On Mar 31, 2010, at 6:55 PM, Charles N Wyble wrote: > > Is there a market for a new breed of CPE running OpenWRT or pfsense on > hardware with enough CPU/RAM to not fall over?
Hi, Charles -- as a few hardware points to consider: Both the Soekris and Alix hardware is still very solid. We've been using them in a few research projects for a couple of years now and haven't had a single failure. Both can push ~20Mbit/sec with in-kernel packet forwarding and NAT. Alix2d2: 500Mhz Geode, 256MB DDR, 2x100Mbit ethernet, USB, CF, 2x miniPCI, $110 + enclosure ($10) /power ($6) Soekris net5501: 500Mhz Geode, 512MB DDR, 4x 100Mbit ethernet, USB, CF, miniPCI, PCI, $300 + power If you want to move a step up, there's a really nice new option on the market in the form of Intel "Pineview" atom-based systems, but the selection of embedded/router boards is more limited than it is with the Geodes. Advantech just released a single or dual core, 1.6Ghz, fanless atom-based system that draws about 15W that can easily handle 100Mbps: http://www.advantech.com.tw/products/AIMB-212/mod_1-DCLYTN.aspx (2x gigabit ethernet ports onboard) The drawback is that it's kinda spendy - about $220, IIRC, plus about $40 for 2GB DRAM and another $10 for a power supply - but it's a great little box. Takes 12V in so you can use a small power supply with it, not a big ITX beast (or an expensive inline ITX). And if you find yourself needing 5x RS232 ports, well, now you have 'em. :) (You're paying for an embedded controller...) We just got 20 of them and are able to handle a few hundred MB/sec of reading off of an SSD, etc. I haven't yet tried forwarding full gigabit through it, but it's probably ... around the limit. Don't go with the old Atom-based systems you might find on ebay. The "pineview" based ones are the first ones out that are fanless -- and the I/O controller is a *lot* better on these systems. If you go with an Atom system off of, say, Newegg, be careful with the chipset selection. -Dave
