First off let me apologize if you are thinking this is a repeat question. I have tried searching this forum a number of different ways and I don't seem to be able to find the answers I seek. I have a few related questions as follows;
1) What features do you lose by not using Astaro hardware?
* no warranty on the non-Astaro unit (duh)
* no automatic update from v7 to v8 via the up2date service
? do you still get Astaro support/troubleshooting on the ASG software?
? can you connect RED devices to a central non-Astaro unit?
? can you use the new wireless AP10/AP30 hardware with non-Astaro units?
??what other features do you lose with non-Astaro hardware??
2) what makes the bigger Astaro units faster/able to handle more?
memory/cpu/nic/IO/???
3) for building a non-Astaro unit, what components should be beefed up to handle all security features turned on (web/email/network/dual scanners/Intrusion detection/vpn/profiles/etc/etc/etc) with a decent amount of traffic (web/email/vpn) and a user base of 10-20?
I am asking because I have a number of clients with small offices (=80%) for a period of time, yet the cpu load is less than 10%. The deployed ASG110 units have 1GB RAM which is the MAX allowed by Astaro. To move up to a bigger ASG unit just for more memory is very expensive and hard for a small office to justify (especially in this tough economy).
Having read the many posts on non-Astaro hardware, I am considering on building non-Astaro units to resolve the above issues and would like to understand;
* the pit-falls for doing so?
* which components are more important?
* why the below build unit would not be better than even the mid-level Astaro units?
Custom build mini-ITX for less than $400 bucks;
* Supermicro X7SPA-H motherboard
* Intel Atom D510 cpu
* Intel ICH9R chipset
* 4GB RAM (DDR2 667Mhz unbuffered non-ECC SO-DIMM)
* dual Intel 82574L gigabit NICs
* 160GB 7200rpm SATA drive
* watts ??? will report back to the forum on this
Thank You in advance for your input.
-JohnW
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