On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 10:20 AM, Daniel Pocock <[email protected]> wrote: > > There are a lot of ARM-based small NAS servers out there now. > > How many can be upgraded to Debian and operated with 100% free software, > no binary firmware blobs at all? Is there any comparison table that is > useful for people buying these things with the intention of running free > software? > > For the average buyer, factors like low noise levels, less heat and low > power consumption are likely to be more significant than the need to be > 100% free. However, the fact these devices are theoretically more free > than x86-based solutions may be a good reason to raise awareness of 2 or > 3 of the better models that are known to run Debian. > > Has anybody done any comparison of the IO throughput in different > non-x86 boxes, especially for use with SSDs? > > Are there any ARMv8 / 64-bit in this market yet? > > Maybe this is too much to expect in this price range, but has anybody > seen one providing flash-backed write cache? This can make NFS faster > when dealing with many small files such as Maildirs and large Git > repositories. > > Are there any useful articles comparing the 32 bit entry level boxes, > newer ARMv8 solutions and the x86 equivalents such as the HP > Microserver[1], Lenovo TS140 and Qnap TS-451 and helping users decide > which things run well enough on ARM and for which use cases is the x86 > solution really essential? >
The list of armel systems supported out of the box by debian-installer covers mostly Kirkwood based plug computers, Lacie and QNAP NASes [1]. You can find a comparison of QNAP systems (some no longer in production) over at Martin Michlmayr's website [2]. Keep in mind that the Kirkwood platform is based on ARMv5 (ARM9E), this is not exactly a modern design, so don't expect great performance. If you have serial access and don't mind setting up TFTP boot servers, the armhf variant provides support for a few more devices [3]. Personally I think that ReadyNAS104 is an inexpensive and well-supported option. Lenovo ix4-300d and Synology DS414 are also interesting (and faster -- dual core Armada XP), but I haven't heard first-hand reports here. Note that Synology has only 8MB of flash. All Marvell Armada/Kirkwood SoCs feature a crypto engine (CESA, supported by the marvell_cesa kernel driver). Hope that helps, Jan 1. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armel/ch02s01.html.en#armel-supported-platforms 2. https://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/qnap/ 3. http://ftp.acc.umu.se/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-armhf/current/images/device-tree/
