[Cerowrt-devel] Fwd: wndr3800 replacement

[Aaron Wood]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 11:11 PM, David Lang <david at 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.  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
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