Re: Fwd: Re: Advice / recommendations on Inexpensive Managed Ethernet Switches

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> Basically anything that can run Debian and has two suitable
> ethernet ports will do. An old laptop? One of the shiny little
> Raspberry-Pi style devices? (Probably not the Pi itself; it only
> has one ethernet port.)

I use a BananaPi for that.  It has 3 network interfaces:
- the ethernet one, which I use on the DSL side.
- the wifi (I used an external USB dongle for that, for various reasons).
- the USB-OTG which I use to connect my main desktop (effective
  bandwidth on this one is a bit more than 10MB/s, so slower than
  a gigabit ethernet but plenty for my needs).
The reason why I like those critters:
- supports SATA.
- very low power consumption (e.g. I measured 5W at the "mains",
  including a 2TB HDD spinning).
- runs stock Debian, including stock kernel, so I don't have to worry
  about lack of security fixes down the road.
So I use them (one at home, on at the office) as router-plus-NAS,
running things like OpenVPN, Squid, OwnCloud, MusicPD, ...
Having a full Debian system means that I can trivially install pretty
much anything that I might need, using the same old tools I already know
and love.


        Stefan