Energy Efficient and Cheap Servers for Home Use?

CapnRob asks: "I just got married, and my wife and I are putting together a home network in the (small) apartment we're now living in. We'd like to set up a firewall/mail server/small-file-server, but all the machines we own right now are pretty big machines that pull a fair amount of power, and that we don't want to keep running 24/7. Since our mail and file server needs are pretty low, our ideal box would be something like a Linksys WRT45G with one of the open source firmwares ... if only you could add a small hard drive to it. We're both long-time FreeBSD users, so installing a *nix system is no big deal, but what I've found so far in this line needs more l337 soldering iron skillz than I've got. Any suggestions for tiny little cheap boxes that won't send our power bills into orbit?"

Comments

Crappy notebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could get an old used notebook, even with a broken display? That should be pretty silent and need low power.

Old laptops...

[D-Cypell]

I have several old laptops that I current run as servers. It seems that it is quite common for old laptop batteries to die and refuse to hold a charge. Suddenly, they become pretty decent servers if you set them up to remain running with the top closed.

I suspect that you will find a few of these 'battery-less' laptop on ebay for a good price as the lack of mobility will really effect the asking price for a laptop. Snap them up and get all the cheap servers you will ever need.

Big power drain?

[Cow007]

As a matter of fact computers don't use as much power as you think. The monitor can sometimes use more power than that computer itself. Run BSD on a G5 or Sparc and use flash memory, (a little expensive) but the fastest and least power using alternative and you should be good to go!

Re:The obvious?

[Carnildo]

A possible problem with a laptop is fitting two ethernet ports in -- you need two if you're going to use it as a firewall. Older laptops usually don't have built-in ethernet, so you'd need to connect two PCMCIA cards, which might present space difficulties.

Old laptop

[jake_eck]

I use an old Pentium 100 laptop for this. It's nice having a battery in the server as well.

Re:Soekris is what you want.

[metlin]

Wow, thanks! I've been looking for something similar too, and their net4801 seems really nice and compact - and $250 isn't all that too much, either.

Do you know of anything similar for a webserver, something like a compact off the shelf thing running either *BSD/Linux? I guess I could always solder in a hard-drive onto the 4801 (since the website says that they do have both CompactFlash Type I/II socket and UltraDMA 33 int.) - but one that comes built in with something like that would be cool.

Most of the solutions out there kinda seem really complex and expensive, I just need something to serve a few static pages, and something I can just ssh into remotely to do stuff.

Any suggestions?

Separate your firewall from your servers

[Bun]

"We'd like to set up a firewall/mail server/small-file-server..."

IMHO, putting all your servers on your firewall is just asking for trouble. For better security, you'd do best to have one of those Linksys firewall/routers separate from your mail/file/blah-blah server.

Re:Separate your firewall from your servers

[Stinking Pig]

Bull. Regurgitating general aphorisms blocks true understanding.

This aphorism came about because it is undesirable to have one service hacked leading to access to all the other services and firewall configuration. Okay, this is an understandable situation and goal. Taken to its logical end, it clearly leads to one service per box, which is a good design model for a corporate enterprise with uptime and security as primary design goals.

However, in a home network where service consolidation and low power utilization are the primary design goals, this additional layer of safety bears too high of a cost. Even if the servers are $50 laptops, six or seven of them stacked up are going to be noisy, heat-generating, continually failing little problems. That's probably okay if the goal is to learn how to manage a corporate enterprise, but now we're changing design goals midstream, never a good idea.

With tools like chroot and automatically-handled patch management (urpmi, apt-get, &c), the risk of getting the whole server compromised by one service is reduced, down to what is an acceptable level for many. Once that's understood, we can evaluate the choice of firewall/router packages, and once we're doing that the power and flexibility of netfilter or pf blow any SOHO appliance out of the water. Proper logging, a good set of utilities... appliances are fine for use in networks where no one cares, I suppose, but I don't see why you would want one when a Linux or BSD box could be used instead.

