On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 05:45:49PM +0100, Pete French
wrote:> I am looking to deploy a couple of hundered system, which are supposed
> to attach to a network and be plug-in-and-go. I am thinking of doing
> this with a FreeBSD installation, duplicated onto flash cards, and
> dumped into some off-the-sheelt hardware. The questions I, what hardware ?
>
> I've done some research, and come up with boxes like this:
>
> http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=434
>
> But I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternatives, preferably
> featuring a processor which can run amd64. The rest of thats pec
> is fine, and I dont need wifi.
I'm not 100% sure, but fairly sure that you'll have a hard time
finding something that combines the low-power standalone type spec with
a 64-bit capable processor. Once you get the higher-end processor,
that draws higher power, and so demands active cooling, a motherboard
chipset which also draws higher power, a bigger power supply which
becomes a more likely failure point, and so on. Can you elaborate a
bit more on which parts of that system spec you really need - do you
need the GigE? Two ethernets? The external SATA?
> Any suggestions, or words of wisdom from anyone who has done someething
> similar themselevs in the past ?
Not specifically this, though I've done other embedded work in the
past. Several years ago I did research some appliance type setups for
a possible spam-filtering appliance based on the VIA Nehemiah CPU; I
won't bother you with that info because nowadays the Atom or AMD Geode
seem to win in that niche.
Besides the frequently mentioned Soekris <http://www.soekris.com/>
these guys seem to make some pretty nice low-power systems:
http://www.compulab.co.il/all-products/html/products.htm
I bought one of these from them last year:
http://www.fit-pc.com/new/fit-pc-1-0-specifications.html
due to the two Ethernet ports and low power consumption, and put the
pfSense package on it (FreeBSD 7.1-based) for a firewall; it runs a
packet filtering bridge with DHCP service, Squid, etc. This particular
model is out of production now, but the site implies they could do a
new run of them for 100 or more units, and there's a newer upgraded
model here:
http://www.fit-pc.com/new/fit-pc-1-0-specifications.html
Note these are both passively cooled and draw around 5w; I think they
also come in at about half the price of what you were looking at, if
they'll do.
-- Clifton
--
Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@iandicomputing.com / cliftonr@lava.net
President - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/
Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services