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which embedded system?



I will be ordering one or more lightweight systems for testing and 
benchmarking network server software on low resource systems.

I did a little research and I list a few systems below. Do you have any 
recommendations of hardware to use?

I need to be able to easily host the hardware by plugging into the wall 
power and into the ethernet. I'd prefer to not deal with assembling or 
buying many different components to get a working solution. Also I don't 
have time to test new ports. Also it would probably be good to have a 
non-x86 system for the lightweight system simply for hardware portability 
testing as a bonus. I'd like the system to be low powered and take up 
little physical space. I don't mind using discontinued hardware as long as 
it is inexpensive compared to others.

  NSLU2 (Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives). Note this is 
  discontinued hardware.  133 or 266 MHz ARM-compatible Intel XScale 
  IXP420 CPU, 32 MB of SDRAM, and 8 MB of Flash memory. Add a USB memory 
  stick for more space. Some have 64 MB or more ram and 16 MB flash.
  Should be less than US$100.

  or:
  
  Some Soekris system with 133 MHz CPU, 64 MB ram. System with case and 
  power supply and extra flash disk would be around US$150 to $250.
  A reason I would not purchase this is because it is already x86
  based CPU.

  or:

  PC Engines ALIX, but I don't know pricing for this with enclosure, power 
  supply, etc. This is also x86-compatible.

  or:

  RouterBOARD, probably US$150 and up for Atheros 300Mhz (or more) CPU and 
  32 MB (or 256) RAM. I think this is a MIPS-compatible CPU.

(I excluded Technologic EmbeddedARM systems since they may cost too much.) 

Depending on the cost, maybe it would be good to buy multiple different 
devices so cost may define my choices.

Any suggestions fronm these or others? URLs to ordering pages or "howtos" 
for NetBSD would be appreciated.


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