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So... $337 for a decent soekris board and 'ok' case... or $340 for this: http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Edgerouter-Router-ERPro-8/dp/B00IA5J8M8/ http:/
by windlep 11y ago
So... $337 for a decent soekris board and 'ok' case... or $340 for this: http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Edgerouter-Router-ERPro-8/dp/B00IA5J8M8/ http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Edgerouter-Router-ER...
The latter has a complete open-source OS, you can ssh in and re-flash it yourself easily, a great community, the same TCP hardware offload, etc. I have been spec'ing out a BSD+soekris board setup for years, but when the Edgerouter came on the market it was a no-brainer. The fact that it works-out-of-box with little effort (for someone experienced with networking) is a big win, and that its quite easy to re-flash it and tweak as desired sure doesn't hurt.
While I really dig the DIY-router stuff, and was about to do it myself, Ubiquiti has sure made it hard to go that route when they can supply dang good products for the same price or less.
Edit: Added bit that this isn't a "zero effort for newbs" type product. If you've never setup a router, there'll be some research in your future to setup an Edgerouter, or BSD router.
- FireBeyond 11y agoI just use the same hardware (Soekris net6501) with pfSense 2.2. Still requires a little more work than the Ubiquiti, which I might try next time. But it works pretty well 'out of the box', too.
- chrissnell 11y agoDifferent strokes for different folks. The Soekris hardware has a reputation for being industrial-strength and very resistant to harsh environmental conditions. The board requires no fans (the Ubiquiti has them) and has Intel NICs. The Soekris case fits nicely in a small cabinet in the average branch office and you don't need a proper cabinet for it. Disadvantage for some but for my little office, the Soekris is perfect. The speed of the Soekris is completely sufficient for our 100 Mbps biz class cable.
- thirsteh 11y agoIt turns out a lot of the processing is offloaded to proprietary drivers on the EdgeRouter board. It's great for running their stock firmware, but not so great running OpenBSD. Ended up going with the new PC Engines apu1d4 board (http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm) rather than a Soekris. I believe it's the best of the options for an OpenBSD router.
- INTPenis 11y agoI've been using the APU board with great success at home for a good while. I upgraded from the Alix board to make full use of my 1G/1G broadband. Doing some speed tests I've seen speeds fluctuate around 500/700. Never really reached 1Gbit on any public speed test yet but it's helluva lot better than my old alix router. I love the fact that the APU has an open bootloader, and as far as I can remember it was cheaper than what is mentioned of soekris here. I seem to remember the whole package costing me around 100 eur.
- chli 11y agoI'm running pfSense on the apu1d4 at home and all is well.