Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
Dustin Wildes wrote:
Maybe my point was missed.
Hardware wise - a VIA MII EDEN based board will greatly outperform a
Soekris system, which is why my embedded platform is based on the VIA
hardware instead of the Soekris, because I AND my customers did want
an all-in-one system, and small offices tend to want an all-in-one
piece of equipment.
Dustin,
Yes, a VIA Eden board will greatly outperform a Net4801. My
CL10000 is actually quite powerful. However, several points on the
mini-itx architecture that need to be mentioned:
1) Heat/Reliability. Much more heat generated, my mini-itx system has
three fans. The Soekris has none (not even a heatsink). This makes
the Soekris much more reliable - no moving parts.
I am using the MII 6000 (no fans) with a heatpipe to replace the
embedded heatsink - pushing to extruded fins. It does get warm, but not
that bad.
2) Power usage. All though I have yet to measure it, my mini-itx
system has a 90 watt power supply (which is ATX based, btw). My
Soekris has a 12 watt power supply. Also on another note of
reliability, I trust the Soekris power supply much more than the half
breed ATX in most mini-itx systems. Yes, I do know that just because
you have a 90 watt power supply you are not using all 90 watts, but
the fact that the Soekris has a 12 watt power supply means that it is
DEFINITELY not using more than 12 watts.
I haven't measured the power either - but we have been using the morex
power supplies for several months now, and no problems. But I not sure
what the amount of wattage has to do with reliability? Personally, I'd
rather have a board that could handle a bit more wattage if need be than
not have enough. Would you say a 400watt power supply is less reliable
than a 250watt?
I'm not saying that at all. But in my years of dealing with PC's, the
most common things to go are the HD and the power supply. Especially
ATX power supplies... I feel that the mini-itx using ATX power supplies
reduces the overall reliability of the system.
3) Cases. Have you been able to find a reasonably priced case for
mini-itx that doesn't look like some cheap home theater appliance? I
haven't. One thing often looked for (especially in the embedded
space) is for the device to look like an appliance. People are much
less likely to mess with something when they don't know what it is.
With a mini-itx case with upfront firewire and line-out, my 14 year
old cousin would have his fingers in that case in a minute!
You are right here, and they are not many good cases to choose from ---
YET! :-)
My company has already submitted plans to a few machineshops to build
some prototype ITX cases as we speak. We just sent them in last week,
so it'll be a few weeks.
If anyone has an suggestions on the case style or anything they
would/wouldn't like to see on a mini-ITX case, please speak now before
we hit full production. We will be selling them to everyone, so if
there is something you've been wanting in a mini-ITX, email me ASAP so
we can look at possibly adding it to our prototype.
Now we're getting somewhere! I'll get to you about this off-list...
When the 7501 comes out later this year there won't even be a
point of "arguing" this anymore. That board is going to be killer!
If the 7501 can perform to the degree we need, then you could be right.
:-)
Hopefully I am. At this point they will probably have a mobile Athlon
64. That will SMOKE a C3 (which aren't that great to begin with).
Your point was not missed, but I don't think it is a good idea to
include that much hodge podge functionality (web server, mail server,
PBX, streaming media server, etc, etc) in one system. Also, most of
my customers want reliability. Which the Soekris has over the ITX
stuff, hands down.
It depends on your market. Our market was for the small/home office
with up to about 12 users, and they would like the biggest bang for
their buck. If you could sell them one piece of hardware that could do
everything they need, such as DSL PPPOE client, VPN, firewall, Intrusion
Detection, web/email services, voicemail streaming to windows media/real
player, plus full PBX options - it makes a nice little package. Of
course, they don't have to use every feature there - they could always
use a WRT54G for a DSL router/firewall, and only use our appliance for
what they want/need, but at least they have the option/choice.
As of now, AstLinux has everything but IDS, VM streaming, and the
e-mail server. It has a web server, but I would never want my internet
facing web server to be running on the same machine as my PBX! Ditto
for e-mail.
As far as VM streaming, I don't really see what the point is (unless
you have EXTREMELY long voicemails). If you are using wav49 you could
probably download and playback the entire VM just as quickly.
Other than that, it sounds like a pretty cool project!
--
Kristian Kielhofner
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