Looking for lower power suggestions for home file server

[Homerboy]

Looking for suggestions for CPU/MB combo to run a home file server (WHS)
Machine will do nothing but serve up files throughout the house so CPU power negligible.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Current set up (made from just left over parts) AMD 3000+ running on Nforce2 chipset (MSI board) w/ 2x512MB DIMMs and 5 HDDs

I realize I can't cut down that much on the HDDs power but I assume there are better, "greener" options for the CPU/RAM/MB combo.

 

[BolleY2K]

There are pretty cheap external HDDs available with LAN and also WLAN support. I have one with LAN support connected to my router since december, works like a charm, has enough config options for me and for sure consumes much less power than a full PC. It can also connect to standard USB HDDs and make them also available on LAN.

That´s the way I would go if only for home use.

 

[Andrew1990]

Well the celeron 420, in its idle state mode, uses only 8watts of power and under full load uses a little less than 35watts. Couple this with a cheap motherboard with integrated graphics, and 2GB of ram and it can be one hell of a file server with low power consumption.

 

[nyker96]

I'd say Intel core 2s are the lowest. Wait until June->Aug, they'll have the 45nm E3xxx dual core out. should be pretty cheap and low power. as for board, you need to get a integrated graphics chipset. They consume the least but I'm no expert on it so won't recomment any. Someone else here can tell ya more.

 

[Johnniewalker]

I've been thinking about putting something together with the spare parts I have laying around, but I am very tempted by the Qnap TS-209 Pro for a few reasons. The big ones, are the low power combined with all the apps. It runs about $400 without harddrives. The other option would be to buy a shuttle box and build my own, but I think I'd be over $300 with the barebones kit with built in video, gigabit and then buy the raid card, ram and cpu - and I'd still have to configure the apps and it wouldn't be as power efficient. It would be more upgradeable, and configurable tho.

TS-209 Pro II

 

[Gillbot]

What about one of the ITX platforms?

http://www.mini-itx.com/

I've seen some of those run off of batteries before.

 

[Winterpool]

How much do you want to spend? Are you certain you'll never use the system for anything else?

A couple of rather warm days this month have reminded me how bad the summer gets in this building (I've no air conditioning and cannot instal any). So I've been looking to consolidate my 24/7 servers from three to one. This will probably necessitate virtualisation, and so I'm looking to build an AMD 780G system with a low-power Athlon. Intel is out because only their higher-end chips ('true' Core 2 Duo) offer 'Vanderpool' VT, and I can't afford another Penryn now.

If you're going to run Windows Home Server, you may want something more powerful than a toaster. And a bit more power would enable you to play with server technologies and apps. Besides the aforementioned virtualisation tech, an AMD 780G system would also provide a low-power HTPC. Why not take advantage of that, if the board cost is not significantly different? (Gigabyte's GA-MA78GM-S2H costs as little as $85 right now.)

How many watts does a low-power Intel platform pull (say, with the Celeron 420)? SilentPC Review got their Gigabyte and Athlon 4850e down to 38 W when using only a single DIMM of memory. The 4850e costs $90 at Buy.com. I'm also considering an Athlon X2 4200+ as a very cheap virtualisationn option (Newegg had a coupon to drop it to $55). When idle, do the 65 W Athlons actually pull that much more energy than the 45 W?

 

[rchiu]

Another vote for 4850e+780G combo. For HDD, get the WD GB (greenpower) line of HDD. You should have a real energy efficient setup and more then enough power to run a home server. From my experience, if your server manage more then 1 pc, dual core will help quite a bit, CPU speed isn't that important.

 

[jaqie]

I will have to second the Mini ITX suggestion. A good via gen7 cpu would be plenty potent for this and uses barely any power at all.

 

[SpeedEng66]

undervolt and underclock a 420

 

[Syzygies]

WD "Green Power" Terabyte drives are best Gig/Watt out there, and very quiet.

 

[aigomorla]

you know theres a difference between "low power" and "Low cost". Usually low power setups have high cost but save you money in the long run.

Low cost means whatever you can grab cheap and setup. :T IF you really want a great low power setup, its gonna cost you a bit.

My definition of a low power server would not be a desktop cpu. It would be more of a Laptop processor using desktop components.

But this is my 2 cents.

I will be replacing my NAS which was a quadcore to something a bit more energy efficient. I picked up a dual sassoman setup. You can find them on ebay fairly cheap. But basically it fits 2 socket 479 laptop Yonah processors. Its not emt64, but has enough processor power to do whatever you throw at. Draws less then 100W off the wall loaded. Well this unit will probably draw 120-160 with all the hard drives i have inside it. [i should hook it up to a killawatt] Oh and its being drafted passive.

But definitely less then 380 the quadcore was generating.

If you want the lowest possible power draw on a fairly fast platform, i would look at lappy processors, with desktop boards which take them. [this way you could acutally even use them]

Another route is the via mini itx series. Theres also AMD and Intel Celeron versions.

www.Logicsupply.com is a good place to see whats available. Sometimes there the best priced, other times there kinda expensive, so shop around.


Just a reminder, some of those boards doesnt have enough sata ports as one would wish. You can always buy controller cards. But Nothing minus that via itx will beat a lappy processor in spec of power consumption. And a Yonah or Merom would probably spank a Via processor.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: jaqie
I will have to second the Mini ITX suggestion. A good via gen7 cpu would be plenty potent for this and uses barely any power at all.

I agree with this also. As a matter of fact, you can buy mini-ITX boards quite cheaply these days, that are much, much faster than the Via solutions, that use roughly the same power, for almost nothing. This Intel D201GLY2 is what I use for internet access these days. They were so cheap, that I just bought two of them, in case something goes wrong with the first.

Crazily enough, it's about as fast as an Athlon XP 2500, if the XP is at stock speed. It also uses 25 watts or less from the wall, with an efficient hard drive, and an efficient PSU. I'll see if I can find the link, where it's compared to a 1.5 Ghz Via C7.

edit: Okay, this SPCR review of it is good, and has a link to that comparison I mentoned: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article780-page1.html

 

[jrbales]

Originally posted by: rchiu
Another vote for 4850e+780G combo. For HDD, get the WD GB (greenpower) line of HDD. You should have a real energy efficient setup and more then enough power to run a home server. From my experience, if your server manage more then 1 pc, dual core will help quite a bit, CPU speed isn't that important.

I add my vote for this combination which I just used in an HTPC. Otherwise, my Windows Home Server has an AMD 690G chipset motherboard (micro-ATX) and an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 1.9GHz processor which does a great job (it's also 45W dual core) and runs 24/7.

 

[sgrinavi]

I just built one...

-Winsis WM-06 Black SGCC/ABS MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case 350W Power
-Intel Celeron E1200 1.6GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
-GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Motherboard
I used a WD 1 TB green drive for data and have the OS on a 160 seagate...

Without the drives I have about $150 + shipping in the system, if I had to buy one I would have done a $100 750GB. I'm only serving 4 systems, so I use XP pro. The system runs 24x7 , sleeps after 20 minutes and wakes up when someone tries to access a drive. It also makes for a nice print server