X7SPE-HF-D525 - Are Atoms D525 underpowered?
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Hi all,
I'm interested in using a X7SPE-HF-D525 board for a small PFSense build to support a 150/10 connection.
Is the Atom D525 under powered these days for PFsense? The X7SPE-HF-D525 board came out like 2 years ago, is there anything more up-to-date that would be suitable for a build? I was hoping to use the board with a CSE-503-200B board with front i/o connectors so I think my choices are limited?
Thanks.
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I'd say it's underpowered, yes, particularly for the power consumption. Will it work for 150/10? Depends on what you want to do with it. It would be fine for NAT/Firewall but will come up short on VPN, Snort, Squid, L7 filtering, etc, or possibly even in NAT/Firewall if you have tons of very small packets. You might try finding a Mini-ITX board and using an i3 with it if you plan to use some of the features I mentioned.
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If only FWing (a couple of rules and 3/4 security zones) and routing, it's far enough.
It's able to be in front of a Tor node that do 60/60 Mb/s without sweating (had N330 and a D2700). -
I'll probably only have a WAN, LAN, DMZ zone. QoS is important to me; ID not such much since I wont' have many ports open.
Probably won't be running squid, vpn, or snort. Perhaps L7 QoS.
Most of my traffic will be HTTP, BitTorrent, and VoIP. Pretty typical for a home/home office.
I ordered the X7SPE-HF-D525, hopefully it'll be good enough :)
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For a few more $$ you could had built an i3 system which would be much more powerful, less power consuming and would go an extra mile when you start experimenting on installing more resource intensive packages at a later time.
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For a few more $$ you could had built an i3 system which would be much more powerful, less power consuming and would go an extra mile when you start experimenting on installing more resource intensive packages at a later time.
Yeah I might do that for my next pfSense router … I jumped the gun and ordered some parts from Newegg and they arrived before the buyers remorse set in!
In anycase, I have my pfSense router running and the D525 seems adequate for my needs (for now).
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Just as an update to this, the newer Atom systems are far more interesting. While only slightly faster, the power consumption is MUCH lower. I'm working on a fanless box right now that I hope to have idling around 8W vs the 20-ish for the older models I've used.
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That's interesting. I recounted that a while back and was confronted with some contradictory evidence.
Is that a 'Netbook' or 'Desktop' Atom? The older Desktop Atoms didn't have the same power saving features as I recall. Also at very low power levels like that the PSU makes a big difference. Are you using a comparable PSU?Steve
Edit: Was here: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,53958.msg289716.html#msg289716
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That's interesting. I recounted that a while back and was confronted with some contradictory evidence.
Is that a 'Netbook' or 'Desktop' Atom? The older Desktop Atoms didn't have the same power saving features as I recall. Also at very low power levels like that the PSU makes a big difference. Are you using a comparable PSU?Steve
Edit: Was here: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,53958.msg289716.html#msg289716
I'm going to be using a DN2800MT which has a built-in DC-DC PSU. There are some people on SPCR that have gotten systems with this board down to single-digit wattages running Windows. I won't need the high-res video output, audio, etc. so those will be disabled. I've also got a decent collection of low-power parts sitting here (Intel 313 SLC mSATA, 100mW/150mW Idle/Active, Intel i340-T4 NIC, 4.3W Active, Kingston 4GB LP SODIMM, 1.3W Active, etc.). I think I can get it to 8W idle, no problem. The AC-DC power brick is the real questionable part. As you said, at low powers, AC-DC conversion may be a large portion of the draw at the wall. I've got a decent collection of 12-18V regulated bricks here, I figured that if none met my needs I'd just whip up one myself the next rainy weekend.
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For a few more $$ you could had built an i3 system which would be much more powerful, less power consuming and would go an extra mile when you start experimenting on installing more resource intensive packages at a later time.
AMEND brother….
And users seem not to be aware that you do have PowerD function in Pfsense ::)
http://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/8/POWERD/
https://wiki.freebsd.org/TuningPowerConsumption