Power Usage Reference

[hungryfrog]

For reference, I've measured power consumption on my laptop and my old box that acts as a linux server. The laptop is a Dell PII 366Mhz with a 15" screen that draws about 22 watts total. The server is a Dell Optiplex PII 400Mhz and draws about 30 watts without a monitor. When the hard drive is working at the max (e.g. a sustained file transfer) it goes up to about 45 watts. Overall, I find that the server costs me about $2.50 to run 24/7. I agree with others: An old laptop is probably a great solution if you can find one cheaply.

Re:Soekris is what you want.

[Raleel]

I can concur on the soekris box. Might I suggest the 4801. 3 ethernet ports, laptop sized harddrive connector on board, compact flash slot, pci slot, and a mini-pci slot. they even sell them with WAN interfaces cards

we use these for wireless/bluetooth sniffers

Re:None of us believe you

[ndogg]

If that's insightful, then so is this.

Re:Obsolyte!

[LiquidCoooled]

The thing is, its holding up better and returning faster than most sites under normal load!

I'm definately impressed.

Think I'll go hunting.

Re:Just do what I do

[Anonymous Coward]

Our electricity isn't included, but water is... so we hooked a generator to the tap and let the water flow freely.

Obligatory Mac plug

[FredFnord]

I bought a PowerMac G4 Cube a few months ago to do this. Low power, no noise, and everything I needed was there and mostly set up by default. The firewall needs a bit of tugging on, but, well, such is life. The Windows file sharing works wonderfully.

Plus, I can either lock it in the closet or leave it out on my living room table as a conversation piece. ('What's that? It's cute!' 'Oh, that's my web server.')

-fred

Re:SparcStation IPX

[Karzz1]

Its going to be a mail/file server. I think you don't need a ton of horsepower.......

It depends on whether you are planning on doing any mail filtering. I have a bunch of experience with MailScanner and ClamAV -- a sendmail server that normally eats 4-5% CPU will quickly start hitting 75% and more. SpamAssassin will add a bunch more to the load. As far as file sharing goes though, you are probably safe.

Re:Two Things

[Tim C]

The average computer, when it is in standby mode, uses 35W or less.

That's good to know, but what use is a server if it's in standby mode?

The guy said he wants something on 24/7 - that to me implies accessible, especially as he mentions using it as a mail server.

Re:whoa!

[uberdave]

If they're hot+smart, they're clever enough not to get entagled with any of us.

Re:Soekris is what you want.

[peacefinder]

Agreed. If I can set up OpenBSD on one of these as my second BSD box ever, I'm sure someone with some actual BSD experience can do it easily.

Re:Two Things

[moonbender]

Yep, a night light rated at 40W would be brighter than my normal bedside lamp. And of course, it'd draw about 2 to 3 times the power any decent power saving light bulb (as opposed to an incandescent one) would.

Actually, that reminds me: If you're looking for power savings like the guy who requested this Ask Slashdot, have a look at replacing your lighting solutions. Incandescent lights not only have a really terrible efficiency, but also have to be replaced than good power saving light bulbs. Night lights - if you really need them (why?) - would be very well suited for LEDs, which are reasonably efficient (WAY more so than incandescents), work forever, with their main downside being that they can't really be made bright enough for normal lighting applications, which isn't an issue for a night light.

Re:whoa!

[shut_up_man]

I'm sorry, but the correct reference is:
Smart, hot, sane. Choose any two.

Re:Uh... am I way off base here by suggesting...

[Grey_14]

Laptops arent designed to run all the time, It'll die pretty quick if your leaving it on all the time,

Re:SparcStation IPX

[eclectechie]

Its going to be a mail/file server. I think you don't need a ton of horsepower...

Don't forget SSL. If you want to run webmail over HTTPS, you need a fair bit of CPU.

My P200/Linux server goes to 100% CPU usage when I hit Refresh on my inbox, and it feels slow as molasses. Otherwise, the machine is adequate; all non-encrypted stuff feels quite snappy.