Minimal gateway hardware configuration

[Manolis Kiagias]

Bahman M. wrote:
> One other question -a bit silly:
> If I use that configuration as the gateway, can it be left on and
> working 24x7? I mean, regarding the _hardware_, how often does it need
> to be powered off: once a day, once a week, ... to prevent hardware
> failures such as HDD crash?
>
> Bahman
>
>
>   
You will be pleasantly surprised to find out that with adequate cooling
and a good quality power supply, most standard PCs can go on for ages
without a single problem, no shutdowns, no reboots. A UPS is also
recommended but definitely not required if the machine will not have
mission critical data (as I understand, yours will not have any data at
all...). In fact, from my experience, the 24/7 machines may be more
reliable than others since they will not go the endless power up / down
cycles that actually stresses components, both electronic and mechanical
(like disks). Hard disks mostly wear out from constant head movement and
not just by simply spinning idly. Low load machines, where IO bound
processes are few, will have no problems with disk reliability. Just
test the components (ie memtest, disk surface etc. esp. if old),
install, turn on and "forget". FreeBSD will happily do the rest...
forever that is :)