Sophos

[ChriZ]

Another popular option for a motherboard is the Gigabyte c1037.
I think it is discontinued, though...
It is also very low TDP, supports up to 16GB of Ram, has dual lans ( Realtek, though, but they seem to work well from what I've read) and has the same horsepower.
Perhaps you can find one, it is somewhat popular in sophos community.

 

[pirateghost]

Another popular option for a motherboard is the Gigabyte c1037.
I think it is discontinued, though...
It is also very low TDP, supports up to 16GB of Ram, has dual lans ( Realtek, though, but they seem to work well from what I've read) and has the same horsepower.
Perhaps you can find one, it is somewhat popular in sophos community.

The only issue I have with something like that is the PCI slot. PCI-Express is the only way to go.

 

[ChriZ]

Agreed, but most people won't need an additional card, since it is already dual lan, plus you can use a really tiny case if you don't need one with an expansion slot.

 

[Jailer]

Jetway is another option that has several different offerings in multiple configurations.

 

[joeschmuck]

As far as heat goes, would it be better to do a 2.5" [Samsung] 850 Evo vs an mSATA 850 Evo?

I wouldn't use a SSD myself just because there is a lot of writing going on constantly. A 2.5" HDD would be fine, I'd try to find one in the 100GB to 200GB size, I have a 500GB sized drive and although it works fine, it's just too big but it was new and not being used so I put it to use. If you do go for a SSD, you can either go with a quality enterprise SLC drive or with the cheapest one you can find. A HHD will cost anywhere from $20 to $60 and a SSD are occasionally on very good sale prices. Oh, and a 2.5" HDD doesn't produce much heat, very little actually.

Also mSATA is a different connector than a SATA connector so if you go that path, ensure you have the right connectors.

 

[jgreco]

Sophos also sells AP's that you can manage from the UTM.

I wouldn't buy the Sophos AP's without further research. The Ubiquiti stuff, I'll tell you straight out, it's aimed at tech geeks a little more than most gear, so there can be some messing around involved in setting it up, but it works very nicely once you do so.

Single pane management is mostly a gimmick when you're talking such different things as UTM and wifi.

 

[zoomzoom]

I wouldn't use a SSD myself just because there is a lot of writing going on constantly. A 2.5" HDD would be fine, I'd try to find one in the 100GB to 200GB size, I have a 500GB sized drive and although it works fine, it's just too big but it was new and not being used so I put it to use. If you do go for a SSD, you can either go with a quality enterprise SLC drive or with the cheapest one you can find. A HHD will cost anywhere from $20 to $60 and a SSD are occasionally on very good sale prices. Oh, and a 2.5" HDD doesn't produce much heat, very little actually.

Also mSATA is a different connector than a SATA connector so if you go that path, ensure you have the right connectors.

I hear ya on the the amount of disk writes, however the 120GB 850 Evos come with a 5yr/75TBW warranty (540/520), while the 128GB 850 Pros are 10yr/150TBW (550/470); however, the Pros but don't come in mSATA but they do jump to 550/520 @ 256GB (my 1TB and 500GB 850 evos are 5yr/150TBW). For the cost of ~$80 for a 120GB 850 Evo/~$95 128GB 850 Pro, it's hard to justify not going with them =] ...I'm not the most objective of sources though as I'm partial to Samsung's 850 line

The one thing I liked about SuperMicro's X10SBA was that it had an mSATA =]

 

[zoomzoom]

What search parameters should I be using to find the smallest box possible for the SuperMicro X10SBA (6.7" x 6.7")? I didn't realize the mini-ITX form factor also covered tower and desktop cases.

 

[pirateghost]

Depends on where you're searching.

 

[zoomzoom]

I was searching on Newegg and TigerDirect

 

[pirateghost]

On Newegg, just filter mini-itx. It won't include full size towers

 

[zoomzoom]

Thanks! =]

 

[pirateghost]

just a warning about those APEX mi-008 cases: I have 2 of them and on one of them it doesn't have enough airflow and the power supply gets really hot. like extremely hot. The other one had a slightly different outer shell that allowed me to zip-tie a 80mm fan to the side to allow air to flow through it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091

 

[ChriZ]

My personal favorites are Antec 110 (http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=11-129-185) which has an external power supply and no expansion slot and Antec isk 300-150 (http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=11-129-080) which has an internal psu and an expansion slot.
You can also look for antec isk 300-65 which is the same as 300-150 but with an external 65w psu.

