unit and instructions to use the enclosed shipping label to return my old unit back. Wow, it's like I paid for an enterprise support contract or something. :)So yeah, I'm a bit bummed that I had a problem, but I've been around computers to know sometimes these things happen, but what separates the great companies from the merely mediocre is how they respond when things break and in that regard Protectli exceeded my expectations. Definitely will consider Protectli boxes for all my future needs.

I'm giving this Protectli Vault 6 Port (FW6B) five stars, not because it's perfect but because it functionally delivers. Let's get the only negative (at least for my use case) out of the way. I had a Samsung EVO860 SSD (2.5" form factor) laying around. The FW6B has mounting brackets under its cover for a 2.5" disk drive. The brackets were a little too close together which made the installation of the SSD a little challenging. Things just didn't line up 100%. But in the end, I was able to make it work.I also installed a Patriot 8GB RAM stick leaving the second memory slot open for future expansion.As for my configuration, I installed pfSense from USB since I wanted to build a robust home router. Everything installed without any issues. Using pfSense, all the 1GB network ports are easily configurable for WAN/LAN. So far, my FW6B has been running for 50+ days without any issues. The CPU utilization is typically about 5% and I have plenty of memory to spare. I may push the unit a bit further in the coming months as I add more capabilities to pfSense.I would seriously consider the Protectli hardware as an alternative to Intel NUC. I also own a 3 year old Intel NUC that runs ProxMox VM Hypervisor but I would seriously consider a Protectli device as a future VM Hypervisor host for future expansion. The fanless design is very attractive as this removes one more mechanical device as a potential failure point.I'm extremely happy with this purchase and would definitely purchase again.

I really like this box. I know it is a rebadged Chinese box, but I don’t mind paying for local US support, vs having to ship a box back to Hong Kong or China. The stupid thing that stops this from getting 5 starts is the labeling of the ports. To label the first 2 ports WAN and LAN makes it confusing to customize the box. I would prefer they just label the ports 1-6 so I can use them as I need without creating confusion. I had a previous untangle box that the first 2 ports were 2 WAN ports, now my choices are reconfigure the box or live with mislabeled ports potentially confusing people. I like the standard AMI BIOS and the box just works. My firewall runs low CPU so the i3 is very overkilll but gives me headroom to run VPN without killing throughput badly. Box runs cool and barely warm to the touch. My guess if I pushed CPU it would warm up.

Before I bought it, I contacted their customer service team with some general questions. This included support of parts, differences between coreboot and AMI BIOS, and a couple others. They were very pleasant and informative and were no pressure when it came to my interest in the product. What makes this a better buy over other suppliers out there is that they are US based support, offer a variety of hardware and support options, versus a barebones that is really just that - bare. Been running Untangle on this device, tried out the console cable port, and I may snag another to add a vmware host to my lab. Overall, I highly recommend going with Protectli.

Description of the item is not accurate. It says 16gb of memory installed and when you open the box there is none.Make sure to update the description of the item!Update 2/25thI was contacted Protecli who apologized and informed that they have been trying to update the site with amazon without success.Product is very good tough and I ended purchasing memory apart from them

Läuft bei mir als Proxmox Server mit mehreren VM`s (Linux u. Windows) absolut ohne Probleme. Die passive Kühlung funktioniert selbst bei hohen Umgebungstemperaturen ( Dachboden bei fasst 40° C) selbst bei Vollauslastung noch sehr gut.Kann super als Server für so ziemlich alle gängigen Server Dienste in einem Haushalt eingesetzt werden wobei Traffic intensiveren jeweils eine eigene Netzwerkkarte zugewiesen werden kann. Ich nutze das Gerät aktuell für die folgenden Dienste:-Homematic/Raspberrymatic-Iobroker-24/7 NAS (mit Daten die einfach überall verfügbar sein sollen aber keine Sicherung/Redundanz benötigen)-Tvheadend TV Server-Webserver für Intranet-Controller für Wlan Access Points-Windows für Anwendungen wie Audials One (nur Audio)Das Gerät hat zwar seinen Preis(handelt sich im Grunde auch nur um eine der auf gängigen China Portalen erhältlichen Firewall Boxen), aber man bekommt hier wenigstens durch Amazon einen vernünftigen Ansprechpartner in Sachen Garantie, wenn mal was mit dem Gerät sein sollte.

ottimo come elemento nella rete di una scuola. Installando pfsense ho potuto gestire due reti interne (laboratori e uffici) e tre linee esterne (2 fibra e una ADSL) con tutte le regole necessarie per instradare, bilanciare e filtrare il traffico, server DHCP, DNS, etc. etc. Più di 600 postazioni in totale senza fare una piega

Used as a firewall appliance. Very good performance et well built.No fan, no noise but keep ventilated as it is warm (not hot).