Protectli Vault FW4B - 4 Port, Firewall Micro Appliance/Mini PC - Intel Quad Core, AES-NI, 8GB RAM, 120GB mSATA SSD

Easy install and operation with OPNSense. Reasonably fast operation with hardware for the money, too slow in my tests to run squid proxy with filtering if speed/heavy usage required but I don’t really need that. It is very reasonably warm in operation but I added an external usb quiet free standing fan to move low speed air across it and case stays cool to touch. Very satisfied, and recommended. Been running a month now, absolutely no issues.

Ive taken this and installed Sophos UTM 9.6 on it and I expect it will be my firewall (no matter the OS or version) for a very long time (I got it with 8GB ram and 32GB msata)! I bought it to replace a virtual Sophos as well as actual Sophos firewall appliance. This thing is tiny, very standard Intel hardware, silent and works great! Would definitely recommend!

This is my third unit that has now failed. There is an issue with some function with the motherboard that fails prematurely. The latest has a QC mark indicating a manufacture date of late 2018. I have had dozens of computers and none have had this high a failure rate in such a short period of time. If you need fanless SFF then these work well when they run but be prepared for it to die within a few years.

Really easy to install pfSense and then configure it. Prior to this I was using the router from the ISP, after switching to a dedicated Router and Switch, bandwidth tests indicated about a 10% increase in D/L speeds. More importantly I have a much finer control over the network services performed by the router, namely DNS and DHCP.

I purchased the Protectli unit to replace an obsolete Cisco ASA5505, where Im running Pfsense on the Protectli. Im totally happy with the Vault where the performance exceeds the old 5505. Pfsense is certainly less hassle to deal with compared to the Cisco interface...

I set up the unit with pfSense. It seemed to work fine, but unit ran VERY HOT. Only lasted about 5 months before it died. As far as I can tell the main board died probably from overheating. Many similar Mini PCs are having the same issues. Just more Chinese garbage. REVISED: I was able to revive the unit with a new CMOS battery.

Got this to protect a 1U server in colo. 100Mbps symmetrical on the WAN and a few VLANs to route. CPU performance is OK for the wattage but cant touch a bigger box for VPN or IDS/IPS performance. Its perfect for what I need though.

Great device to use as a firewall and vpn client.

Runs pfSense like a champ. Thats all.

Been running this little guy for over two years without issue. It runs warm but rarely consumes more than 15% cpu. pFSense has been updated three or more times and its been trouble-free. I host a public facing website and this device protects my network for all sorts of intrusions.