1000mbps Router
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Hi everybody,
I live in HK and some ISP provides 1000Mbps broadband, recently I have upgraded to one of them.
On testing the throughput, directly connect my server to the modem, I can get the speed reach 900Mbps, which is pretty good.While after passing through my router, Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, it drops to only 130Mbps.
This is understandable as I have studied a bit for the capability of router handling a large bandwidth, so I actually planned to build my a X86 router for the job.As planned, my router will be using either Atom D525(D2700 if available in a short moment) or AMD E-350 as CPU which is embedded onboard;
together with the lan port with Realtek controller, additionally an Intel Pro 1000 CT will be installed; RAM will be 2 or 4GB depends on budget; WiFi will be settled by using an USB WiFi adapter.However, I do not know if the above set up would really suffice the need.
I have discussed with my friends that they guarantee the above set up will be enough, but rarely I can see someone testing this bandwidth on a X86 router.
Also, which router software is suggested? I heard MikroTik RouterOS is one of the best available but it costs, I want to suppress the cost of the router to <$179 USD.
Reading from m0n0wall's doc, it won't use more than 64MB RAM on my regardless of loading…....will this be an issue at all?
Recently I planned to give ClearOS a shot, do you have any idea on its possible performance?The spec maybe as below(subjected to change as none was bought except the NIC)
CPU : Intel Atom D525/D2700/Celeron G440
Ram : Kingston DDR3 1333 2G~4GB
Storage : Flash Drive/Harddisk
NIC : Using Atom boards-Realtek 8111X, Using Intel H61 Board-Intel 82579V; and another Intel Pro 1000 CTIf you have more ideas on the spec, please feel free to let us know.
Thank you so much for your attention.
*This post was first made on Anandtech forums, after the reminder of the members, I realize that I should ask it on a more suitable location like a Router OS community, thus forwarded here. You may refer to the below link for some previous discussion, thank you.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2207926 -
You could continue using your Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as a wireless access point instead of a router, if it supports that type of configuration (it should). You probably shouldn't expect to get much more than what you are already getting out of wireless. I'd recommend just continuing to use your existing wireless router to handle your wireless, unless you intend to get something even faster like 450 or 600 Mbps wireless (if products for those are even available in HK). If you do intend to get something faster, I don't think there are any open source drivers that support those rates yet, so you will probably have to stick with proprietary firmware on a separate wireless router or access point if you want that type of wireless.
As for getting the rates you want over gigabit ethernet, I haven't really looked into hardware for those speeds yet, as I've only had to handle at most G wireless speeds on my router (but typically only up to 10 Mbps). I know I've seen topics about it around here somewhere, though. Until someone else replies with information about hardware to handle 1000 Mbps for your wired connection, you could try to find some of those topics.
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I live in HK and some ISP provides 1000Mbps broadband,
Its one thing to get 1Gbps from an ISP. Its quite another thing to get a sustainable 1Gbps from an "interesting" server. I don't know what sites you want to access and for what purpose but suspect home users are unlikely to be able to get even sustainable 100Mbps from "international" sites for some time.
Whatever box you are using you shouldn't skimp on the RAM. At current RAM prices it is difficult to justify getting less than 1GB. Without knowing what packages you are planning to put on the box it is difficult to justify more than 1GB. I mention this only because you mentioned M0n0wall and 64MB and a budget constraint.
If I recall correctly, there have been varying reports about pfSense and the variants of the 82579 NIC. You should search the pfSense forums for more details.
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@Efonne:
You could continue using your Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as a wireless access point instead of a router, if it supports that type of configuration (it should). You probably shouldn't expect to get much more than what you are already getting out of wireless. I'd recommend just continuing to use your existing wireless router to handle your wireless, unless you intend to get something even faster like 450 or 600 Mbps wireless (if products for those are even available in HK). If you do intend to get something faster, I don't think there are any open source drivers that support those rates yet, so you will probably have to stick with proprietary firmware on a separate wireless router or access point if you want that type of wireless.
As for getting the rates you want over gigabit ethernet, I haven't really looked into hardware for those speeds yet, as I've only had to handle at most G wireless speeds on my router (but typically only up to 10 Mbps). I know I've seen topics about it around here somewhere, though. Until someone else replies with information about hardware to handle 1000 Mbps for your wired connection, you could try to find some of those topics.
Thank you for your suggestion,
yes, the WZR should be able to continue to serve as a Wireless AP,
but probably to save some space and sockets, in case a cheap wireless adapter will do the job, I will just move to it. -
Don't waste your time on atom based hardware. Atom processor cannot sustain that throughput. You need to go with an i3/i5 system to attain 1000Mbps of throughput.
This has been discussed many times on this forum but topics have been based more on power savings rather a high throughput as your requirement. i3/i5 system will give you the required throughput and at the same time give you the same (some times even better) power saving capabilities as an atom.
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Don't waste your time on atom based hardware. Atom processor cannot sustain that throughput. You need to go with an i3/i5 system to attain 1000Mbps of throughput.
This has been discussed many times on this forum but topics have been based more on power savings rather a high throughput as your requirement. i3/i5 system will give you the required throughput and at the same time give you the same (some times even better) power saving capabilities as an atom.
Thank you so much for your firm reply,
I have been looking for information about if an Atom board will do the job, now I have the answer.
I must then refer to a higher hardware level for the router. -
I live in HK and some ISP provides 1000Mbps broadband,
Its one thing to get 1Gbps from an ISP. Its quite another thing to get a sustainable 1Gbps from an "interesting" server. I don't know what sites you want to access and for what purpose but suspect home users are unlikely to be able to get even sustainable 100Mbps from "international" sites for some time.
