Subject: Re: looking for small, quiet, low-power firewall
To: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@rek.tjls.com>
From: None <wojtek@chylonia.3miasto.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 01/31/2002 22:18:52
>
> 1) If you go the Microdrive route, you will be serving up files that you
> access over what is effectively an 8-bit, ISA, PIO-only IDE interface.
only REAL IDE make sense.
> 2) If you somehow get PCI IDE onto the box, it won't do you a whole lot of
> good, because the machine's CPU is a truly stupid design -- a 133MHz
> 486 core connected internally to a 133MHz, 64-bit-wide SDRAM controller
> by a 32-bit-wide, 33MHz pipe! AMD's documentation is somewhat unclear
> about this point but you can easily test the memory bandwidth for
STUPID. i though it drives SDRAM at 66Mhz.
> yourself and see what they did: hooked up existing "486 core" and "SDRAM
> controller" cells from their library without bothering to do any design
> work on the path between them. Sigh... that's right, the machine has no
> more memory bandwidth than a 33MHz 486 would, and this turns out to be
than real 486/133 which had 33Mhz memory bus too :(
> *the* limiting factor for its performance even in routing applications
> where all you do is move data from a network controller, into memory, and
> then back to another network controller without any copies. For file
> service, even if you use NFS (where at least the data isn't repeatedly
> copied across the user/data boundary) instead of Samba (where it is) this
> box is particularly ill-suited because of its cripplingly narrow memory
> pipe.
25MB/s (486 memory speed) isn't too bad. but it won't saturate 3 100MBps
eths. but will 3 10Mbps.
> I really wish Soekris made a similar machine with a CPU that didn't lose
strongarm could be good for it :)