FOOD FOR THOUGHT Intel Compute Stick for PIAF?

[rjaiswal]

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Compute..._UL160_SR160,160_&refRID=0PA95X0AKWVV49JVGBWJ

It's really tempting... Just need a USB ethernet adaptor...

 

[wardmundy]

We almost took the bait but... Boy, are they proud of those sticks. You can buy 4 Raspberry Pi 2's for what Intel wants for one of those sticks. And then you still need to add a network adapter.

 

[rem1473]

I'm not sure if things have changed in the last 2.5 months, but that's not really a fair comparison on 22 April. I'm looking at a Compute Stick on Amazon right now for $77.80. That includes a power supply, 8gb built in storage, and a case. Add $10 for a USB ethernet adapter. Most RaspberryPi "Starter Kits" are about the same price range, or at least in that ballpark.

I don't know the cpu cycles comparison between the ARM in the RPi3 and the Atom in the Compute Stick. The RPi3 might be a better value strictly from a computing cycles perspective. Which is shocking since the RPi has not been a very good value in that particular category in the past. That was never an objective of the RPi, which is exactly what makes it attractive. The Intel does have a distinct advantage with a broader base of available distros and compiled binaries available for the CPU.

The big advantage that I see to the Intel Compute Stick however, is the eMMC built-in storage. There are so many flavors of MicroSD cards on the market, choosing one for the RPi3 that can handle the read/write of a modern OS, can add some stress to a purchase. I hope the smart people at Intel vetted their eMMC and it's engineered to handle read/writes of a modern OS. 8gb is not very much, but it's probably sufficient for most Asterisk installs that might go on this stick. You can add file storage with a MicroSD. If you're only storing some files on that MicroSD, you don't need to worry about getting one appropriate for OS read/writes. So the MicroSD purchase is more commodity.

I love my RPi's. I have quite a few of them. I'd really like to see how the Intel Compute Stick compares running Asterisk. Running down the list feature by feature, I think the RPi3 is still a better value. But it's rather close for me. It's not a 1:4 ratio.

 

[wardmundy]

@rem1473: You will note that the Compute Stick price has dropped by over $120 since our February posting. That 60% nosedive is probably due in no small part to the fact that they aren't selling. As we noted originally, you still need an Ethernet adapter and a microSD card on top of that. Sorry to disagree, but you're not going to do much with an 8GB Asterisk platform.

 

[rem1473]

I didn't know how to check the price back in Feb. I had no idea what they did cost. that's why I noted the time differential in the beginning of my post. So at the new price, it's still not compelling?

If it had built in ethernet it would be more compelling to me. That's the only thing holding me back right now.

 

[wardmundy]

@rem1473: No problem at all. Just wanted to get the full picture out there. I agree with you. If it had built-in Ethernet (particularly WiFi), it would be much more compelling. For the time being, we're more than happy with the performance, pricing, and feature set of the new Raspberry Pi 3.

 

[dziny]

Sorry to disagree, but you're not going to do much with an 8GB Asterisk platform.

No? All my current Asterisk 13 installations are nicely under 4GB. When I started (11+ years ago) my first asterisk 1.2 with freepbx was comfortably under 1GB. Asterisk 1.4 was the first one to go over 1GB (but way under 2GB). I think 1.8 was around 2GB mark and 11 and 13 are at 2.3GB. Mind you, I have always used Debian not CentOS and have started with minimal OS install adding components as they were needed.

Back to the topic, a Raspberry size computer with x64 processor, ethernet, USB, wifi and bluetooth would probably sell nicely around that $70 price point. Nothing against ARM, just the little things such as no legal g729 are the annoyances.

 

[jerrm]

A 32GB Flash/2GB RAM Compute stick with wifi is $100.00, complete with Win10 (whether you want it or not). More than adequate for a rather substantial Asterisk server. I've been tempted to pick one up, maybe one day when I have time or the next new build.

For now it's Pi's & NUCs for anything not in a VM.

One thing about the Pi, if it fits performance-wise, they are cheap enough to always have spares, and I've adopted a backup to SD card in a USB reader approach that makes it a simple matter to move the backup SD into a new unit and boot to be live. Pi's also seem to have less of the model-du-jour syndrome associated with low-end PC hardware.