[124470] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Home CPE choice
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Andersen)
Wed Mar 31 21:19:42 2010
From: David Andersen <dga@cs.cmu.edu>
In-Reply-To: <4BB3D2FF.7030608@knownelement.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:19:06 -0400
To: Charles N Wyble <charles@www.knownelement.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Mar 31, 2010, at 6:55 PM, Charles N Wyble wrote:
>=20
> 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. =20=
-Dave
