On 2012-01-05 18:21, V G wrote: > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:10 PM, David wrote: >> In my opinion you are making this far more complicated than it needs to >> be. Any modern 1U server with a decent amount of RAM, proper network >> card and hardware RAID will do what you want. > What do you mean by proper network card? What port speed and how many por= ts? > To me, "proper" means one that can max out the ethernet channel without=20 tying up the CPU. E.g., transmit or receive hundreds of thousands of=20 packets a second without sending the CPU to interrupt hell. Some of the responsibility is on well-engineered hardware, and much on=20 the OS driver. I use Intel dual or quad-port gigabit PCI-express=20 "server adapters" in a fast PCIE slot. The FreeBSD Intel NIC driver is=20 maintained by an engineer at Intel who's interested in seeing their=20 product perform well. Modern 1U servers from Dell, HP, etc, are likely to have a fairly decent=20 onboard NIC, probably using a Broadcom chipset. Joe K --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .