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

I bought this for use as a firewall because it has four built in network ports, and is smaller than my network switch. Even though it is running a slow processor, it still has more horsepower than I need for running pfsense. The box does get warm to the touch, running in the low 40s C for a temperature. The thing I like best is that it just keeps running. Pfsense works extremely well with this hardware.

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 thing is built like a tank! This is my first dip into running pfSense, and the question I could not seem to get a straight answer to is "how much throughput is any particular hardware package good for?" This particular box will easily run a full gig as a straight firewall with 4 gigs of RAM. If you turn on Suricata for IDS/IPS, the CPU is your bottleneck, and this box will run somewhere between 300-500 Mbps depending on your traffic mix. If you really need a full gig, i would suggest finding a box with a CPU that has a benchmark score 2-3 times higher than the Celeron J3160.

I've taken this and installed Sophos UTM 9.6 on it and I expect it will be my firewall (no matter the OS or version) for a very long time (I got it with 8GB ram and 32GB msata)! I bought it to replace a virtual Sophos as well as actual Sophos firewall appliance. This thing is tiny, very standard Intel hardware, silent and works great! Would definitely recommend!

It's 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 doesn't 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. Like I said if you're looking for a simple appliance to run a firewall or some other network software. This thing's awesome

I still have my Protectli Vault from 2021. The power supply that comes with it only lasts for about 2-2.5 years. So the power supply did go out (12/21 - 7/24), i replaced it and my original unit still operates fine. However, I ordered another Vault unit for a client and the Vault only worked for 5 days. After 5 days, no matter which PSU i tried it would not power on anymore. Ended up returning this one, and went with a different brand for my client. Very sad to say that I will not be purchasing any more Protectli products.

I put RAM and storage in this and installed openSense and it works like a charm. Couldn't recommend it more to those who know what they are doing around software routers. Haven't used the computer for any other function, so I can't speak to its efficacy in other circumstance, but I love it as a router!

I figure I would give a "long term" report on this Protectli Vault (FW4B). Unit does what it supposed to do but sometimes the ports, notably the WAN port. On mine, if there happens to be ANY glitch or irregularity in the network (from the ISP), the port sometimes refuses to obtain an IP address, instead defaulting to an internal address. I run PFSense and I've watched on the main page (of PFSense) and I see the IP address trying to stick only for it to get knocked back off. I go into my interface assignments and change from WAN to one of the opt ports. The problem fixes itself. Figure that one out!!! Aside from the sometimes flaky ports, the unit generates NUMEROUUS CRC DMA errors in the dmesg output from PFSense. I haven't seen that many of those errors since I ran an Athlon processor with a VIA chipset motherboard from 25 years ago! IMHO, this unit is "obsolete" anyways since it only has 1Gb ports instead of the 2.5. Long story short, avoid this model and get the newer version that sports the 2.5G ports. I've also noticed that on the page of this router on Amazon indicated that it is frequently returned. Well, there's your answer right there. Get the newer model and avoid this one at ALL COSTS!! My advice is to get one that has 10G ports on it since 1G is very OLD HAT. 3/5 is my score. Not terrible but not great either.

Male, ale velmi efektivni, slaby navod.

Works perfectly, sturdy solid build.

The barebones Protectli Vault is a fantastic piece of kit for anyone getting in to building their own firewall / router. You need to buy your own RAM and mSATA storage. Buying the barebones kit and getting the RAM and storage separately can work out cheaper than buying it includes, but you run the risk of compatibility issues. I settled on 8GB RAM and a 128GB storage drive and have had no issues. The device is delivered with the AMI bios flashed. If you buy directly from Protectli, you have the choice of AMI (similar to what would be on your normal computer) or Coreboot. AMI works with a lot more hardware but Coreboot has the advantage of being completely open-source. There's some discussion over whether Coreboot brings with it a slight performance increase but I haven't been able to prove it one way or another. I did choose to flash Coreboot to my Vault. This was an easy process of running a live USB with Ubuntu and following the instructions on the Protectli website. The process was a breeze and worked immediately. Once this was complete, I installed OPNsense. The process was as simple as following the install guide on their website. In theory, since this is an x86 platform, you could run almost any OS. Both pfSense and OPNsense work fantastic on the Vault. My Vault has been up for a few weeks now. It's running a number of VLANs with a DHCP server for each. I don't use it for IDS/IPS but plan to in the future. The system has been rock solid and I'm getting the full throughput my ISP advertises. The system idles around 2-3% CPU usage and occasionally spikes to 20% when changing settings in the web interface. Overall, the Vault (FW4B) has been excellent. You certainly don't need 128GB storage, but I'd suggest extending to 8GB RAM if you can afford it since most firewall operating systems load in to RAM when they boot, although 4GB minimum would suffice. This has been a fantastic upgrade to an old desktop running pfSense, the stability is unparalleled and price to performance is absolutely worth it. Whilst the upgradability is limited due to the form factor, the extremely low power draw of the integrated system makes it entirely worth it. I have absolutely no complaints regarding this product and thoroughly recommend it to anyone running a home lab or small to medium business.

This product is NOT fully compatible with Pfsense or OPNsense. During the installation procedure you can choose from several keyboard maps (Belgian, French, Italian etc) but none of them work. So configuring an Azerty keyboard via the installer is not possible. The same installation software does install correctly on other appliances so there must be an incompatibility. I contacted Protecli and they are aware of the problem.

I was waiting to buy this lovely piece after many readings about the performance, and when I received it was a big shock. I had already a VM with 1 CPU and 4 GB RAM performing way more better than this tank, the speed of the internet was 80% reduced with a basic routing without installing any single application, while my VM is giving me 10% decreased speed with OpenVPN and pfblocker... It got hot also easily, the temperature got high above 50 degrees in normal operation. I am returning it because of the price, it is quiet expensive comparing to other brands and at the same price after buying the RAM and the mSATA, I can build a mini itx pc with proxmox server running pfsense and openmediavault having 2 TB cloud.