Hardware Firewall

Hi There ,

Im after a H/W Firewell to sit between a Fibre access point and a switch for a small home office network.

Looking at the Watchguard T10 and a subsciption service but have been slighlt offput by some reviews that is is difficult to setup.

Now that Netgear have all gone weird with their Prosafe stuff any other suggestions ?

Has anyone experience of the T10 ?

TIA

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Aug-15 12:47:45)

Both pfSense and Smoothwall are opensource firewalls that can be run on an unused PC (that have a couple of interfaces).

I have used a range of different Watchguard firewalls over about 16 years.

The nearest model I currently manage is the XTM-21 which would be the next step up from the T10.

It uses the same management software. It has some extremely sophisticated options but you don't have to use these. If you get it out of the box, set up its IP addresses and do nothing else, it will still provide a serious degree of protection.

Management is from a web interface or a Windows program. Neither is particularly complicated for getting the basic setup running. I would be amazed if it was more complicated that setting up and configuring an open source firewall (and I'm a great fan of open source software). The Watchguard also has the advantage of smaller physical size and lower power consumption than a PC.

Watchguard support is very good so as long as you have a valid LiveSecurity subscription you can get answers quickly. Hardware replacement is also included with a LiveSecurity subscription.

If you have any specific questions, I'm more than happy to help.

Lovely thanks for the offer , I may take you up on it if I get stuck !

Not strictly hardware, but I have Sophos UTM running on an HP Microserver between my Fibre connection and switch. It is free for home use up to 50 devices.

Three years of free updates.

Google Sophos UTM Home Edition

Super easy to set up. Total cost around < £200 with HP Microserver discounts which regularly seem to be in place.

It has run flawlessly in my home environment for over a year

Downside is that Sophos could choose to withdraw the free home option in the future.

In reply to a post by panda:

Both pfSense and Smoothwall are opensource firewalls that can be run on an unused PC (that have a couple of interfaces).

I bought myself a LinITX APU 1D (3NIC+USB+RTC) pfSense. A tiny box with pfSense installed and am very happy with it. Much smaller than the Microserver that preceded it, which I might convert into another FreeNASbox