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

I had PFsense running on a 4 core computer that drew about 54 watts, according to my Kill A Watt. I already had the ram and the mSATA drive, and now the Protectli Vault does the same work using 10 watts.

I use this as my firewall/router at the colo facility Im hosted at and it is a solid unit, does not require any maintenance or cuddling and very compact design.

This is the fourth system I built. This did not last as long as any of the other ones. I submitted a service ticket on their web site. Lets see what the response will be.

My Protectli Vault FW4B has its mSata screws locktight/glued from the factory. This makes zero sense considering you have to install your own storage. The screws used are very low quality and strip immediately. Buyer be warned.

Does all I want it to do. openvpn lets encrypt hardware encryption. Runs very warm but it seems to be no big deal. If it bothers you slap a cheap quiet fan on top of the heat sink and call it a day. Will run cool in my experience. Your mileage may vary.

Its more expensive than other hand warmers on the market but it works reliably! Plug-and-warm. I think it even has others features I dont use.

Ive been looking for something to run my home/small office firewall. Ive gone the flashed router path but by far, this is the best option to do. Worth the $$ and the time spent. I have pfsense firewall running.

Purchased to use as home router running pfSense. Well packaged, everything needed in the box. Inserted pfSense USB installer into usb slot, booted. The vault automatically recognized the usb installer and booted from it. Had pfSense installed in 5 minutes of powering up.

Bought to replace functions previously assigned to a dinky DSL modem. This box runs pfsense and handles DHCP, NAT, and PPPoE authentication with the ISL. Works great and we had a big improvement in reduction of dropped packets and internet hangups. CPU temperature doesnt get above 60ºC even in a warm server room.

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.