Bay Trail based "Router"?

[sabot00]

With the new J1800 Celeron boards from MSI, Gigabyte, and Biostar for ~$60 I was thinking of making a long term router out of one.

- $60 Bay Trail Mobo
- $40-50 High end PCI-E mini card (Intel Ultimate, Killer, etc)
- $10? Antennae
- $20 Cheap RAM
- $30 PSU/case
- Debian linux

Brian Klug from Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6180/open-source-router-platforms) seems to really praise the flexibility and uptime that a fully customization router brings.

I need my router to do:

- NAS (SATA and USB3 drives)
- Firewall
- Large LAN network (potentially 5+ PC's gaming on lan, so a lot of intra-network traffic)
- Packet optimization (gaming over downloads, etc)
- "Futureproof"

What are the benefits of such a platform? The fact that I can use this computer for streaming to a HDTV as well seems like a plus. Given a total of about $160, how would a comparable router compare? Also, is there a possibility that with an add-on board (PCI-E x1) that this can also serve as an DOCSIS 3.0 modem?

 

[dawza]

Do you absolutely need to consolidate NAS, routing, and AP functionality in a single device? A significant factor in future-proofing is segregating hardware by function, and generally, you'd want a dedicated router, cable modem, switch, AP, and NAS/home server. At minimum, I'd keep routing isolated from everything else, whether physically or virtually.

 

[JackMDS]

With the new J

What are the benefits of such a platform?

Beside Bragging Rights. I.e., I have a Internet/Network system that No body else around me have there is only downfalls.

Anything goes wrong and you have No Internet, No Network, No Streaming.

On the bright side you can still can play Solitaire on one computer :hmm:.

 

[sabot00]

Thanks for the replies; I have a few specific questions:

1. Is this setup possible?
2. How fast would the wifi be?
3. Compared to an expensive router, say $150-180, what are the differences?
4. To Dawza: to me, it seems that having 5 separate devices would be both more costly and harder to configure. Wouldn't bashing stuff into one terminal on one system be easier?

 

[dawza]

JackMDS' post perfectly answers point 4. Multifunction devices tend to be better on paper than in practice.

More expensive, probably. Harder to configure, no. And definitely much easier troubleshoot.

 

[sabot00]

I guess I'm asking about the specifics. I have a hard time picturing what would "break" on such a system.

 

[dawza]

It's not so much that the chances of something breaking are higher. It's the fact that if something breaks, hardware or software, multiple core network functions are liable to go down.

Best practice is to have a NAS just do its thing and not run as a service on a box performing routing, for security and performance reasons. You can do the combo router/WAP in a single device without issue, although I don't know of any easy way to DIY a cable modem, much less in combination with the aforementioned.

 

[Mushkins]

Not to burst your bubble, but this is a fool's errand. You can't just jam parts together and expect an enterprise-grade router to fall into place.

1) Yes, rolling your own *can* be a more robust solution. Are you a network engineer with considerable experience configuring routers from scratch? If not, you're not going to optimize that homegrown router to run faster or more stable than a $150 high end SOHO device pulled right out of the box. At best I would expect the entire thing to be a nightmare to configure and support unless it's something you're already familiar with doing.

2) The speed and the frequency would be dependent on the hardware you purchased and the wireless chipset you're using for the AP functionality.

3) The differences are entirely up to you. All that advanced functionality like VLAN support, QoS, traffic shaping, security, etc is up to you to integrate and properly configure on a linux box. You can do more, or you can do less.

4) Separate devices would be more costly, it's also a much better solution. It's more stable: if any one piece of the setup has an issue that needs troubleshooting (It will) you don't need to take the *entire* network down to fix it. Likewise, it could be another one of those services that's conflicting and directly causing the issue. It's also more extensible: Want to upgrade your NAS capabilities in the future? You don't have to replace the whole device. Want to use a different OS for the core router? You don't have to wipe out and rebuild the entire rest of your infrastructure. There's a reason enterprise networks are designed with as much separation of functionality as is feasible, there's no such thing as "set it and forget it" in the networking world. There's also a reason the enterprise world isn't buying $160 worth of parts and duct taping their own routers together.

Your best and easiest option is to buy an off the shelf high end Asus SOHO router. It can do all those things that you want it to do right out of the box with an easy to use, easy to configure web interface. 5+ PCs, no matter how much gaming they do, is not a large LAN by any definition. Put a second box together to act as a NAS/media server.

 

[sabot00]

I see.

I think I mainly am so interested in such a solution because I really enjoy the tinkering and building aspect of my own box.

Say that I'm going to go forward with this idea. Since downtime is not that big of a concern to me and I also want to use this device for other uses (game server, mining host, etc).

Specifically what software do I need other than a simple Linux distro?
What mini-PCI-E wifi card do you guys recommend? What antennae are good?

 

[cbn]

Specifically what software do I need other than a simple Linux distro?

Have you considered using one of these rather than Debian Linux:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_and_firewall_distributions

 

[cmetz]

sabot00,

>What are the benefits of such a platform?
>Given a total of about $160, how would a comparable router compare?

Should deliver better features and performance, should be supported by easily available "free router" software for a very long time.

Downside is you aren't getting any official support from anyone. If you've ever spent time on the phone with the tech support from any of the SOHO vendors... you aren't missing much.

>Also, is there a possibility that with an add-on board (PCI-E x1) that this can also serve as an DOCSIS 3.0 modem?

I've never seen such a thing, and with outboard cable modems being so cheap, I wouldn't recommend trying. When dealing with the cable company, you'd be well served to have the same modem as everyone else, or somehow they're going to blame the modem when you have a problem.

 

[sabot00]

If I use a mini PCI-E wifi card like this: http://www.amazon.com/Tax-Software/b...31BP1E0K085PMS

It seems that I need a connector between the wifi card and an antenna like this: http://www.amazon.com/WIFI-10-dBi-2-...s=wifi+antenna