[GLLUG] Low-power Home Server

Mike Rambo mrambo at lsd.k12.mi.us
Wed Jun 20 08:21:59 EDT 2012


Tom Schouten wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> Recently I've been doing some math and found out that running a 100W
> machine 24/7 at my parent's back home cost me about 150 Euros/year
> (Belgian electricity is quite expensive, about 20 Eurocents/kWh more
> than double of what it is here). The 100W was measured with power meter
> over period of 24h so is probably quite accurate. Includes PC, GB
> ethernet switch + wireless router.
>
> Anyone have an idea of how to replace this with something more
> power-efficient?

I went with an atom board like Charles mentioned. I needed two ethernet 
ports so I went with the following board and the max 4GB of ram it 
supports. You end up with four CPU cores with this board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153212

This one would also do if you don't need as many sata ports.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153188

The power supply in use is this one. The picoPSU requires a 12v source 
and thus your overall efficiency is influenced by the power brick used. 
I used a switching PSU from an old Gateway all in one that used external 
12v power.

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f

I have two 2TB WD green disks for storage and one 40GB normal 7200 disk 
for services that prefer a little faster disk speed.

Kill-A-Watt says my setup is costing me under $4 per month (at .13/kwh) 
which is down about $20/mo from what I was running before. I don't 
remember any more what the wattage of the setup is. I've looked more at 
the cost since the Kill-a-watt calculates it for me based upon the price 
I tell it to use. I do not have a CD/DVD attached full time.

I used Centos 5 which loaded right up. I'd expect pretty much any other 
distro to do likewise.

I first read about this kind of setup here.

http://sandeen.net/wordpress/computers/linux/how-to-build-an-18w-4-terabyte-commodity-x86-linux-server/

(note that the url above may be wrapped - it is one long string)

HTH

Mike


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