From owner-freebsd-current Sun Jan 2 23:43:19 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mentisworks.com (valkery.mentisworks.com [207.227.89.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B87E14F39; Sun, 2 Jan 2000 23:43:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nathank@mentisworks.com) Received: from [24.29.246.53] (HELO mentisworks.com) by mentisworks.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.2b7) with ESMTP id 640961; Mon, 03 Jan 2000 01:43:24 -0600 Received: from [192.168.245.111] (HELO mentisworks.com) by mentisworks.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.2b9) with ESMTP id 2230024; Mon, 03 Jan 2000 01:43:15 -0600 Message-ID: <3870527D.4771B6F7@mentisworks.com> Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 01:40:45 -0600 From: Nathan Kinsman Organization: Mentisworks, LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Smith Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE hardware specs, advice/experience requested References: <200001030647.WAA13891@mass.cdrom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mike Smith wrote: > > > I'm putting together some specs for a type of firewall appliance using > > the eventual released version of FreeBSD 4 (targeting 4.x because I need > > GCC 2.95.x as core compiler). My current machine specs use the > > following hardware which I am not yet sure will be well supported. > > > > FIC PAG-2130 Micro-ATX motherboard with 2/MB cache (Apollo MVP4 chipset) > > AMD K6-III/450 processor > > (2) 10.1GB Maxtor DiamondMAX Plus 40 7200 RPM IDE HDDs (mirrored) > > These should all be fine, although you may want to go for something in the > 5400rpm range if thermal issues concern you. The speed differential > isn't massive, and disk speed probably isn't an issue for you. This hard drive seems to be somewhat extraordinary in regards to heat generation. I'm using two now in a test machine, it remains cool to the touch after a 'make world -j4' under FreeBSD 3.3 even though enclosed in a standard single fan cooled ATX case. It also outperformed a 10k WD Digital Advantage SCSI drive in the same task by about 7%. I have to really hand it to Maxtor for releasing some exceedingly high quality drives as of late. I'm concerned about possible poor interactions with the new ATA driver however. I have seen very little posted regarding the MVP3 or MVP4 chipset in freebsd-current. > > Poware IM-7500 IDE Hot Swappable IDE RAID device > > This one might be interesting. Does it do automatic rebuilds? > Yes, it claims to do on-line recovery. It is also OS independent. I will be testing a few of these units this month. Try http://www.poware.com.tw for more info. > > Intel EtherExpress PRO/100+ Dual Port NIC (this is recognized as two fxp > > devices?) > > Yup. > > > I have not been running CURRENT extensively, so I would like to know > > anyone's experiences with any of the above hardware, or any > > recommendations on hardware with a better price/performance ratio at a > > low thermal (chassis is very compact). > > You might want a slower and cooler CPU (consider a Celeron), a board with > less cache (cooler), and slower disks. Without any sort of benchmarking > feel for your application, it's hard to know where tradeoffs are > worthwhile. I was looking at the PPGA Celerons earlier. I'm a little concerned about the cache size though. What is interesting to me is the K6-III/450's and their 64KB Level 1 cache and 256KB Level 2 cache. I am guessing that coupled with the FIC PAG-2130's 2MB Level 3 cache, there could be a significant performance advantage for memory intensive processing. I may put together a Celeron 500 system and benchmark it against a K6-III/450 with the FIC motherboard. Perhaps the K6-III cache size advantage is just theoretical. Processing performance is critical as I would like to minimize as much as possible the additional latency added by the firewall and filtering applications, as the amount of conditions being processed is extensive. > > I was also considering using a NIC from 3COM, or Netgear, or even > > Kingston, but it seems that the Intel EtherExpress PRO/100+ is currently > > the best option. I understand the 3C905 may also be good, but it lacks > > an onboard processor. > > The EtherExpress Pro/100 also 'lacks an onboard processor'. Both the > Intel and 3Com adapters are good choices; I would be choosing based on > price and performance in your application. Aah, yes, I was thinking of the Pro/100 Intelligent Server Adapter with the i960 processor (I'm don't see any driver support for this one). Hmm... is there any supported NICs with a processor to offload the main CPU? What about the Thunderlan based cards? Perhaps spending more on a NIC could justify a lower powered CPU. > -- > \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith > \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ msmith@freebsd.org > \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ msmith@cdrom.com Thanks for the insights. -- Nathan Kinsman |nathank@mentisworks.com| |http://www.mentisworks.com| Managing Partner / Network Systems Architect, Mentisworks LLC Voice/Fax: | Chicago | +1 312 803-2220 | Sydney | + 61 2 9475 4500 All correspondence should be considered confidential. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message