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

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...

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.

I’ve installed pfsense and opnsense both. After installation when i change lan ip to 192.168.0.1 it stops working. But default configuration works fine. Also it gets hot you can’t even touch.

I found this while looking for a replacement for an old first-generation FitPC device that I used to use as a network firewall. The FitPC still runs, but for the last few years, Ive needed something with gigabit ethernet ports, which it doesnt have.

These things make great little PFsense firewall boxes. You just download the operating system from www.pfsense.com, install and youre good to go with a VERY configurable firewall.

Its a really good low in firewall if you want something simple I wanted to virtualize my firewall and run a ad blocker on it but it doesnt support virtualization. Which is fine it did the job it needed to very very well just not in the way that I would like to have had it handled.

This is a nice little firewall box, I have Ubuntu Server 18.04 running on mine, acting as a firewall/router for my home network. For this purpose it works great.

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.

Pros

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.