Testing
On to the next Firebox. This time it’s the x1250e model. This is supposed to be the Top Core model for this series but internally it’s identical as the previous model. The features are simply software controlled.
The hardware in this Firebox is virtually identical to the x750e. In fact the only difference seems to be the existence of the soldered on IDE header.
The process for installing pfSense is exactly the same as the previous box. This time I left the original RAM and CPU intact. Time to benchmark these and see how much of a difference the CPU upgrade made.
The test consists of copying a large (4GB) file across two interfaces. The copy was performed from SSD to SSD over high quality switches to eliminate hardware bottlenecks.
Each firewall was configured with 4 interfaces
- WAN – On-Board, PCI, sk driver
- LAN – On-Board, PCI, sk driver
- DMZ – Expansion, PCIe, msk driver
- PVT – Expansion, PCIe, msk driver
Original Configuration Intel Celeron M 1.3Ghz
| Source | Destination | Transfer Speed (MBit/s) | Transfer Speed (MB/s) | CPU Usage | Notes |
| WAN (sk) | LAN (sk) | 344 | 43 | 62% | PCI->PCI |
| LAN (sk) | WAN (sk) | 304 | 38 | 75% | |
| WAN (sk) | DMZ (msk) | 432 | 54 | 50% | PCI->PCIe |
| DMZ (msk) | WAN (sk) | 536 | 67 | 100% | * |
| PVT (msk) | DMZ (msk) | 528 | 66 | 100% | PCIe->PCIe * |
| DMZ | PVT | 720 | 90 | 100% | * |
* All of pfSense functions stopped responding during transfer
The following table illustrates the performance with the 2.0Ghz Pentium-M
| Source | Destination | Transfer Speed (MBit/s) | Transfer Speed (MB/s) | CPU Usage | Notes |
| WAN (sk) | LAN (sk) | 360 | 45 | 42% | |
| LAN (sk) | WAN (sk) | 336 | 42 | 47% | |
| WAN (sk) | DMZ (msk) | 440 | 55 | 60% | |
| DMZ (msk) | WAN (sk) | 600 | 75 | 80% | |
| DMZ (msk) | PVT (msk) | 808 | 101 | 95% | ** |
| PVT (msk) | DMZ (msk) | 680 | 85 | 58% |
** Even at 95% CPU usage, the pfSense interface was completely usable and quite responsive.
Also tested the power usage of the Celeron M and Pentium M. This is with “powered” disabled.
| Processor | Watts Idle | Watts Load |
| Celeron M 1.3Ghz | 35W | 45W |
| Pentium M 2.0Ghz | 37W | 48W |
Those extra 4 ports on the expansion board are quite a bit faster, too bad about the stability problem. Your test was with an early 2.0 release – do you know if they are stable under 2.1 now?
Yeah, 2.1 seems to have fixed the issue.
Well. Great compare. What about heat from 2.0 ghz ? It isnt to high ?