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

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a DNS-323 which looks similar. You can indeed install Debian on it, but it seems that some of the peripherals are not handled properly, in particulare the thermal sensors.

My current mini-server of choice is the Micro-Client Jr DX (~10W)

http://www.norhtec.com/products/mcjrdx/index.html

Re:Linkstation Pro Duo

[evilviper]

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

Absolutely TERRIBLE, no question about it. You'll get much better performance out of the oldest system you can snag off ebay for $20.

Even if you get one for free, I would recomend NOT using it. They made some of the most horrendous design decision ever. First is vastly underpowering the system. Second is giving it anything more than 10BaseT networking, and advertising it as if there's a snowball's chance in hell it'll be able to utilize it... Third, is not providing ANY WAY for the end user to access the underlying system, so when the array gets completely hosed for no reason (and it will! No question.) you can't get in, anywhere, to fix anything, and only a hacked firmware image will save you... Fourth and perhaps most significantly, is cheaping-out on $1 worth of flash, and instead storing the OS image on the HDDs, leaving it vulnerable to data corruption, and a huge pain in the ass to bootstrap with fresh drives (requiring Windows, or at least WINE to run the firmware updater app).

I posted on a forum somewhere about all the typos I found in the firmware of my unit... "ehco" is a good extensive one in the software-raid scripts, ensuring nobody can actually get the reports of a few specific errors, should they occur. And this is in a commercial product.

Re:Linkstation Pro Duo

[easyTree]

Is it really worth buying some new kit whose sole purpose is to save money when, towards the end of it's lifetime, you will just about have saved the money you spent to buy it? How about saving yourself the time and not doing it?

Re:Linkstation Pro Duo

[ls671]

> and has mirrored 500 GB disks, which I think is essential for any home server.

I found that when the computer is ran with with no screen, the hard drives are what require the most power. Not surprising when you touch them and see how warm/hot they get.

I have two monitor-less servers, one has 2 X 500G drives in it while the other has 4. The one with 4 drives takes about 160 watts of power while the other with 2 takes about 80 watts of power.

I would suggest to look at alternative media to store your data (or more energy efficient drives) if you are concerned with saving power. You may also look at stopping the drives from spinning when not in use depending on how busy your server is throughout the average day but I do not know how well it works under Linux.

Also, if you live in a cold area where you need to heat your place, the heat dispersed by the drives will warm your house and make you save on heating bills. This is one of the reason I do not worry about this that much... I just warm my place up with the computers and this makes me save on heating bills ;-))

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

Re:Underclocking

[Sorny]

I get a whopping 35 Watts used running SETI@home on my Mini... That is with a bus powered FW external HDD for Time Machine hooked up and not spinning down the disks when idle.

A Mac Mini uses nowhere near the power you claim, unless you've got a case where both cores, the GPU, the HDD, and the DVD Burner all all running full tilt at once; a pretty tough thing to do with the use described by the submitter, I'd say.

Re:Underclocking

[DurendalMac]

No, the Mini power adapter puts out a max of 110w. Under load, the Mini actually draws a lot less:

http://www.applesource.com.au/mac/soa/Apple-Mac-Mini-2009-/0,2000070803,339295252,00.htm

Just under 30w under load. Might be a bit higher if you have a DVD in there. It draws a lot less juice than the adapter provides.

Re:Underclocking

[camperslo]

Also, the mac mini draws 110 watts

I'd be surprised if it actually uses that much. The figures shown on consumer products for power consumption seem to be peak or maximum, not nominal figures. Using a meter such as the Kill-a-watt will likely show significantly less consumption. (read Watts, not VA)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Electronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001

A few years ago I built a desktop using a E6300 Core 2 Duo overclocked to 2.25 Ghz. With added Ethernet and Firewire cards, and typical optical and hard drives, consumption measures only 82 Watts. (tested while doing video compression) Components were selected with energy use in mind. It helped to use basic ICH7/GMA950 graphics.

Clearly the Minis still use much more energy than some alternatives suggested here, but for a true picture of power savings measured consumption is needed. It would be interesting to results at different clock rates.

At aa 13 cents a kwh above baseline rate, I figure it costs roughly $1. per month for every 10 Watts of continuous (24 hr) load.

Re:Underclocking

[kitserve]

I second this - a few years back I switched my home server to a Mac Mini from an old x86 box, for power draw and space/noise reasons, much like the original poster. At the time I checked out alternatives, but there wasn't much to recommend other machines, all the ones I could find had much more limited storage space. No doubt that has improved recently, but being able to fit any standard 2.5" drive is a big advantage if you want to use it as a file server.

