Switching from Unifi to pfSense

So I decided to make the switch from A Unifi Dream Machine Pro SE to a full pfSense set up at both sites for routing. I got a great deal on this OEM Dell PowerEdge R240, which is the lower end PowerEdge that you can buy with a single Intel Xeon 4 core, a 250watt non-hot swappable PSU, and a 4x3.5" bay cabled chassis, which is prefect for pfSense and doesn't use alot of power.

And I had to toss the nice pretty Dell EMC logo face plate on it for $40. The Specs on it are.

• Dell PowerEdge R240 OEM 4 bay non-hot swap

• CPU Intel Xeon E-2144G 4-core 8-thread

• 8gb DDR4 ECC RAM

• Dual 120gb SSD boot drives

• Intel X520-da2 (10gb SPF+)

• Intel X550-t2 (10gbe)

• iDRAC Enterprise

This particular Server was even installed and serviced here by a local MSP in the Mass area. It didn't come with iDRAC 9 Enterprise only standard so there's no KVM, but that's fine because I can just buy and install a license key for it.

Why I switched.

• More features

• Much more reliable VPN

I was having an issue keeping a site-to-site VPN connection alive because neither site has a static IP connection and Unifi will only let you set an IP address as a client identifier and not a domain name. So I put the domain name into the remote gateway in each sites IPsec Tunnel configuration and bam the connection works and has been up even after a WAN IP address change.

Speed Tests between the 2 sites download and ping are going to be limited because of the cable connection at that site. But 200mbps is enough for what I'm using it for.

One last thing is Dell iDRAC 9 enterprise is amazing. I absolutely love the interface look and layout, everything is laid out nicely and easy to navigate and there's tons of information that you can view and settings to change. Also, I can remote KVM into the system if I ever have a problem with pfSense.