File server and power management

[perdomot]

I'm going to use an older PC as a file server to store pics, video and music and plan to connect it to my main pc via my router. My question is how should I set up the power management so that the file server uses the least amount of energy but remains available on my network the moment I need a file? Should I have the system go into stand by or have the hdds stop spinning? I would like to leave the server on all the time and want to save as much as I can on the electricity without having to wait to access a file. Thanks.

 

[drebo]

Best bet: get an external hard drive that you can power down. That way, it's a click of a button and you're up.

A computer uses a certain amount of power, and the amount of electricity saved by throttling the hard drives down is but a small fraction. You could try building a low power computer...mini ITX with a Via processor or something, but it's still going to have a noticable impact on your electicity bill.

 

[JackMDS]

You can set the Server to sleep after certain amount of time and set the power of the Network Card to Wake up on Network traffic.

As a result the server after few seconds of Network connection would wake Up.

P.S. The above has nothing to do with the WOL setting that meant to boot a computer from Off position.

It applies only to Sleep.

 

[perdomot]

I have an external hdd already but also have several loose hdds and would like the convenience of a file server.

JackMDS,
If I understand correctly, I should tell the server to go into standby mode after say 5 minutes and on the NIC's Power Management tab, I should check the "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standy" box. Is that right? If it is, will the shared drive still be visible in My Computer and all I have to do is click on it to wake the server? Trying to figure out the procedure for accessing the server's hdd. Thanks.

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah, it should work this way.

If it gives you grief, make sure that the the Shared Drive his mapped.

Sometimes it works better with static IP.

If the Sleeping computer is Wireless it probably would not work.

 

[perdomot]

Thanks for the info. I plan on doing this wired so it should work. Thanks again.