Untangle Box, single Realtek NIC okay?

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Vengance_01

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I am looking to setup a very cheap and small box to do all my routing for my home network. A nice cheap DC Atom should be perfect. (overkill but I am looking for a very LP box)

I notice all the board from every manufacture including Intel use realtek junk nics. Will this be okay?
 
Vengance_01 said:
I am looking to setup a very cheap and small box to do all my routing for my home network. A nice cheap DC Atom should be perfect. (overkill but I am looking for a very LP box)

I notice all the board from every manufacture including Intel use realtek junk nics. Will this be okay?
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use intel, or pre-pair for crappy results.
 
Vengance_01 said:
I am looking to setup a very cheap and small box to do all my routing for my home network. A nice cheap DC Atom should be perfect. (overkill but I am looking for a very LP box)

I notice all the board from every manufacture including Intel use realtek junk nics. Will this be okay?
Click to expand...

No not "all the board from every manufacture" are realjunks.

You must be limiting your search severely....only the ultra cheap boards use realtec NICs, there are plennnnnnnty of good little Atom based boards that run dual onboard Intel gigabit NICs. I run a SuperMicro MBD-X7SP board. Asus recently came out with a very nice Hummingbird board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=asus_hummingbird-_-13-131-683-_-Product
 
You can use only one port - but you'll need a managed switch. There's a Dell web-managed switch, the 2724 which is under 100$ on ebay (gigabit too, IIRC).

Edit: It's the Dell PowerConnect 2716.
 
I've used Realtek nics in my home router/firewall setup before with no problems. They catch more flak than they deserve. I too prefer prefer Intel, but the realteks arent a show stopper for home use.

As for the router at work.... I wouldnt have used anything other than intel.
 
I used realtek nics in my pfSense firebox because that is what was built in. They did ok, but took some configuration to setup so they wouldn't have all kinds of collision problems, or watchdog timeouts. So can they be used? Yes, but for $10 more if I can get intel NICs I'll spend the money.
 
If you use TCP transmissions mostly, Realtek will be okay. If you use any UDP streaming, like audio, video or VoIP, Intel will be much more reliable.
 
Ditto what jadams, and C7J0yc3 said. I've run realtek nics on a variety of nix distros for many years without too much fanfare. One of which is the same realtek nic I've used as my public facing router NIC since 2002. For the naysayers, I'm not advocating them, but it's not the end of the world if you decide to use them. Short version: If you can swing Intel, go Intel, otherwise don't really fret about Realtek. Especially in a home environment.
 
The thing with the realteks....yeah many of the models will appear to work "OK" on default settings...and your unit may still be able to run circles around some stinksys or nutgear router. But some model realtek NICs flat outright can suck, depending on the distro, and depending on what kind of loads you put on it. Yet there are a couple of better realtek NICs that are sorta "OK". But for the home users, if you put a heavier load on it where you'll see the difference...is in...how well will QoS work, or.....do you need to reboot the appliance every couple of months or something. I've seen the difference when really fine tuning traffic shaping on PFSense...barely makes a difference with realteks..but with some good Intels...same motherboard, same PFSense install...same processor, RAM, network, ISP...but big difference in performance when you roll up your sleeves and drill in traffic shaping.

And then you'll see people try a heavier UTM distro like Untangle or Astaro...and have it on cheaper NICs...and complain that games still lag, or the unit needs a reboot every month or so..or it runs sluggish compared to some bare distro. It ain't the distro...it's just that they put it on wimpy NICs.

And putting UTM distros on heavier business networks....I've seen the exact same appliance not do well with wimpier NICs....once a month or every couple of months the client would call me and say "No internet".....I'd try to remote in..nada...I'd go onsite..the appliance is still running...yet a NIC appears "dead"..reboot it...internet comes back. Power down...take cover off...yank the cheap NIC..put in a better NIC like a 3COM or Intel...and I'd never get a call from the client again about the internet going down..the unit would now run for a year without a reboot...only rebooting when I told it to do so due to doing an upgrade to Untangle.
 
jadams said:
I've used Realtek nics in my home router/firewall setup before with no problems. They catch more flak than they deserve. I too prefer prefer Intel, but the realteks arent a show stopper for home use.

