This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Please check my newbie build

Hello, I have been lurking and browsing these forums for quite some time.  I have read multiple threads on hardware builds and have been trying to come up with something for my first home build without breaking the bank.

First, a bit about my home network for a family of 4:

TimeWarner roadrunner internet cable - I think I get about 35 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up.  I have a gigabit lan and also a wireless ap.  There are 4 computers connected (one on the wire and three over wifi) and some tablets and phones.  One fileserver and two networked printers are also on the network.

I'd like to run Sophos with everything on, especially the content filtering to protect the kids in the house.  My ap can do vlan tagging so I'd like to set up a guest wireless network and/or captive portal for when friends come over.  I already have an Intel dual NIC card that I can use so I figure one NIC for WAN , one for the LAN, and one for the AP/VLANs.

I have seen the posts about the Atom d2500/d2550 builds and that they might be limiting in certain networks but I was not sure if my network and bandwidth are small enough to be okay with that kind of build anyway.  I know the new Atoms are coming out but my overall budget (about $400/$500) might not work out.

Alternatively, I specced out this build:

Newegg.com - SilverStone SG06BB-LITE Black Aluminum front panel, Steel body Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case ($49.99)

Newegg.com - SILVERSTONE SFX ST30SF 300W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply ($49.99)

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-B85N LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard ($89.99)

Newegg.com - Intel Core i3-4130T Haswell 2.9GHz LGA 1150 35W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34130T ($134.99)

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL - Newegg.com ($74.99)

I have plenty of extra hard drives at home so I'll repurpose one of those as well as add my Intel dual NIC card.  This build comes to about $400.  I would prefer as small a case as possible and as low-power as possible too.

So I guess I'd like to first know whether the Atom d2500/d2550 type of build might suffice for my netwrok and also general thoughts on the alternative build and the components I listed above.

Thanks in advance!

Edit:  forgot to add a few other devices to our network: 2 Wii's, 2 Roku's, 1 AppleTV, 2 Nintendo DS, and probably a few other devices that access the internet and the network.

This thread was automatically locked due to age.

Parents

0 DaMaestro78 over 11 years ago

While I do not have a family of four, I have just as many devices:

1 android tablet
1 android phone
1 Kindle
1 primary desktop [z87 haswell 256gb SSD, 4TB data]
1 htpc [h67 sandy bridge 128gb SSD, 3TB AV]
1 esxi vm box [amd 8150 500gb SSHD, 1tb 10k, 3tb 7.2k]
1 nas (B75 sandy bridge, 5x3TB RED in RAID 5, 12tb usable)
1 roku
1 wireless MFC (Brother 9340 with Google Cloud Print)
1 unused atom D2700MUD, used to be NAS
My AP is Ubiquity UniFi
+ The occasional connection of my work laptop

Carrier: Comcast , 50mb down, 10mb up; Arris TM822G DOCSIS 3.0

My big apps
CrashPlan+
NetFlix
Amazon Video
MS TechNet
Youtube
DoggCatcher/iTunes

For my UTM, I'm using the Habey EPC-6668 with 4gb. It has dual nics. Your current offerings are better with the newer Atoms. That was $229 for the Habey, $21.99 for the memory at that time I got it. I have replaced the HDD i had laying around with a SSHD hybrid drive.

Last month this box handled 1.2 TB of traffic , lucky for me Comcast in my area has suspended caps. I had an average 4% CPU load with 91% being the max. It only had 91% max because I had tested new RG6 quad shield cable installed to my main splitter by turning on every device and running multiple streams. I had an average of 56% memory load with a max of 70%. I haven't had 80% memory usage since I had a 32bit P4 running version 8.

The numbers for last week were actually consistent with all of last month with the averages, less on the max; on 210GB of traffic 4% cpu avg, 56% memory avg, 798k connections handled, 365k connections blocked at firewall,  167k web requests filtered.

I am running Hyperthread with 64bit. I have only 6 firewall rules, everything else is proxied. I am using Country blocking with 4 exceptions. I am using the proxy in standard mode. I also have a PAC /WPAD script which is used by my CrashPlan, my Playon.TV, and all browsers to name a few. Except VPN, no traditional operating systems bypass the proxy. Only the MFC, ROKU, and certain Google Traffic is bypassing proxy.

I have been using Astaro/Sophos since Oct 2011. No issues here on Atom D525; if I were re-doing it now I'd be doing a d2550/2700 equivalent.  I would not dedicate anything above Atom for this. If you are really cautious, you can crossover to the server Atom side for not much more. Plus this Atom is sipping power compared to all the other devices I use.

Not including the hard drive situation nor the wattage
My build was $250 almost 2 years ago (6/8/2012)
The i3 your looking at is $399
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel

Reply

0 DaMaestro78 over 11 years ago

While I do not have a family of four, I have just as many devices:

1 android tablet
1 android phone
1 Kindle
1 primary desktop [z87 haswell 256gb SSD, 4TB data]
1 htpc [h67 sandy bridge 128gb SSD, 3TB AV]
1 esxi vm box [amd 8150 500gb SSHD, 1tb 10k, 3tb 7.2k]
1 nas (B75 sandy bridge, 5x3TB RED in RAID 5, 12tb usable)
1 roku
1 wireless MFC (Brother 9340 with Google Cloud Print)
1 unused atom D2700MUD, used to be NAS
My AP is Ubiquity UniFi
+ The occasional connection of my work laptop

Carrier: Comcast , 50mb down, 10mb up; Arris TM822G DOCSIS 3.0

My big apps
CrashPlan+
NetFlix
Amazon Video
MS TechNet
Youtube
DoggCatcher/iTunes

For my UTM, I'm using the Habey EPC-6668 with 4gb. It has dual nics. Your current offerings are better with the newer Atoms. That was $229 for the Habey, $21.99 for the memory at that time I got it. I have replaced the HDD i had laying around with a SSHD hybrid drive.

Last month this box handled 1.2 TB of traffic , lucky for me Comcast in my area has suspended caps. I had an average 4% CPU load with 91% being the max. It only had 91% max because I had tested new RG6 quad shield cable installed to my main splitter by turning on every device and running multiple streams. I had an average of 56% memory load with a max of 70%. I haven't had 80% memory usage since I had a 32bit P4 running version 8.

The numbers for last week were actually consistent with all of last month with the averages, less on the max; on 210GB of traffic 4% cpu avg, 56% memory avg, 798k connections handled, 365k connections blocked at firewall,  167k web requests filtered.

I am running Hyperthread with 64bit. I have only 6 firewall rules, everything else is proxied. I am using Country blocking with 4 exceptions. I am using the proxy in standard mode. I also have a PAC /WPAD script which is used by my CrashPlan, my Playon.TV, and all browsers to name a few. Except VPN, no traditional operating systems bypass the proxy. Only the MFC, ROKU, and certain Google Traffic is bypassing proxy.

I have been using Astaro/Sophos since Oct 2011. No issues here on Atom D525; if I were re-doing it now I'd be doing a d2550/2700 equivalent.  I would not dedicate anything above Atom for this. If you are really cautious, you can crossover to the server Atom side for not much more. Plus this Atom is sipping power compared to all the other devices I use.

Not including the hard drive situation nor the wattage
My build was $250 almost 2 years ago (6/8/2012)
The i3 your looking at is $399
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel

Children

No Data