Low-Power Home Linux Server?

mpol writes "For years I've been using a home server with Linux, but recently I've been having doubts about the electric bill. I'm not touched by the recession yet, but I would like to cut costs, and going from a 100-Watt system to a 30-Watt system would save me 70 bucks a year. The system doesn't need to do much, just apache, imap, ssh and some nfs, but I do prefer to have a full-fledged system, where I can choose what to install on it. I also don't really care if it's a low-power Via or an ARM processor as long as it's cheap. I'm aiming for $300 or less for a full system, which I could then earn back in about four years through power savings. I've been reading about the Western Digital Mybook World Edition, which has an ARM processor but isn't that easy to install Debian on. A Mac Mini draws about 85 Watts, so that isn't an option either. Something a bit more than turn-key would be fine, but preferably not a complete hack-job. Adding a temporary CR-ROM or DVD-ROM, or a USB disk with an iso to install from would be nice. Any Slashdotters run nice and cheap low-power Linux systems? What can you recommend?"

Comments

Linkstation Pro Duo

[ceswiedler]

I'm working on getting a Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo set up with Debian Lenny. It's mostly complete, I'm rebuilding the kernel as I type to get USB printer support working. It's very compact and low-power, and has mirrored 500 GB disks, which I think is essential for any home server.

The downside is that I had to solder on a serial connection in order to get access to uboot (a bootloader similar in concept to GRUB) so I could view early kernel output and diagnose problems, log in if networking didn't come up, etc. If you can find a NAS device which supports a serial console (or at least can use netcat instead), that would be good.

One thing to be aware of is that you get a lot less CPU power with these low-watt ARM CPUs. The Linkstation Duo is great for fileserving, printing, and light email and webserving duties, but when I installed Gallery and postgres to view my photos over the web, it ran extremely slowly. That's not too surprising given it's a NAS not a full-fledged server, but it's something to keep in mind. You may only need a low-power device for 90% of your apps, but that last 10% can use a surprising amount of CPU.

Re:Linkstation Pro Duo

[karnal]

All I do from my home Linux server is read/write files - mostly from Windows clients, but I have a few Linux clients as well. Also some very basic MRTG which I usually don't even look at anyways. One thing I've consistently read about NAS devices is that they won't necessarily have the horsepower to push the network connection on file read/writes to the max.

What's your experience with the speed of files in and out of the Buffalo device?

Re:Linkstation Pro Duo

[thadmiller]

I'd like to second the Buffalo Linkstation solution. The LS-XHL model has a 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, 256MB RAM, and the 1 TB model is available from NewEgg for around $220 (they also make a 1.5 TB and 2 TB). I did have to take the drive out and hook it up to a desktop running Ubuntu for part of the install, but I didn't need to solder anything. I have Debian Lenny running on the NAS with AMP, Samba, OpenSSH, Webmin, and TorrentFlux for normal operation. I also have LXDE accessed via TightVNC with various desktop apps (aMule, gtk-gnutella, etc).

End result is a $220 box, with a 1 TB drive, using approximately 15-watts that sits quietly on a shelf, and does everything I want.

Underclocking

[XPeter]

You don't look like you need extensive processing power, so why not just underclock your current server? That alone will save you a pretty penny on your bill.

Also, the mac mini draws 110 watts http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini?aid=AIC-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACMINI-DESIGN&cp=BUYNOW-MACMINI-DESIGN

Laptop

[talcite]

An old laptop will probably give you the lowest power for the cheapest cost. It doesn't sound like reliability or performance is your main concern. You can disassemble it and take out the LCD to save a couple more watts if you want, but a typical laptop draws between 10-20 watts.

Via Epia 5000

[robertkeizer]

I just finished setting up a via epia 5000 - it maxes out at 20watts power and runs a 533mhz cpu. It retails for about $100 US.

New Intel D945GSEJT & PC Engine Alix!!!

[niko9]

Intel just released the D945GSEJT Atom board. This is not the same boards that used to older 945 chipsets. The older boards needed a fan on the chipset for it sucked up almost 20 watts!! The new board is mini-itx so it should fit in just about any case and runs on a single 12 volt coaxial plug so no need for a buly ATX PSU.

A nice review here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_D945GSEJT_with_Morex_T1610

I also use, and am a big fan of the PC Engines Alix boards: http://www.pcengines.ch/ You have several board styles to choose from. You can install Voyage Linux (Debian based and keep APT!!) on a compact flash with a simple installation (specifically for ALIX) script: http://linux.voyage.hk/

My alix, which I use as a USB music server, draws a measly 3 watts (Kill-A-Watt meter) when playing FLAC files. You can attach a low power USB hard disk for added storage if you want to run NFS.

Re:New Intel D945GSEJT & PC Engine Alix!!!

[ajlitt]

Seconded on the D945GSEJT! For under $200 I was able to get the board, a 1TB Seagate Barracuda LP drive, 2GB SODIMM, and some miscellaneous bits to make a simple plexiglass case. The PSU came from an old external HDD case and didn't require any cable hacking to fit the connector at the back. The board has no onboard fans, and runs so cool I didn't need to add any. It's so quiet that I can't hear it over the hum of the 2 CFL bulbs 10 feet away.

I haven't measured power consumption yet, but considering my PSU is only 12V@2A and it hasn't caught fire yet, it can't draw much more than 24A running full tilt.

Not what I intended, but works well as a server

[mattbee]

I bought a Western Digital MyBook network drive which is basically a little ARM board with 32MB memory. It is intended just to serve up some windows shares over a network. But you can run a simple program to enable ssh access, install a package manager and start installing other software on it - mine runs a few cron jobs to download files, as well as being a print server through its spare USB port. I'm not sure how far it could be pushed given how little memory it has, but I'm sure a bit of email & NFS wouldn't be beyond it if you're not fussy about speed.

Power and cost were only a bit more than the drive itself.

Re:Sheeva Plug

[DamonHD]

The SheevaPlug is great: I've come down from over 600W for a rack of Solaris servers via 18W for a Linux laptop to now under 4W for a SheevaPlug (all quiet/typical consumption) to provide the same services, see:

http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-SheevaPlug-setup.html

(Served off the plug indeed...)

I've reduced the consumption so much that the plug now runs entirely off-grid from a small array of solar PV panels (under 200Wp) with a small (12V, 40Ah) battery to cover nights and very dull days...

Rgds

Damon

Re:Mac Mini idles at 13 watts!

[Wingsy]

Not robust enough? I think the people running this server farm might disagree.

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/13019/Mac+Mini+Server+Farm.html