As for the router at work.... I wouldnt have used anything other than intel.
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they deserve it, but i would say more so in busy environments, they crack under heavy load, even with torrents.
 
Thanks for the comments. I am trying to keep this cheap. Supermicro's boards are just so costly for atom boards. I will keep my eye open for sales or slightly older models
 
Vengance_01 said:
Thanks for the comments. I am trying to keep this cheap. Supermicro's boards are just so costly for atom boards. I will keep my eye open for sales or slightly older models
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You get what you pay for, having your firewall being a reliable piece of equipment might be a decent idea to splurge a little :)
 
Vengance_01 said:
Thanks for the comments. I am trying to keep this cheap. Supermicro's boards are just so costly for atom boards. I will keep my eye open for sales or slightly older models
Click to expand...

Really not that bad actually. An Intel NIC is about $30 these days. Those Supermicro Atom mobos and the Asus Atom mobo that YeOldeStonecat linked to has two of those NICs. So that's $60 of value right there with the NICs. It looks like you're gonna need Intel NICs if you want performance, reliability, and stability. And the bare minimum you're gonna need are two: One to connect to the modem and one to connect to the switch.

Then there's the remote management/builtin IPMI 2.0 with virtual media over LAN and KVM-over-LAN support that allows you to access the BIOS and install/reinstall the OS or troubleshoot the PC from a remote computer, no keyboard, mouse or monitor needed capability of the Asus and certain Supermicro mobos. That's another $20 value judging from the price difference between this non-IPMI capable and IPMI capable Supermicro mobos.

The additional SATA ports on the Asus and Supermicro also makes up a good portion of the value as well at $15 and $30 respectively. And don't forget the dedicated onboard video as well. That means that the Atom CPUs as well as the system RAM on the Asus and Supermicro mobos aren't being tasked with the onboard video which technically means more performance.

The cheapest dual-core Atom mobo is $75 for comparison. So in the case of the Asus Hummingbird mobo:
$180
- $60 for Intel NICs
- $20 for IPMI and KVM over IP support
- $15 for the addded SATA ports
- $unknown value for the onboard video
- $unknown value for the internal USB port which allows you to use a USB drive as the OS drive internally
-----------
$85 for just the main Atom mobo itself minus the value of the last two features

For the Supermicro MBD-X7SPA-HF-O mobo:
$220
- $60 for Intel NICs
- $20 for IPMI and KVM over IP support
- $30 for the addded SATA ports
- $unknown value for the onboard video
- $unknown value for the internal USB port which allows you to use a USB drive as the OS drive internally
-----------
$110 for the main Atom mobo itself minus the value of the last two features

However the extra $25 for the Supermicro mobo over the Asus can be explained by the assumption that the Supermicro is of higher quality.

Anyway, my point is this: Those higher-end Atom mobos aren't expensive just for shits and giggles. They're expensive due to the extra and very valuable features that they have. For the price you're paying, you're actually getting a very good deal even without some sort of special sale.
 
I understand this. I have built a box for work using the super micro board. Right now money is tight and I have an engagement ring to buy.
 
Vengance_01 said:
I understand this. I have built a box for work using the super micro board. Right now money is tight and I have an engagement ring to buy.
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Coulda told me that before I spent the time writing all that :D

In any case, good luck with the untangle box man and the engagement man!
 
If your home broadband speed is on the low end, i.e. under 5.0mbps then I'd say you can get away with using the Realtek.
But if you check eb@y, you can find industrial itx boards with dual Intel Gb NICs, mobile cpu, and sometimes memory, all for under $100 or comparable price to a dual core consumer Atom board.
 
I use intel nics in my boxes primary. Secondary broadcom, after that, realtek.
 
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