Re: PCEngines alternatives

mike tancsa wrote this message on Tue, Aug 03, 2021 at 08:33 -0400:
> I love these boards a lot, but it looks like availability is going to be
> really tight for some time.  Does anyone have any suggestions for
> alternatives ?  ARM seems to be looking better and better, however, I
> need something with more than one built in ethernet port (3-4 ideally)
> and something with zero fans as the environments tend to be very dirty--
> hence off the shelf Pi4 is not that attractive.

Yeah, I'm looking for an APU4 alternative since the processor isn't
fast enough to firewall my fiber connection.

Most/all of the arm boards are way to slow for my uses.  If you're fine
at <200Mbps, then they'll be fine.  The A72 or newer cores are MUCH better
at performance than the older arm64 cores..

Also, you're correct that you don't want to use USB.  I've worked to
make some drivers better, but I've had issues, either stability or
performance which makes even USB 3.0 adapters not a great option.

Add in PCIe cards are a good option, and quite cheap to add, the harder
part is that getting case for some of the cheaper SBCs that take a PCIe
card can be difficult.

The hardest part is finding something that isn't expensive, but still
performant.

I ended up giving up and looking at systems w/ fans, as though the
location is somewhat dusty, I don't think it'll be bad enough to cause
issues...

There's always building yourself your own filter box if it's truly that
bad..

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."