3. Internal details

• SonicWall SOHO TZW 10...
• • California Computer Center
  • $338.25

The TZW is powered by a Toshiba TMPR3927 RISC-based processor clocked at 133MHz. Although there's also a Sonicwall custom ASIC, Sonicwall says that the TZW does not include a hardware IPsec coprocessor.

Figure 1: TZW internal view
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Figure 1 shows the TZW's innards, including the Intersil PRISM-based 802.11b mini-PCI radio, which looks to be a Senao SL-2511MP. The radio is cabled to two RP-TNC style connectors that have two moveable, jointed 5dBi dipole antennas attached.

I should note that Sonicwall says that they don't plan to make the TZW's radio field upgradeable. Their reasoning is that since the IPsec processing power is matched to 802.11b's 5Mbps or so best-case throughput, adding an 802.11a or 11g higher-bandwidth radio would also entail adding more juice to the VPN processing. So if 802.11b isn't your thing, you'll need to wait until Sonicwall comes out with a TZW model that has the radio you're looking for.

That's it for the internal exam. Let's move on to the setup.