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Low Powered SOHO Server?
meroo asks: "I am building a new home that is completely solar/wind powered. I need to conserve power wherever I can, but I don't want to leave all my tech toys behind. I need advice about building a low power, Linux based, file and print server. It should be scalable to more than a terabyte of storage (we are video artists) with at least four HDD bays for flexibility and data redundancy. I would like advice on processor/mainboard combos, low power HDDs and a distro with the best power management to bring this thing down to idle when we are not using it. The server will be accessed via our laptops (Mac OSX and Ubuntu), a future home theatre PC and visitors assorted laptops. I've been looking at using laptop components, miniITX and professional server solutions, but now I'm thoroughly confused. Has anyone on Slashdot been faced with this problem before?"
You didn't mention scale of your alternative energy. The last place we lived was totally solar powered,IIRC it was 2.6 kw in full sun, plus days worth of battery bank storage, and if that went out there was a big diesel genny but we hardly ever used it. For the owners of the estate, "them", and us,"the caretakers", we ran everything we wanted to run from freezers to fridges to multiple normal full tower computers to large screen TVs and dishwashers and vacuums and..you get the picture. The only way you could tell this wasn't a normal grid-only place (besides the solar arrays in the backyard) was when the grid power went down in the 'hood and we still had all usual power. Very, very *nice* then. You really appreciate it then, you can see that having onsite power production is just slick. It just depends on how much wattage you are installing with the PV and wind genny that determines your needs and wants with various gadgetry. If you have two panels and the smallest wind genny, well, a modest laptop or mini-itx system would have to suffice. 20-40 panels large with equivalent battery bank and a few thousand watt wind genny, you can go quite "normal" and run about whatever you might want within reason.
I did learn some tricks though, the primary one is timing for heavy loads. If you schedule your most demanding electrical loads for mid-day, between 11 AM and 1 PM, that is when you have peak power usually. Like, then is when you run the washing machines or water well for showers and watering the garden, etc. Stuf like that, common sense. You do learn to turn off excess lights or use compact fluorescents. In fact, the on/off switch is your friend, you can save an amazing amount by just being consistent in use and developing "muscle memory" for hitting OFF when you really don't need to run some gadget. "Idling" adds up quick! Arrange chairs so when you are reading you can get natural sunlight from a window. And have enough storage batteries! Nothing worse than be having a nice sunny day and be producing *too much* power and no place to put the excess. And those extra batteries will get your through cloudy days, plus they will last longer if you aren't "deep" cycling them. Shallow cycles make your batts last much longer, that and be sure to install a "desulphator" on the batteries.
With that said, have you been to solarpc.com? Off-grid puter experts of the low-watt kind.