HylaFAX The world's most advanced open source fax server

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [hylafax-users] RocketModem III



On 2003.09.30 23:42 Rafael Caceres wrote:
We are looking at getting 6 line RocketModem III (the newest ones) to
consolidate our Hylafax servers into a single machine. Has anyone had
good/bad experiences with it?

The RocketModem IIIs were just *barely* released. I beta-tested an 8-port RM III for Comtrol with HylaFAX during July, August, and September.


I've used RocketModems, RocketModem IIs, and also now RocketModem IIIs.

RocketModem IIs were nicer than RocketModems in that the firmware was "upgradeable"... so any firmware updates that Comtrol released were able to be applied. However, the firmware was "loaded" every time the system booted (module loaded) and so it made for slow booting. I never had any problems with that, but I'd imagine that some environments may have had difficulty... especially if the on-disk firmware somehow became corrupted before it was "loaded" into the card at boot-time. RocketModem IIs were also PCI, so that was nice.

RocketModem IIIs also have upgradeable firmware, but the firmware stays loaded into the card, thus eliminating the boot-time delay and the firmware corruption risk I mentioned. RocketModem IIIs also support Class 1.0 (unlike the IIs and earlier cards). So whenever HylaFAX ends up supporting Class 1.0 - V.34 should theoretically be possible with the RM III.

The RM III does have a Class 2 (not Class 2.0 or 2.1). And in my testing it was good, but there were some occasional errors. The Class 1 support was just as good (bullet-proof) as the Class 1 support with earlier RocketModems, though, and I'd recommend that all RocketModems, including the new IIIs, be used in Class 1. I generally only ever recommend Class 2 usage, anyway, when it has features that HylaFAX's Class 1 doesn't. This isn't the case with RocketModems.

The only technical down-side to the RocketModem III is that, although it works in 3.3V or 5V PCI slots the motherboard must support PCI v2.2 or support "optional" features of PCI v2.1. So, in other words, the motherboard will need to be use Intel 810/815/820/830/etc., VIA Apollo Pro Plus, compatible, or newer chipsets. Thus, anything new is fine; you'll need to be wary with older motherboards.

Lee.

____________________ HylaFAX(tm) Users Mailing List _______________________
 To subscribe/unsubscribe, click http://lists.hylafax.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
On UNIX: mail -s unsubscribe hylafax-users-request@xxxxxxxxxxx < /dev/null
 *To learn about commercial HylaFAX(tm) support, mail sales@xxxxxxxxxxxx*




Project hosted by iFAX Solutions