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

The appliance was very easy to get up and running with pfsense. Took me less than 10 minutes to install and setup a basic configuration. It was running fine for a couple of days and then pfsense started logging kernel cores. The system would restart itself and work without issue for a day or 2. That is until it continually started coring when attempting to load the wan interface.

So far the system has been running without any issues except that the cooling sink get hot fairly quick to the touch. The normal temperature in the house does not seem enough to cool it an ambient temp without a forcing air through the fins.. I had to add a cooling fan on top of the sink to keep it cool to the touch. Another point to make to take in consideration is the price. I would get it for under $300 if I would go directly to Protectli instead.

So far this little firewall has rocked. I was running pfsense as a VM, but decided to move it out to a dedicated piece of hardware and this fit the bill nicely. Running the latest pfsense software which was very easy to install via USB stick. I did end up buying a USB fan to help keep this cool, its air cooled so a fan just helps out.

This is a very solid and sturdy box. Setup was a breeze. SSD, RAM and pfSense installed in about 30 mins. No issues whatsoever so far, and it has handled everything I have thrown at it without the CPU going above 25%.

Started out with 1 vault, planned to have 2 vaults for managing 2 locations. The first one came with bad RAM and bad CPU.

I wanted a replacement for my existing consumer router which was running dd-wrt. The FW4B provides hardware allowing the option to use several open source firewall solutions. For the firewall, I installed pfSense without issues and found it much simpler to configure than dd-wrt, especially with interfaces, vlans and firewall rules. So far, the only hardware issue is the unit runs warmer than expected but the larger cooling fin design built into the case helps. I will update these comments if any new hardware issues arise.

It works, and it works great. Yes, a little pricey, but Ive had no issues with running pfSense on it. My old pfSense overheated and died on me (used hardware that lasted 5+ years), and I bought this to replace it.

I replaced an older SFF with an Atom processor, 4GB of RAM and a HDD with this unit after upgrading my Internet connection from cable to 1 Gbps fibre. I was hitting a CPU and NIC choke-point, and only getting ~400Mbps at any point on my network.

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.

Finally got around to working on this after the 6 port version i recently got were of no use due to the screw that was supposed to hold the m2 ssd post would not come off the post. To the point I striped the screw top... So... found this 4 port version that I bought months ago. Installed pfsense, and it looks to be ok. The cooling fins feel pretty warm, though. So Im leaving a 4 star for now. Lets see if this holds up with the heat.