On 10/11/12 12:05, Gary Palmer wrote: > On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 04:54:53PM +0200, Ulrich Sp??rlein wrote: >> Hey guys, >> >> I need to replace an aging Pentium IV system that has been serving as my >> router, access point, file- and mediaserver for quite some time now. The >> replacement should have: >> >> - amd64 CPU (for ZFS, obviously) >> - 2x GigE (igress, egress interfaces) >> - some form of wlan interface (I currently use an Atheros based PCI card) >> - eSATA for attaching a backup disk where I stream ZFS snapshots to >> - serial port is always nice, for when I mess up an upgrade >> - fan-less if possible >> >> So far, this here seems to fit the bill perfectly >> http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc/intensepc/ >> but pricing seems to defy any reality. >> >> It does not state directly which chipsets are used for Wifi and >> Ethernet, the block diagram claims Ethernet chips to be Intel 82579 and >> RTL8111D, but I don't trust that fully. >> >> For Wifi I can always fall back to sticking in a supported USB stick, >> although that's kinda hacky. >> >> So how well is networking going to be supported by FreeBSD? Should I >> just bite the bullet and find out? > > I'd recommend the Soekris net6501, but it's even more expensive than the > intensepc (I suspect due to low hardware volumes but thats just a guess) > > http://soekris.com/products/net6501.html > > You also don't specify what kind of storage you need, which is obviously > an important factor for a file/media server. > > Gary > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe_at_freebsd.org" > Be wary of the Soekris net6501, I bought three of the 1.6Ghz net6501-70 model which has an Atom E-680 cpu (E series) and it compiles more than twice as slow as a 1.6Ghz Atom N270 in an older netbook. Someone else running Linux reported similar CPU slowness. As far as practical network throughput, I could only get 100Mbit/sec with a simple HTTP download of a file full of zeros, and OpenVPN could only push about 25Mbit/sec. As a practical example of the CPU slowness, it takes about 1.5 minutes to compile pkg on the N270 netbook and 5 minutes on the 6501 (around 4.5 if I use -j2). A kernel compile took an hour. Unfortunately I had no idea this CPU (possibly implementation?) was so slow before I purchased it, and I could scarcely find evidence of it on google after hours of searching when I had already discovered the issue. I was hoping to find some comparative benchmarks between various Atom series but manufacturers generally don't do that. Additionally, the total AHCI SATA write speed on the net6501 (in BSD only?) has a strange 20MB/sec limitation but reads can go over 100MB/sec. If I write to one disk I get 20MB/sec, if I write to both SATA disks I get 10MB/sec each. Write is equally slow on a SSD. Both someone running OpenBSD and I running FreeBSD reported the same symptoms to the soekris-tech mailing list and received no useful replies towards getting that problem solved. I tested the write speed briefly with Linux and it did not appear to have the 20MB/sec limitation. I did confirm it was using MSI(-X?) with boot -v. I think this hardware would need to fall into Alexander Motin's hands to get anywhere with debugging the SATA speed issue. Since it seems fine in Linux, maybe some day it can be fixed in BSD but I have no clue how that limitation could happen. The disks I tested with are fine in normal computers.Received on Thu Oct 11 2012 - 14:52:44 UTC
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