Protectli Vault Pro VP6630 in a 10-inch rack

The Vault Pro VP6630 is the 10G member of Protectli’s line: a Core i3 with six cores, four 2.5 GbE ports and two SFP+ cages in an actively cooled case. It suits a homelab where the firewall has to keep up with a 10G core, or where one box should run the firewall and a handful of VMs.

At a glance

Where it fits in a mini rack

The two SFP+ cages are the reason to pick this box. One can face the ISP or a 10G uplink, the other a 10G switch, so routing between VLANs or out to the internet is not throttled by copper Gigabit. The four 2.5 GbE ports cover the rest: a management network, a DMZ, a direct link to a NAS.

The CPU and memory ceiling make it a credible virtualization host as well. Protectli offers an optional factory install of OPNsense, OpenWrt, Ubuntu Desktop/Server or XCP-ng, and lists user-installable x86 systems including pfSense CE, Proxmox VE, ESXi, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Debian and Windows. Firmware is AMI BIOS or coreboot. A Proxmox host with a virtual firewall and a few services on NVMe is a natural setup.

What it is not: silent or tiny. It has a fan, it is the heaviest Protectli in the catalogue, and in a four-unit rack it takes half the frame.

How it fits a 10-inch rack

The catalogue offers a carrier and two shelf placements:

The Protectli VP6630 2U carrier is an original Minirack prototype, 186 mm deep, and fits all six RackMate frames. The catalogue lists it as a prototype: physical fit, thermal behaviour and load capacity are not verified, so check the print before trusting it with a 2.3 kg device.

The 10i hex shelf takes the VP6630 flat in 2U at 182 mm deep, in every rack. Upright needs 5U and is blocked in the four-unit T0 and T0 Plus: not enough units. Flat on the shelf or in the carrier, both 2U, are the practical options.

Depth deserves a look. At 182 mm on the shelf and 186 mm in the carrier, the box fits the 200 mm-deep RackMate T0 and RackMate T1, but with little to spare. The 260 mm frames leave far more room behind it.

Power

Protectli publishes 12 W at idle and 100 W at maximum. The 120 W adapter rating is the supply’s capacity, not the device’s draw. Idle is a fair baseline for a quiet firewall, but plan the rack’s power for the 100 W peak, because a busy Proxmox host or a burst of encrypted traffic can push well past idle.

In a small rack that peak is a large share of the power budget. Add it to the switch, any mini PCs and the KVM before choosing a power strip. Cooling is a heatsink with an active fan under a cover on top of the case, so keep the space above it clear rather than stacking another device on it.

Networking and cabling

Every network port faces the front: four 2.5 GbE RJ45 sockets, LAN 1 to LAN 4, and the two SFP+ cages.

• WAN: the ISP line typically enters through a rear keystone; a short patch from that keystone’s front socket to the 2.5 GbE port you assign as WAN completes it. If the provider hands over fibre, use an optical module in one SFP+ cage instead.
• LAN: a DAC cable from an SFP+ cage to a 10G switch is the cleanest uplink. Patch the 2.5 GbE ports to front keystones or front-facing switch ports.

The RJ45 socket on the rear, COM0, is a serial console, not Ethernet. Do not patch it to a rear keystone expecting a network link.

How it differs from the VP2420 and FW6A

The VP2420 is the quiet multi-gig choice when 2.5 GbE is enough. The FW6A trades speed for six Gigabit ports and a carrier with keystones. The VP6630 is the only one with SFP+ and the only one that can host real VM workloads alongside the firewall.

Full specifications

Plan it

Open the Protectli VP6630 in the catalogue to place it in a rack plan, or start from a community build that already does:

For the fanless alternatives, read the VP2420 guide and the FW6A guide. For a switch with enough SFP+ cages to match, see the CRS310-1G-5S-4S+IN guide.