On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, Dave C. wrote:

> FWIW, the Soekris 4801 is a "better" board than the WRAP. It has support for
> usb, while the wrap needs to be modified in the power supply section to do
> it (loosing the switching power supply).
> 
> For firewalling only, they're the same, but the 4801 is more "general
> purpose" and with the hard disk you can run a general purpose mini-server
> rather than just a firewall. You could attach an external ADSL modem on the
> USB (or perhaps an extra ethernet or wireless adapter, or why not.... a usb
> memory dongle or even an external cd-r or dvd-r for backup purposes). And
> while I'm at it, a usb hub + several of these devices :)
> 
> Still... if you consider that the production price of the 4801 is under
> $100... the $200+selling price seems a bit steep.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.

If you want USB and all that extra stuff there are min-atx boards with processors going for $40.
You'd need to get an IDE to CF adapter, there are only 2 ethernet ports, so you'll need to use the 1
pci slot to add more, if you need, and it's not going to be a low power/POE thing. As far as the
soekris stuff being overpriced, there aren't many alternatives - even the wrap board deosnt' come
with a case or power! So they can charge a lot - as long as it doesn't get near the pc104 or 1U
area, they're good.

Josh