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Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 11:23:06 -0400
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To: Nik Clayton <nik@blueberry.co.uk>
From: dennis@etinc.com (Dennis)
Subject: Re: Routers - hardware received wisdom
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>Hi,
>
>I'm going to be requiring two network routers, and since FreeBSD is more
>than capable of the task, I figured I'd go for the cheap 486 option.
>
>One of these routers will be sat between a 2Mb/s leased line and a 10Mb/s
>ethernet, and the other will be between 2 10Mb/s ethernets.
>
>As far as I can tell, FreeBSD 2.1.5, a PCI based 66MHz 486DX with 16MB RAM 
>and 2 DC201040 PCI network cards should be sufficient.
>
>But can I drop it any lower than that? Would the boxes be fine with 8MB
>RAM? What about 33MHz machines?

Its totally dependent on how much local ethernet traffic you have. If  you will 
be switching lots of traffic locally, you might be unhappy with a 33Mhz box.

But at today's prices, what are you going to save? $10.? Its not worth it. 
100Mhz processars are only $32 or so....you're spending more than that
thinking about it.

Dennis
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