 

[diedrichg]

My personal favorites are Antec 110 (http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=11-129-185) which has an external power supply and no expansion slot and Antec isk 300-150 (http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=11-129-080) which has an internal psu and an expansion slot.
You can also look for antec isk 300-65 which is the same as 300-150 but with an external 65w psu.

External power and expansion slot to boot? Sign me up.

 

[Jailer]

What search parameters should I be using to find the smallest box possible for the SuperMicro X10SBA (6.7" x 6.7")? I didn't realize the mini-ITX form factor also covered tower and desktop cases.

Personally I'd go with a M350 case from minibox and a 60W external power brick from Seasonic.

 

[rogerh]

A router doesn't have to be a small separate box. For instance, if you have other things in a rack it makes sense to put it in a one unit rack box.

 

[joeschmuck]

just a warning about those APEX mi-008 cases: I have 2 of them and on one of them it doesn't have enough airflow and the power supply gets really hot. like extremely hot. The other one had a slightly different outer shell that allowed me to zip-tie a 80mm fan to the side to allow air to flow through it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091

I actually like the look of this case and I can see modifying it with maybe an 80mm x 15mm case fan, place a hole in the case and put a wire screen over it in order to force air over the components. And the cost is nice. I'd like to see what it looks like with a MB installed, what the clearances are and maybe I will because I'm considering building a new machine to replace the one I hacked together. Right now I just need to justify the costs for the initial components.

For the cost of ~$80 for a 120GB 850 Evo/~$95 128GB 850 Pro, it's hard to justify not going with them =] ...I'm not the most objective of sources though as I'm partial to Samsung's 850 line

I just looked this up and I'd say go for the Pro line. I found one for $86 delivered so that isn't a bad price for the 10 year warranty. And I'm curious what you do end up purchasing for parts. Lastly, are you on the Sophos Forums at all asking build questions, I'd like to join that conversation to see how things progress. I'm not trying to tell you that you should use those forums however it is specific to the task. Not saying the folks here are clueless, far from that. I suspect everyone here also has an account in the Sophos forums. For instance, I had an issue with Sophos the other day, a question I would not ask on a FreeNAS forum even though this is an off topic thread. I ended up screwing myself which caused the problem so I had to reinstall Sophos from scratch, no fun. What I learned from that was to not screw around in the command prompt writing scripts and things, but it was fun while it lasted.

 

[zoomzoom]

I just looked this up and I'd say go for the Pro line. I found one for $86 delivered so that isn't a bad price for the 10 year warranty.

I was leaning toward the Pro line as well, as for such a small difference in price, you gain so much more with the 10yr warranty

Lastly, are you on the Sophos Forums at all asking build questions, I'd like to join that conversation to see how things progress. I'm not trying to tell you that you should use those forums however it is specific to the task. Not saying the folks here are clueless, far from that. I suspect everyone here also has an account in the Sophos forums. For instance, I had an issue with Sophos the other day, a question I would not ask on a FreeNAS forum even though this is an off topic thread. I ended up screwing myself which caused the problem so I had to reinstall Sophos from scratch, no fun. What I learned from that was to not screw around in the command prompt writing scripts and things, but it was fun while it lasted.

I haven't yet and that's a great suggestion =]

I'll combine a few of my posts, post a reply there later day, and include a link on this thread. I did skim through a few threads there the other night when trying to figure out what hardware to go with; however, even after talking with a Sophos employee on the Sophos website, I came away knowing a lot more than I had before, but with little help as to hardware since it's so varied.

 

[joeschmuck]

To be honest, the hardware requirements are extremely light which is why you won't find many specific requirements other than 2GHz CPU Dual Core (faster is better of course), 2GB RAM (4GB preferred), Two Ethernet ports (WAN/LAN) and even though Intel is preferred by most people, the other NICs generally work well to if you have a reasonable CPU. When I rebuild mine (I used an old computer to toss something together) I plan for reasonable CPU (still looking into what reasonable means for Sophos 10 but it may be an i-3 3.3GHz CPU), 4GB RAM, Two built in Ethernet ports, PCI-e expansion slot for an additional NIC card (for the WiFi AP). Eventually I will put it into a small case and the hard drive will be whatever I have at hand for a SSD.

Also, read the hardware thread, you will find a lot of information there such as not all Intel NICs are created the same. Here is one example. Maybe that MB you were looking at previously will not be a good idea.