Two Tiny Dual-Gigabit Raspberry Pi CM4 Routers
Since I started testing various PCI Express cards on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, I've been excited to see what new kinds of custom networking devices people would come up with.
Well, after months of delays due to part shortages, both DFRobot and Seeed Studios have come out with their 2-port Gigabit router board designs, and I was happy to receive a sample of each for testing:
The boards are tiny, and even with the Compute Module 4 installed, they are incredibly small—take a look at the entire assembled DFRobot unit, complete with a Raspberry Pi attached:
These boards are a huge upgrade from any typical Pi 4 model B multi-port router solution, since you not only have half the required device footprint, you also get two ports side-by-side and don't need an extra USB Gigabit network dongle hanging off a USB 3.0 port!
Plus, with the freedom to access the Pi's x1 PCI Express lane directly, DFRobot's board attaches the second Gigabit NIC directly to the bus, instead of through a USB 3.0 controller, like Seeed Studios did. Look at the benchmarks further down this post to see what kind of difference that architecture shift made.
