Mars Uno Intel Atom N270 pfSense Appliance

Mars Uno N270 pfSense Appliance. 1.6Ghz Fanless Intel Atom N270. Four (4) x Gigabit Ethernet: Realtek RTL8111C (or optional Intel 82574L). 1GB built-in DDR2 Memory.  Stateful inspection firewall. 20-250 users. Up to 500,000 concurrent connections. 18-27 Mbps IPSec VPN throughputs.

pfSense is an open-source firewall distribution based on FreeBSD.

Notes:

  • There is NO SO-DIM socket on the systemboard. Memory chips are soldered on the board.

Features

  1. Small and Light: dimension of 7.1 x 5.1 x 1.65 inches and weight about 2 lbs.
  2. Low power-consumption: 11W without a hard drive.
  3. Fanless system. Designed to run from a compact flash or a 2.5inch SATA laptop hard drive/SSD.
  4. High network throughput:
    • 600 Mbps raw/cleartext
    • 27 Mbps Blowfish IPSec VPN
    • 23 Mbps AES-256 IPSec VPN
    • 18 Mbps 3DES IPSec VPN

Suggested Deployment

  1. Firewall or router/gateway for Small Office or Home Office (SOHO).
    • Load balacing with dual-Wan or triple-Wan for enhanced Internet performance.
  2. VPN server for branch office:
    • Supporting IPSec, SSL-based OpenVPN, PPTP.
    • 27 Mbps Blowfish IPSec VPN throughput between pfSense/M0n0wall/IPCop VPN servers.
    • 23 Mbps AES-256 IPSec VPN or 18 Mbps 3DES IPSec VPN with commercial Cisco/Checkpoint/Juniper VPN servers.
  3. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Protection System (IPS).
    • With the addition of the Snort package. Recommended to be used only with the hard-drive or SSD-based pfSense appliance.
  4. Web filtering and content control.
    • With the addition of the Squidguard package. Recommended to be used only with the hard-drive or SSD-based pfSense appliance.

Support and Warranty

  1. One (1) year industry standard warranty. A single contact for both hardware and software issues.
  2. Depend on the maintenance options, we will walk you through the initial VPN server setup to configuration of multi-wan load balancing and failover.
Price: $499.99
$499.99
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SKU: Uno PF3I270D-V4X
Specifications
Performance* Mars Highlights
Suggested Users 20-250

Stateful Inspection Firewall enforces security policies and resists malicious attacks.

Easy configuration, security management and monitoring of network infrastructure.

Network Address Translation (NAT) protects and hides internal network information from the outside world.

VPN offers significant savings over leased connections between branches or remote offices.

Mulit-WAN load balancing optimizes usages of internet resources.

Failover provides reliable and un-interrupted internet connectivities.
Firewall Throughput 600Mbps
Concurrent Connections

 500,000
3DES IPSec Throughput  18Mbps
AES IPSec Throughput  23Mbps
BF-CBC OpenVPN Throughput  27Mbps
Hardware Specifications Mars
Systemboard  3I270D
CPU  1.6Ghz Intel Atom N270
Memory  1GB
Storage  2GB CF
Ethernet  4 x Realtek RTL8111C (or optional Intel 82574L) Gigabit Ethernet
Cooling  Fanless
Hardware Warranty  1-year limited
Support Contract Mars
Standard Support  1-year

* Performance depends on network environment and configuration of the firewall.

Performance and Cost Comparison?

Since pfSense appliances have been used as firewalls and Internet routers, it is only fair to compare against Cisco products. We have chosen VPN performance to see how the Mars pfSense appliances stack up.

Router Mars Intel Atom N270 Cisco 2811 ASA 5510 ASA 5520
AES IPSec 23 Mbps1 22 Mbps1
35 Mbps3		 66 Mbps1
170 Mbps3		 225 Mbps3
3DES IPSec 18 Mbps1 22 Mbps1
35 Mbps3		 66 Mbps1
170 Mbps3		 225 Mbps3
Failover Supported Active/Standby5 - Active/Standby Active/Active Active/Standby Active/Active
CPU Speed 1.6Ghz N270 350Mhz RM5261A 1.6Ghz Celeron 2.0Ghz Pentium-4
Power Consumption 11W unknown unknown unknown
Fanless System Yes No No No
Cost $550 $2,2794 $2,181 $4,295

Notes:

1As measured by iperf.
2With the optional Soekris VPN1411 VPN Hardware Accelerator
3As reported in Cisco Sales Literature and Documentation. (Cisco Router Performance data come from here.)
4Cisco router cost includes the IOS Security Bundle (SEC/K9) and are typical found on the Internet.
5Detail CARP configuration is discussed at http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Configuring_pfSense_Hardware_Redundancy_(CARP). Active-active configuration is not possible at this time.