So my question is how can I switch to the new box and keep my settings? And since this has 4 2.5gb ethernet ports I would like to do away with my old gigabit switch if I can?
For instance, I was hoping I could load Pfsense into the bios on an sdcard like I normally would, assign the interfaces, and then load an old saved profile? and reconfigure to match the new interfaces?
Will this work or would i just be introducing problems. This setup took me months to get right (I basically learned networking from this.) and I barely got it working as is…
You can try to restore the whole profile or just sections of the old profile on to your new box.
In your situation, I would install pfSense cleanly, then restore different areas and see what works. You can inspect the XML files to see whats different.
The restore might work but I doubt it, you’ll probably have to do a clean rebuild, though it does depend on what you are running.
There are a few sections in the XML file I saw which had GUIDs for my config.
When I migrated from my whitebox pfSense box to my new Netgate 6200 all I did was check which physical interfaces were used on the whitebox, exported the XML file, modified the XML file to match them to the 6200 physical interfaces, and then restored that backup. Everything just worked.
That was the most important part: matching the old physical interfaces to the new interfaces.
After that, you will have to use trial and error on removing the old gigabit switch.