Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 16:48:19 +0200 From: Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.uu.se> To: "Jerry B. Altzman" <jbaltz@gmail.com> Cc: Bob McConnell <rvm@cbord.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD based router ... Message-ID: <20080528144819.GA30956@owl.midgard.homeip.net> In-Reply-To: <2b677bda0805280731x45fc2dd4ra62a2657e11641c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <18493.25160.836101.941905@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <FF8482A96323694490C194BABEAC24A002C70391@Email.cbord.com> <20080528140856.GA30599@owl.midgard.homeip.net> <2b677bda0805280731x45fc2dd4ra62a2657e11641c1@mail.gmail.com>
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On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 10:31:24AM -0400, Jerry B. Altzman wrote: > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.uu.se> wrote: > > (Putting a total of 6 quad-port NICs on a single PCI-bus would totally swamp > > that bus though, so if one were to actually use so many NICs I would rather > > recommend e.g. the Asus P5BP-E/4L motherboard. It has 3 PCI slots and 3 > > PCI-E slots in addition to the four gigabit LAN ports included on the > > motherboard - so you can get a total of 28 ports if you fully populate all > > slots with quad-port NICs (not counting any USB-connected ethernet ports one > > might add.) It also has built-in graphics so one does not need to waste > > one slot on a graphics card.) > > And all this just to *pass packets*; if you're making real *routing* > decisions based upon that (i.e. you're making a router rather than a > switch), which requires that packets take a trip to the CPU, you'll > find yourself coming to the realization that Cisco and Juniper might > actually be on to something, there, and that ASICs might actually be > worth what you paid for them. > > YMMV, HTH, HAND. Yep, and if you do buy a whole bunch of quad-port NICs for your PC, then the whole system will probably end up costing quite a bit. It might even turn out to be cheaper to get a "real" router instead. -- <Insert your favourite quote here.> Erik Trulsson ertr1013@student.uu.se
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