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

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.

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.

I have bought many of these for Pfsense firewall projects in the past. These firewalls do not disappoint. These a great and drive packets home to their destinations quickly and efficiently. I recommend this over any closed source firewall or any consumer grade junk out there. Great base for a wired LAN and wLAN project!! I will continue to buy these for any future project that comes up!

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.

Im pretty disappointed. I upgraded to this device because my old PfSense box did not have AES-NI CPUs.

i purchased this to run pf sense firewall

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.

Running OPNsense on this and it works great. I love that the ports are already labeled like a router. Install of OPNsense was easy and worked first try. It gets a bit warm but not horribly so, just dont set anything on top of it. Small price to pay to not have a fan.

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 purchased this to run pf sense firewall