My Mini draws 20W when idling (I tested it with a kill-a-watt). Power use will be higher under heavy load, of course, but your average home server spends most of the time idling. I'm pretty sure the 85W/110W ratings are the maximum the PSU can handle, not the power draw you'd expect in normal use. My box runs a web server, ssh, mail server, file server and various other bits and pieces. X is not installed. It is one of the old PowerPC Minis, which I think draw a bit less than the more recent Intel Minis, but I can't imagine the power draw has increased that much.

My advice to the OP would be to pick up a second hand Mini and use that - there might be machines out there designed specifically as low power home servers, but Minis are fairly easy to come by and easy to install Linux on as people have been doing it for a few years now, even if Apple don't encourage it. If you're thinking about environmental impact as well as your electricity bill, buying a second hand machine is going to be better than buying a new piece of kit. This was another part of my decision to go with a Mini, there are various computers designed to do the sort of thing the OP has asked for, but they're much more niche and consequently hard to find second hand.

By the way, if you choose to use a PowerPC Mini, choose a distro that fully supports PowerPC! When I set up the box Ubuntu still officially supported PowerPC, but it has since been switched to unofficial ports only support, which is pretty flaky. Debian is a much better bet, I am now using that as it is much more reliable (note to anyone who wants to call me on this, I am very happy using Ubuntu on x86 desktop, but my recent experiences of the PowerPC releases have not been favourable).

Some people are suggesting laptops, but I wouldn't recommend one myself. For one thing, they aren't designed or expected to be on all the time, and I suspect you're more likely to run into heating and dust related issues. For another, one of the main advantages of a laptop is that it has a battery and therefore won't require a UPS. However, leaving the machine constantly on and charging is going to kill the battery life fairly quickly, at which point it's not really very useful. On top of that, most laptops use 80W+ when running on mains power. They're usually only designed to save power when running from battery. Obviously you can change the power saving settings, but it's going to be a pain to do so.

Re:Underclocking

[nmos]

Err.. Pretty much all of the reasons you give for not using a laptop are just plain wrong or at least only applicable to certain laptops. Basically the "Desktop Replacement" type laptops that were sold in the year or two leading up to the core2Duo were often essentially desktop processors crammed into a laptop sized case and pretty much behaved the way you described with some poor little fan running full tilt pretty much the whole time. Most older and newer laptops do a lot better though. I have a Toshiba U405D (dual core AMD Turon) right now doing a Vista -> Win 7 upgrade and is using about 40W. My thinkpad A22 (1GHZ P3) running Ubuntu is consuming 25W doing some light web browsing. With the screens off they would both use less of course. As for the battery life issue, while it's true that L-ion batteries will live longer if stored at somewhat less than a full charge the difference isn't that large. Most of these batteries are rated for something like 300 - 400 charge/discharge cycles which is a lot for the sort of usage we're talking about. Remember, these types of batteries/chargers don't just keep charging like NiCads sometimes did. They just charge up and stop.

Re:Underclocking

[segedunum]

There one reason against the Mac Mini, and it's from a purely economic point of view from what the guys says he wants. The Mac Mini is so much more expensive than an Asus Pundit or something similar then you would need to keep the thing running for several years before you saw any payback. That's certainly overkill for a small home server.

Sheeva Plug

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a Sheeva plug its 5W and it looks like an adapter.
http://www.marvell.com/products/embedded_processors/developer/kirkwood/sheevaplug.jsp

Re:Sheeva Plug

[Headworx]

I agree, nothing beats Sheeva... I have two servers running on this platform... One gathers information from weather sensors - some 30 of them, the other one is running Ubuntu 9.04 as a FTP/Web server for periodically changing content... Pretty impressive performance for $99 and 7 Watts... http://headworx.slupik.com/2009/09/sheeva-plugcomputer.html

Re:Sheeva Plug

[hansamurai]

I've had one of these for about two months now and it's amazing. It needs a bit of configuration out of the box to fix some of the odd choices Marvell made in their distribution, but there's two great wikis that support the SheevaPlug so there's plenty of help. I'd highly recommend it, super low power, very small, and totally open for you to mess with if you'd like.

I use mine as a media server and rtorrent downloader. It can serve up multiple samba streams at a time without a hitch. It also has a USB port that I have an external HDD plugged into, though it has its own power plug too (though there are some 2.5 drives that can be powered off USB).

Definitely get the dev kit, has an SD card slot and serial USB port in addition to the normal USB and ethernet ports.

Re:Sheeva Plug

[hansamurai]

Should mention that this wiki is being served off a SheevaPlug, should also mention that since you mentioned you need NFS, you'll need to build your own kernel with it enabled, it won't work out of the box. There may be a distro available somewhere though.

http://computingplugs.com/index.php/Main_Page

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:Sheeva Plug

[Zerth]

Don't forget the OpenRD

Same chip, but in a larger form factor to bring out the rest of the connectors: 7 USB, 2 Gb ethernet, VGA, audio, serial, & esata.

