Re: [Cerowrt-devel] Fwd: wndr3800 replacement

[David Lang <david@lang.hm>]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2014, Aaron Wood wrote:

> Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 13:50:27 +0100
> From: Aaron Wood <woody77@gmail.com>
> To: David Lang <david@lang.hm>
> Cc: Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>,
>     "cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net"
>     <cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] Fwd: wndr3800 replacement
> 
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 11:11 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>
>> If the openwrt folks could figure out how they are going to deal with NAND
>> flash, it would be nice to be able to use one of the many routers that is
>> shipping with more flash (128M in the newer netgear routers would be nice)
>>
>> if I were to get my hands on one, what sort of testing would you want to
>> do to it to tell if it looks like it would hold up?
>
>
> I have experience running mtd on NAND, using jffs2.  It seems to be holding
> up well.  Better than NOR did, honestly.  Although in general, I wish they
> would shift to eMMC.  But it's driven by two factors:
>
> 1) part cost
> 2) chipset support from the router SoC vendors
>
> Given some of the wishes that I see on here, I think for development,
> people would be happier with a platform that wasn't based on a router SoC
> (like the wndr is), but instead was based on an embedded application
> processor with PCIe for the radios, and an external switch fabric.

I think we have two competing desires.

one is to have a nice powerful device for those people who have fast connections 
and for us to experiment with.

the second is to have a 'home' device.

using a 3800 or similarly priced ($100-$150 USD) device that's readily available 
is very good for the second category, the question is if we can find one that's 
powerful enough for the first.

David Lang

>  But for
> thermal purposes alone, I've been seeing more and more external switch
> fabrics.  The heat of a 5-port gigabit switch IC is pretty substantial
> (from my teardowns).
>
> One item I think will be a boon, especially with DNSSEC, is super-cap or
> battery-backed rtc, but that's asking for a unicorn, I think.  Or...  a
> Gateworks Ventana GW5310 loaded with a couple standard (industrial-grade)
> PCIe radios, loaded into a custom case.  My guess is that it's a pretty
> expensive route, though.  I would be surprised if a completely assembled
> unit would be <$300.  At which point it starts to look better to just run a
> separate router and AP (using standard wndr-type platforms as the APs and a
> higher-end board or PC as the gateway).
>
> -Aaron
>