Whatever box you are using you shouldn't skimp on the RAM. At current RAM prices it is difficult to justify getting less than 1GB. Without knowing what packages you are planning to put on the box it is difficult to justify more than 1GB. I mention this only because you mentioned M0n0wall and 64MB and a budget constraint.
If I recall correctly, there have been varying reports about pfSense and the variants of the 82579 NIC. You should search the pfSense forums for more details.
The point has not been if I can utilize the bandwidth;
If I am paying for 1000Mbps, I have to get something working with it otherwise I can just stick to something like a 100Mbps network.For utilization, it is not me to find an interesting server ;D
It is many of the others who find my server interesting ;D
I am hosting a FTP server, and also as a web host, and some other services.
In Hong Kong are many home users who have 100Mbps and even 1000Mbps, my bandwidth is not as "infinite" as you think.For RAM, that is no room for discussion, even I want to cut my budget, hardly can I find a stick of RAM with capacity < 1GB now. :-[, and just too cheap to be considered, for them to cost less than 10USD in HK.
Lastly for the NIC, thank you for mentioning, I have to read through the forums for more information about the supporting of 82579V, before considering it to be an onboard solution as one of the NIC in the router setup.
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Its one thing to get 1Gbps from an ISP. Its quite another thing to get a sustainable 1Gbps from an "interesting" server. I don't know what sites you want to access and for what purpose but suspect home users are unlikely to be able to get even sustainable 100Mbps from "international" sites for some time.
I doubt it's an issue. Several premium filesharing hosts have their servers located within HK itself. Megaupload being one of the more notable ones. I can even get sustainable 100mbps from Singapore to Megaupload servers in HK. Definitely not ISP cached since my ISP doesn't have transparent proxies in place (I personally know the engineer in charge of their proxy servers and routing).
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Thank you guys for pointing out Atom as a disabled CPU for 1000Mbps router, but still I have to build one for my network or I won't be getting the bandwidth I am paying for.
In view of that, which level of CPU you would suggest?
Some said I will need an i3, well, the building sum is well over budget; and it advises that I should just pick something like ASUS RT-N56.
Do you think G630T something will be enough?
Thank you. -
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In terms of raw CPU power it should be OK. The G620T is three times the processing power of the Atom, at least in this test. It's unlikely the CPU would be the throttling point in the system.
Search the forum for others results.Steve
Thanks a lot for your information,
currently I find the sweet spot maybe at G530T,
but I can't spot this on the market yet.G530 is available at a good price too, while the TDP doesn't look good as a router.
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Sorry for bumping the post, but I have one important point to clarify,
Can you confirm that E-350 can be an option for full utilization of 1Gbps NAT?On feedbacking the incapability of Atom,
some on the other forums replied that it is Atom's slow DMI on all peripherals,
and they think that E-350 will be enough.
If so, with its TDP E-350 can also be considered for building the router.Thank you.
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I expect any socket 1155 CPU will do 1000 mbps on pfsense. Get a good DC-DC PSU, such as the picoPSU and your idle power consumption could be around 20W (I built a Core i3 system with a 3.5" hdd that idled around 17W measured at the wall). Good luck meeting your budget.
I'm not sure about the Brazos parts. I think 1000 Mbps would be pushing it, although you might get close with fastforwarding enabled. I saw somewhere around 600 Mbps in iperf on a D510 using that option.
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You don't even need a PicoPSU to achieve those figures
What would be the best way to benchmark the maximum troughput? I could set up a cross cable to another gigabit host and run iperf, but this method wouldn't represent the actual load on a system that has to route 1000mbps of traffic.
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iperf should give you some good figures to work with. You can adjust packet size, TCP window, parallel streams, etc to simulate different loads. I wouldn't use pfsense itself as an iperf endpoint though. If you want to test pfsense's routing throughput you'll want to connect a couple hosts on different interfaces to do the testing.
Somebody on dslreports.com just mentioned ixload. It looks interesting but I haven't tried it yet.
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You don't even need a PicoPSU to achieve those figures
What would be the best way to benchmark the maximum troughput? I could set up a cross cable to another gigabit host and run iperf, but this method wouldn't represent the actual load on a system that has to route 1000mbps of traffic.
Thank you for sharing,
no doubt a good news to hear ;D
Then I will go ahead with the G530 as my router, idling at 20W will be good enough. -
Sorry for bumping the post, but I have one important point to clarify,
Can you confirm that E-350 can be an option for full utilization of 1Gbps NAT?On feedbacking the incapability of Atom,
some on the other forums replied that it is Atom's slow DMI on all peripherals,
and they think that E-350 will be enough.
If so, with its TDP E-350 can also be considered for building the router.Thank you.
Sorry for putting this old post to the front, I still want to know if E-350 is a potential option for 1Gbps router build.
I know Atom D525 can only handle upto ~550Mbps, but how about E-350?
My estimation is as below:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=110&i=25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.45.46
D510=1.6GHz, D525=1.83GHz, D2700=2.13GHz,
the score in Cinebench for D2700 should be ~1.33*709=Cinebench:942.97, D525=Cinebench:810
while for routing it should be largely a single thread issue, E-350 maybe a better choice on it. I am not sure if HT would help.
D525@Cinebench:810=550Mbps, D2700@Cinebench:942.97 should be around 640Mbps, then E-350@Cinebench:1174 should be around 797Mbps, ignoring the effect of HT.Anyone would be sharing on this?
Thanks in advance. -
The name Cinebench suggests to me its a benchmark involving playing movie files. Such a benchmark is likely to be able to take advantage of the enhanced graphics capabilities of the E-350 over the Atom based systems. Hence I would be very cautious about extrapolating Cinebench performance to routing. (I don't know of any routing software using graphics hardware for routing.)
