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25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#121

Post by 542458 »

tibbon wrote: post #116
j1elo wrote: post #4

I'm always amazed by people who don't bat an eye on the perspective of having a home server, sucking up electricity 24/7. In this case replacing a typical router (which consumes like a lightbulb), with a full-fledged PC (probably consuming like x100 the power). I guess some people around the world have quite cheap utility bills! For me, it's either a Raspberry Pi type of power consumption, or else a server that only…

I’ve got a handful of computers running in a rack at home. Their total power? Around 400w. I also have a dehumidifier running all the time in the basement. It’s power usage is 500w. No one bats and eye at a heater or dehumidifier, but a computer and people get worried

I mean, I would bat an eye at a humidifier running 24/7 without any sort of automatic on/off based on humidity levels but maybe in your climate that’s more normal?

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#122

Post by daneel_w »

At some point the idea of "use more case fans, then all of them run at lower RPM" simply turns on you and instead produce more noise. For the low wattages of this build a single case fan would've been sufficient to keep PSU and CPU fan at silent levels.

I have a few more watts in my PC case, but not a single case fan, and the machine still hovers at a comfortably quiet level at 1 meter's distance. No temperature issues.

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#123

Post by yakubin »

stefan_ wrote: post #117
yakubin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But even if, why do you keep your power efficient router running 24/7? You could turn it off when you're not home to save even more energy. You jest, but I turn off my router for the night and each time I leave home for more than a day. Not just router to be exact, everything that's connected to a power strip goes down, as I turn off all the power strips. (Not OP.)

Not a fan of the "turning the power strips off" method. Power supply failures are the number one reason why expensive electronics turn to bricks and subjecting them to the large inrush current that happens on the primary side every time you do the mechanical switch thing is a great way to significantly accelerate that process. Penny wise, pound foolish kind of thing.

That's the primary method of turning embedded devices on and off though. :) During development it's done around the clock and noone bats an eye. Rule of thumb: if a device doesn't have a power button, it's fine to turn off using the power strip.

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#125

Post by detuur »

chinathrow wrote: post #95
rand846633 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Init7,OP’s isp is a non profit

No, they are a regular for profit company.

Regardless, their monthly (annual actually) fees are the same for 25G/25G as for 1G/1G. Only the setup fees are higher, which they attribute to more expensive optics. 10G/10G is completely identically priced to 1G/1G.

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#126

Post by adrian_b »

j1elo wrote: post #4

I'm always amazed by people who don't bat an eye on the perspective of having a home server, sucking up electricity 24/7. In this case replacing a typical router (which consumes like a lightbulb), with a full-fledged PC (probably consuming like x100 the power). I guess some people around the world have quite cheap utility bills! For me, it's either a Raspberry Pi type of power consumption, or else a server that only…

"probably consuming like x100 the power" is greatly exaggerated.

A typical PC might have an idle power consumption of less than 50 W, while a very small computer with ARM little cores might have an idle power of 2 ... 3 W, so at most the power consumption ratio would be 20.

However even that is not realistic because a computer or appliance with less than 3 W power consumption will not be able to route 10 Gb/s or faster links and it will struggle even with multiple 1 Gb/s ports.

A dedicated router appliance able to route 10 Gb/s or faster links will probably have an idle power of around 10 W or even more.

For routing only 1 Gb/s links, you can use among the standard PC's a NUC-like model, which will have an idle power consumption between 5 W and 10 W, quite close to a dedicated appliance. This is actually what I am using for my own Internet router/firewall (which also runs many other services, e.g. DNS server and proxy, NTP, e-mail, HTTP server and proxy etc.) with 1 external 1 Gb/s port and 4 internal 1 Gb/s ports (4 of the 5 ports are made with USB to Ethernet adapters).

Some of the more recent NUC or similar computers have multiple Thunderbolt ports or 10 Gb/s USB ports, so those can be used to route multiple 10 Gb/s links (using Ethernet adapters), with an idle power of around 10 W, similar to any equivalent commercial routers.

For 25 Gb/s Ethernet links, a commercial router is unlikely to be much cheaper or to consume much less than a standard PC.

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#127

Post by lttlrck »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #78
melling wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He claims one of his goals is to be power efficient “The PC consumes about 48W of power when idle (only management …” https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 “ How much electricity does an American home use? In 2019, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,649 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of about 877 kWh per month”

Ok so what am I missing here? In Germany a typical four person household is 2000kwh a year. Surely air conditioning can't make up for such a difference? Everybody already switched to electric cars?

It looks closer to 3.5Mwh:

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity...

But still that's far lower than the US at 11Mwh. Maybe A/C and home size accounts for most of it.

We're a family of 3 and on track for around 8Mwh this year. We only use AC on the hottest days (Southern Californian climate so it's quite manageable throughout the year), water and dryer are gas - but I have a homelab which could be optimized.

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#128

Post by ttsiodras »

philjohn wrote: post #5
j1elo wrote: post #4

I'm always amazed by people who don't bat an eye on the perspective of having a home server, sucking up electricity 24/7. In this case replacing a typical router (which consumes like a lightbulb), with a full-fledged PC (probably consuming like x100 the power). I guess some people around the world have quite cheap utility bills! For me, it's either a Raspberry Pi type of power consumption, or else a server that only…

There is a middle ground - either an Intel Atom or Intel Celeron based server - typically use around 10w and you still get niceties like SATA and even PCIe

If you are OK with external USB drives, I did just that with my Atomic PI [1] (Atom-based, 35$ SBC, 3.5W idle, running Debian on its internal EMMC, with two external USB drivers in ZFS-mirror configuration).

[1] https://www.thanassis.space/atomicpi.html

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#129

Post by geerlingguy »

formerly_proven wrote: post #108
geerlingguy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to note that's peak power consumption. They idle between 1-4W, or if you're running a PoE HAT, 4-6W.

A RPi is not equivalent to what most would use as a COTS router, which includes a GbE switch and some kind of modem (DSL or cable). The latter on its own needs a few Watts.

On the contrary, OpenWRT and a good CM4-based board allows the Pi to run pretty well as a gigabit router :)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/two-tiny-dual-gigabit...

Re: 25 Gigabit Linux internet router PC build

#130

Post by pilif »

ianai wrote: post #19
hocuspocus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess some people around the world have quite cheap utility bills! Or they work at Google and don't really have to care. Electricity is not particularly cheap in Switzerland, but not particularly expensive either (nothing like Germany for instance). If running a home lab is your hobby, why not. There are plenty of hobbies that are a lot more expensive.

The machine's clearly massive overkill for routing. Another commenter points out it typically runs around 50w - and the OP says they're also using it as a server in this thread.

Do you know of any smaller scale hardware capable of routing 25Gbit/s?
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