Recommendations for hardware firewall and storage?

[aceO07]

To start off, I don't know anything about hardware firewalls... or too much on networking for that matter.

I'm looking for a firewall to potentially handle a couple of webservers. Can anybody recommend one or suggest good literature to learn more about networking and firewalls?

I'm also searching for network storage to backup these servers. Something automated and secure.

 

[Shark]

If you have an old PC to spare I like smoothwall, from

http://www.smoothwall.org

as a firewall.

 

[aceO07]

Unfortunately the slowest is a p3 800mhz and that's being used. The other slower machines are laptops..

A sub $300 hardware firewall should be fine..

 

[Poohbee]

hmm I'm looking for a firewall/router too. I was thinking of getting a Cisco SOHO91 broadband router that has firewall capabilities but so far I have not found any place that sells it for a cheap price... I think lowest I have seen was from TechDepot for about $264... If you come up with something better let me know =)

 

[aceO07]

What's the advantage of a hardware firewall vs a software firewall? Are there any?

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: aceO07
What's the advantage of a hardware firewall vs a software firewall? Are there any?

Too many to note. A big one is it is waaaay harder to disable (all you could do is basically OWN it or DOS it). Software can be shut down with a batch script.

$300 may not cut it. If u are serving web stuff for business, then u need a firewall with a TRUE DMZ (3rd interface) to seperate it from the web and your LAN (placing it in the middle). You will have a REAL tough time finding that sub $300. Linksys, Dlink,etc DO NOT have a REAL DMZ!

If this is not for fun, but for real business stuff, I would hire someone to do this/help yu with this as if you don't know what you are doing, you will get crushed!