Using a server for a router.

[El_Gran_Tecnico]

        Hi I am currently interested in purchasing a small 1U rack server in place of my router at home, I currently have been dissatisfied with consumer routers especially from Linksys and NETGEAR since they always seem to be buggy. I am switching to a 1U rack server since they're pretty much enterprise routers from my understanding. My question is if a $50 server used online such as the Dell Poweredge R410 will be more powerful than say an Asus RT-AC5300? Are the Xeon 5500 series CPUs better than those internal CPUs from consumer routers? If that's the case, should I look into more cores, clock speed, more ram, or a good overall balance of the three? I'm thinking about running Windows Server 2008 with the server to perform my networking tasks. I hope I'm not making a mistake and wish to prevent it here thanks.

 

Cheers, El_Gran_Técnico.

[Mornincupofhate]

You went through all the trouble of typing that out and you didn't even tell us what you're using it for.

[El_Gran_Tecnico]

18 minutes ago, Mornincupofhate said:

You went through all the trouble of typing that out and you didn't even tell us what you're using it for.

I'm just using it as a home router. I just want something more reliable, faster, and more customizable. I'm thinking about purchasing the server because that way there'd be no downtime in packets due to other users on the networking accessing the data at the same time. Producing less latency as the main goal hopefully.

[brwainer]

Yes you can use a server, or any x86 computer actually, as a router - but you will want to do so with an OS like PFSense or Mikrotik RouterOS, not with Windows Server. 

[El_Gran_Tecnico]

5 hours ago, brwainer said:

Yes you can use a server, or any x86 computer actually, as a router - but you will want to do so with an OS like PFSense or Mikrotik RouterOS, not with Windows Server. 

Thanks for the response, which OS is most similar to DD-WRT since I'm comfortable with that OS? Finally, my most important question is whether or not I should look for cores, or clock speed when deciding on CPUs for a router?

 

Appreciated, El_Gran_Técnico.

[brwainer]

8 hours ago, El_Gran_Tecnico said:

Thanks for the response, which OS is most similar to DD-WRT since I'm comfortable with that OS? Finally, my most important question is whether or not I should look for cores, or clock speed when deciding on CPUs for a router?

 

Appreciated, El_Gran_Técnico.

A dual core CPU from a decade ago can outperform even recent high end routers that you would be comparing this to. 

 

You'll have to get used to some differences, because the interface used in DD-WRT is too simplistic to handle all the features available in x86 routing OSs. Look at PFSense. There are lots of videos out there about it, I recommend the one by Level1Tech about using an old computer as a router. I can't link to it due to forum rules.

[Mornincupofhate]

18 hours ago, El_Gran_Tecnico said:

I'm just using it as a home router. I just want something more reliable, faster, and more customizable. I'm thinking about purchasing the server because that way there'd be no downtime in packets due to other users on the networking accessing the data at the same time. Producing less latency as the main goal hopefully.

pfSense would be your best solution for just a home router/firewall. A dual core will do this just fine, but if you have a quad core, you should consider using SNORT or something else to take full advantage of your power.

[El_Gran_Tecnico]

Okay thanks for the response guys much appreciated for all the help. Looks like I'm just going to get the highest clocked quad core Xeon with a FSB I can get since they're pretty cheap when compared to the newer chips with Sandy Bridge or newer architecture.

 

Regards, El_Gran_Técnico.

[FullBoat]

I just setup a server for VM's, and have been thinking of doing this as well. Just need to be brave enough to give it a shot.

 

Don't forget you'll want 2 Ethernet ports, 1 WAN, and 1 LAN. At least I think that would be the best way to run it.