It's 250 instead of only 99, though.

Mac Mini idles at 13 watts!

[seanadams.com]

Where on earth did you get 85? Are you reading that off the power brick? Those figures are meaningless for this purpose - that's the total load the PS is rated to deliver, not the average load at the wall socket.

The Mac Mini has all the components and power management features of a notebook so it's going to be about as good as you can get. For less money, the FitPC or a second-hand laptop is probably the next best choice.

Re:Mac Mini idles at 13 watts!

[seanadams.com]

Here is Apples's spec on the power usage: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3468

I have confirmed 13W on a recent model using a kill-a-watt meter.

Fit-PC2 (Intel Atom) uses only 6W at idle, 8W full load.

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.

Re:Laptop

[loupgarou21]

If he's going to use a linux distro, he can use vbetool to turn off the monitor, or apple laptops will let you turn off the screen completely. Then use ssh, vnc, or ard to control the computer remotely.

How about a Linksys router or D-Link NAS box

[thomasdz]

The Linksys WRT54G router runs a version of Linux in an open source distribution...
Or a D-Link DNS 323 NAS box... there's quite an active hacking community using these boxes...

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.

Mac Mini or Sheeva Plug

[IceFox]

I recently went through the same search, two good options show up 1) Get a mac mini. The idle power consumption is 13 watts. You get a dvd rom, intel cpu, video out if you need it etc. It costs more and the high cpu usage is 110W. Make sure to not get the older mac mini's, only the ones starting I believe last January had the low idle watt usage. And as a bonus at the end you have a mac you can resell. 2) Get a Sheeva Plug. It only costs $99 and only draws 5 Watts of power. It is arm. I myself simply put a usb stick in it loaded up debian and have been happy ever sense (So I am running at 5.5 W). Silent, low power draw. Downside it that it takes 10 minutes to setup and you can't just plugin a monitor and drop in a install cd you have to drop an install image in a sd or usb stick, but there are helpful webpages people have made showing you step by step how to do this.

Re:Mac Mini or Sheeva Plug

[IceFox]

Some more links:
Sheeva Plug review/picture: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/marvell-sheevaplug-plug-computing-linux,7104.html
Where to buy the Sheeva Plug: http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-22-sheevaplug-dev-kit-us.aspx
Installing Debian on the Sheeva Plug: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/

Re:So it's $70 a year....

[jumpingfred]

There is a lot of energy that goes into making a new computer. You need to factor that in before you can decide if you are really saving energy.

why bother

[flok]

300 dollar? you could pay the 70 bucks extra for the old system 4 years for that...

Got me one of these

[Nursie]

Highly recommended.

I installed debian (lenny) and then updated to squeeze because (and this is to be expected) the squeeze installer is currently borked. Attached to an external drive caddy this solution chopuld come in well under your 30W and will do all you need.

I have mine serving media to the PS3, downloading stuff, serving my music collection to wherever I happen to be, doing Samba, NFS, TFTP, SSH, SMTP and IMAP.... it's a great.

Re:Got me one of these

[johnw]

Under 30W !? Miles under 30W.

I've spent quite a few years working towards having a capable low-power home server. I've worked steadily downwards but up until now I've been forced to trade off capability against power consumption. For instance, an NSLU2 is great on power consumption, but its 32M of RAM means there are many things which it just can't do.

The Sheevaplug has been the answer to my prayers. I now have one of these with an external 350G USB HDD attached and the total power consumption of the pair at idle is a mere 3W. It also seems to be capable of doing anything I ask of it. It runs a MySQL server, handles all my local file services, and provides a public NTP server in the pool.ntp.org pool, managing to keep a constant score of 20.

It's a wonderful device. Nothing else comes close if you're after power savings.

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:So it's $70 a year....

[fizzup]

Energy to build a new computer: 18,100 MJ ~= 5,000 kwh. Source. Fossil fuels assumed to be 45 MJ per kg, the value for gasoline.

Proposed ROI payback period is $300/$70 ~= 4 years, saving $70 per year. Electricity cost in the US for residential customers is $0.104 per kwh. Source. This means he expects energy savings of around 675 kwh per year.

Expected EROI payback period is: 5,000 / 675 ~= 7.4 years.

I have to admit to being pretty surprised by that number. Usually, energy to manufacture is a fairly small portion of the retail price. Not so for computers, I guess.

Re:So it's $70 a year....

[sdpinpdx]

It looks like you included the energy for producing the 17" CRT Williams assumes each desktop computer has. I think we could leave that out for a server.