Well, this is my first post, I have been lurking here for quite a while reading and learning.
First I would like to thank Astaro for upping the free home user license from 10 to 50. I have quite the wired house and 10 IPs just didn't cut it in my house.
Second I would like to thank everyone who is here helping us newbies learn (especially BarryG and RFCat_vk who seem to be in every post). I'm sure there are others, but these names kept popping up.
I used to run a Cisco/Linksys RVL200 cause my main requirement is to be able to VPN into my house. That worked pretty well, but there are a couple issues with that router (small but works well). I first tested Astaro on an old Dell P4 box I had laying around, and it was working just fine. I wanted to build a small and quiet box, my friends thought I was crazy for spending money on parts when the old P4 box worked fine, but I am crazy like that.
I got my new dedicated Astaro box up and running last night. I got the same motherboard as in BarryG's sig:
MSI Industrial IM-945GSE-A Atom Mini-ITX Mainboard:
Logic Supply - Leaders in Mini-ITX & Small Form Factor Solutions
2 gigs of ram:
Newegg.com - CORSAIR 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory Model VS2GSDS667D2 - Laptop Memory
Case: Thermaltake Element VL52021N2U Black SGCC
Newegg.com - Thermaltake Element VL52021N2U Black SGCC / Plastic Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 200W SFX Power Supply - Computer Cases
I had an old 80 gig SATA laptop drive and that case required:
Newegg.com - iStarUSA DIY-RP-HDD2.5 2.5" to 3.5" Hard Drive Mounting Bracket - Server Accessories
A 2.5 to 3.5 adapter bracket
So far so good, updated itself to 7.501 and still running. A couple things to note/discuss.
1. The case says: Quiet – Energy saving platform with fanless design. Um... No, there is a fan. The power supply has a fan which is an exhaust for the box. It's very quiet and it's in the basement so I'm not so worried. But it's not fanless like I thought it was going to be.
2. The reason I chose the case is that I wanted 3 nics in the box. Internet, internal network and I used the 3rd to make a "public wifi". Took a spare old AP and make a AES 802.11b network with a password that I don't mind giving to guests when they are over and they don't get to my internal network. So I had an extra PCI 3com 905 enet card, so I used that. Works well. I'm sure there is a way to use VLANs but I'm not that good. [:)]
3. Power, it has a 200W power supply which I'm sure is overkill. I don't have a Kill-a-watt. Do you think it's wasting more power than one of those little AC-DC boxes?
4. Ram, I bought 2 gigs. I had a 1 gig card laying around. I don't think I need 2 gigs. Does anyone have any opinions? My memory usage is 20% ish. Any reason I should leave 2 gigs in the Astaro box? Is it just overkill. I could pull it out, put in the 1 gig and update my daughter's laptop with that 2 gig stick.
Anyway, thanks again. Not the cheapest box. Maybe not the lowest power, but it's working well for me. If there was a case that would take that mboard, and a full height PCI card which would be lower power let me know.
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