[ale] homebrew routers, castoff hardware

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 00:31:54 -0700
Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> wrote:

> On 2017-09-22 15:59, Joey Kelly wrote:
> > On Friday 22 September 2017 12:53:34 DJ-Pfulio wrote:  
> >> The newer APU2 CPUs handle 750+Mbps on their GigE connections
> >> thanks to Intel NICs.  These aren't the old Alix boards.  
> > 
> > I'm about to get a few of these for my lab. I'm working on a
> > perpetual dev project and had wanted to use Soekris, but they just
> > pulled out of the US. I started looking for a replacement and found
> > these, the apparent Alix successor. These things are beefier and
> > way cheaper, so it's a win.
> > 
> > On a side note, there's lots of little router-style boxes out of
> > there, but most of them are from Red China. I shudder to think what
> > lurks in the firmware.
> > 
> > --Joey
> >   
> 
> I've been looking at one of these though I haven't pulled the trigger
> yet since they're not cheap.  Not necessarily direct from China
> (though one office is in Taiwan).
> 
> https://www.logicsupply.com/ml400g-12/

Not cheap is an understatement. At 15 cents/kw-hr, I spend about
$0.40/day running my guestimate 100 watt ancient box. So that's in the
neighborhood of $150/year. It would take me 4.4 years running the
recommended low power computer to break even. Would the $662 computer
last that long and still be relevant to start saving? It's a
reasonable question, although I have a feeling the answer would be
"yes".

In this calculation I assumed the low power unit uses 0 watts, because
my round figure of 100w for my old commodity box is probably low too.

For those of us living in warm climates, a factor in favor of the low
power machine is that my 100 watts creates heat which must be
removed via the rather inefficient method of air conditioning,
effectively raising the wattage I pay for due to this one computer.

I'd feel much better about this investment if it were $300.00. An
investment that pays for itself in 2 years is a no brainer, as long as
there's a reasonable expectation the equipment will last longer than
that.

Whether you buy one of these or not, it's essential to have a second
computer, probably an old commodity box, at the ready in case this one
screws up. You should also have an up to date copy of pfSense or ipCop
or OpenBSD or whatever you're using to firewall.

I love the fact that, as configured, this computer has no wifi. I
really want my wifi separate from my firewall.

SteveT

Steve Litt
September 2017 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr