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Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 08:34:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Daniel Feenberg <feenberg@nber.org>
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Subject: Re: Long Day's Journey into <Bleep>
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, Jerry wrote:

> On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:37:14 -0700
> Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> articulated:
>
>> On Jun 9, 2011, at 3:28 PM, Chad Perrin wrote:
>>> In many cases, it's not even obvious which of the products I find
>>> are suitable for building various types of network switches.  Do
>>> you know of any Webpages that might help me rectify my dearth of
>>> understanding in this area?
>>
>> You can get an unmanaged 24-port 10/100/1000 switch for less than $10
>> per port, and a good managed switch for about $30 per port.
>>
>> A cheap quad-port GB NIC runs $200 or $50 per port; and one from
>> Intel or Cisco which can actually run all of the ports near rated
>> line speed is closer to $100 per port.  You simply can't build a
>> commodity PC using these and end up anywhere near the price point of
>> a dedicated switch.
>

I wouldn't think the OP was interested in saving money, there are
other reasons for building your own switch. For example, there is
a famous article "Tricks you can do if your firewall is also
a bridge":

   http://www.usenix.org/events/neta99/full_papers/limoncelli/limoncelli_html/


Dan Feenberg