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Rugged Linux Server For Rural, Tropical Environment?

Posted by timothy on from the crate-of-netbooks-and-solar-panels dept.

travalas writes "Last year I moved to Rural Bangladesh. My work is pretty diverse, everything from hacking web apps to designing building materials. Increasingly a Linux VM on my MacBook Pro is insufficient due to storage speed/processing constraints and the desire to interface more easily with some sensor packages. There are a few issues that make that make a standard server less than desirable. This server will generally not be running with any sort of climate control and it may need to move to different locations so would also be helpful if it was somewhat portable. The environment here is hot, humid and dusty and brutal on technology and power is very inconsistent so it will often be on a combination of Interruptible Power Supply and solar power. So a UPS is a must and low power consumption desirable, so it strikes me that an Integrated UPS a la Google's servers would be handy. Spec wise it needs to be it needs to be able to handle several VM's and some other processor storage intensive tasks. So 4 cores, 8GB of ram and 3-4 TB of SATA storage seems like a place to start for processing specs. What sort of hardware would you recommend without breaking the bank?"

5 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. All that and ruggedized? by Viv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, not breaking the bank isn't going to be an option here, I'm afraid.

    1. Re:All that and ruggedized? by TJamieson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What would you suggest? Lesser hardware? Surely there must be a solution somewhere in the middle of "I want this" and "I can use this".

      To me, this situation screams 'require redundancy'. I understand this was not given as an option originally, but with the environment described I would certainly not want to rely on one single server.

      --
      For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
  2. You can't have your cake and eat it too. by PyroMosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ever heard the expression "Fast, reliable, cheap (pick two)"?

    It applies here.

    Of course, you were fairly specific with the processing specs you need, but not your budget. So it's hard to say what "breaking the bank" is for you. also, you called it a UPS, but you also called it an "Interruptible Power Supply". I'm assuming a brain-fart, but the "U" stands for Uninterruptible.

    Just picking nits.

    --
    Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
  3. Not gonna happen by AnonGCB · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Low power consumption, quad core, 8 gigs of ram, a UPS and a few TB of storage? 1. Not gonna be cheap, though I'm not sure what your budget is, this will be somewhat pricey. 2. You might want to get a few UPS's, because I doubt, unless you get a very large solar array, that you will be able to run it on that. Expect power loss, disable write caching on the disks, etc. Also, a UPS isn't meant to be used as a constant power source, just as a way to keep you from losing work if power goes out, and if you're lucky, hold you over till it flickers back on. 3. This will NOT be portable, those UPS's will be a pain to move. Good luck, I certainly don't mean to be so negative, but this is a somewhat unreasonable thing to look for.

    --
    http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
  4. What could you possibly be doing ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... in rural Bangladesh that requires 4 cores, 8GB Ram, and 4 TB of storage? I can understand if you're in the city and involved in some company, but you make it sound like you want some serious number crunching to occur in the middle of the jungle.

    How about offloading all of your processing requirements to a co-located server and just getting a cheap rugged laptop to access and control the processing.