On 5/6/08, Geoff Steckel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I use them for firewalls and disk servers. For that they work > quite well. Yes, graphics are painfully slow, but I think that's the > fault of the integrated graphics. Using a PCI graphics card seems > to speed them up quite a bit. > > One of them I use as a disk server peaks out at about 80 MB/sec, > quite respectable for a 32/33 PCI bus machine. As a firewall, doing > IPSEC, 20 Mbit/sec uses about 15% of the CPU. Not too bad for a > fanless machine drawing less than 30 watts total including disks. > > geoff steckel
I'm so dependent upon GUIs while transitioning over from many years of a career in microsoft support... I am perfectly comfortable installing and configuring OSs and applications from the command line, but when it comes time to see what *state* the machine is in, my little brain needs pretty colors and pointy-clicky. Even though booting up OpenBSD 4.1 and 4.2 takes longer than it should (both from SATA and a 2GB CompactFlash), I'll give 4.3 a spin and keep it strictly command-line. Unfortunately, adding a PCI card isn't an option, since both motherboards are in the same 1U case and portability is paramount (it has to ride in a C-130 back and forth from the middle east). Unless I can fabricate a circuit card just large enough to fit in the PCI slot and then use a cable to pull it up into a free 1U space, then break in back out into a card slot... (A plot is forming in my head) I do have 1U free in the 6U toughbox, and it could just as well be a dedicated external PCI card case, lol. There's probably issues with signal timing and attentuation if the PCI bus gets longer than a few inches, though. What sort of case do you have your boards in? I do appreciate the very-low power draw of the Migrus C787-1.5G, and heat was never an issue even in the worst Mesopotamia had to offer. The whole setup (VSAT satellite receiver, UPS, ethernet switch, active power distribution, servers with two 3.5" SATA drives each, and one shared monitor) pulls under 1 amp in total and never hiccupped using filthily transformed 220V --> 110V, 50Hz electricity. I expected at least *one* device to demand 60Hz but I was fortunately wrong. I was able to provide unfiltered internet access to my fellow servicemembers - the US military blocks services such as myspace.com, yahoo instant messenger (and of course, pr0n) over the network they provide for morale, but most of the people there are young and can't live without. JC
