Spec me... a Router thingymabobskie

BlackCoat2k10 · 21 Oct 2010 at 22:02

Basically I've had a smooth wall server up and running for years and it's been great. However its a beasty lil machine and I'm sure its hogging the electricity quite badly.

So I've been told to look into an alternative.

Requirements are -
Wirless b/g/n capable
Decent speeds (10/100/1000?)
Functionality like Smooth wall if possible.
oh and cheapish.

Oh and maybe a nice new 8+ way switch aswell.. as the one I am currently using is about 10 years old.

Cheers!!

Zarf · 21 Oct 2010 at 22:56

Best bet is probably to build a nano ATX server, either on Via or an Atom board. Then run Smoothwall again. Otherwise you can look into getting a second hand Cisco but if you want Wireless n and Gigabit you're going to have to spend a lot of money. You can pick up something like an 837 fairly cheap though and have a play with that (Onboard ADSL 1, but you can turn one of the switchports into a second ethernet inteface). With the right config It'll do anything your smoothie box can do, including QoS.

For unmanaged switches, just get any old thing. I got a couple of £20 8port Asus gigabit switches three years ago and had no problems.

BlackCoat2k10 · 22 Oct 2010 at 00:01

I see. Well for me a simple router with wireless capabilities would be fine, aslong as there was some degree of control / viewing. As our machines all have firewalls and well my father hardly ever looks at smooth wall, infact it's been 4 months since I last looked at it. I recon with some word smithery I could get him to agree to a nice ntl based router with wireless.

Just found out the monstrosity power supply used for the Smoothwall is 800watts... Wow he really had no clue when he built it out of old bits.

Zarf · 22 Oct 2010 at 02:17

BlackCoat2k10 said:
I see. Well for me a simple router with wireless capabilities would be fine, aslong as there was some degree of control / viewing. As our machines all have firewalls and well my father hardly ever looks at smooth wall, infact it's been 4 months since I last looked at it. I recon with some word smithery I could get him to agree to a nice ntl based router with wireless.

Just found out the monstrosity power supply used for the Smoothwall is 800watts... Wow he really had no clue when he built it out of old bits.

If you measured it at the wall I'd be surprised if it's drawing more than around 80W. the 800W PSU just means it can supply up to 800W if the PC demands it. Which an old smoothie box is unlikely to.
Still, at around £1/Watt/Year there are definitely energy savings to be made. Since you don't really need any advanced features, I can probably suggest A Tomato compatible router Tomato gives decent graphing and monitoring capabilities.
you should be able to get a router+modem running for under 15W combined, saving you £65 a year.