Old system for a NAS, power considerations?

[Shyatic]

Hi all,

I built a new PC recently (quad core, 4GB, 8800GTS etc) using parts of my old PC.

I wanted to turn my old PC into a NAS, using Windows 2008 Server (MSDN), but I wonder about the power costs.

The Drobo is expensive and has some neat features, however the power costs on it are light monthly... it uses about 40 watts to run every month.

Now I could use my old PC as a base, so here is what's on it:
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 965P-DS3
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz, 1867 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
LITE-ON DVDRW LDW-851S ATA Device
2 x *some kind* SATA HD in RAID 1 (mirror for redundancy)
ATI Graphics card (no external power) PCI-E
400 Watt Antec PSU

Now what do you think? I work as a sysadmin for a living, and I'd like to have the 2008 server available at home to do testing with, but leaving it on 24/7 I wonder about the power draw as well. What can I do to reduce the power draw, if anything? I am ordering a Kill a Watt to get a good guess, but I want to reduce the power draw on the current hardware rather than invest $1000 for a NAS that does *less* than what I have already.

Thanks!

 

[pm]

Play with the Kill-o-watt a bit, but I found that my Core 2 Duo system with the usual stuff ended up using roughly 130W idling. The average cost for electricity in the US is 0.11/kWh - more in the North-east and in California, less in the midwest and southwest. Assuming 0.11/kWh and a 130W computer on 24/7, that's $125/year to run it.

So then I switched to an Atom-based computer that cost $70 - such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121342. It pulls ~50W idling. But in addition to using it as a NAS backup for my wife and I, I'm also using it as a Tivo-like DVR running BeyondTV to record HD (and playback in HD as well), I use it as our $95 Blu-ray player (using the Newegg LG blu-ray drive they are selling now), and it's the home web server, and I was using it for Asterisk (VOIP/PBX server) and I was using for proxying VPN (so that when we are travelling, we VPN into it using WiFi so that no one can snoop out passwords, etc.). Surprisingly the atom handled most of this fairly well... except it couldn't deal with Blu-ray or HD playback. So it was fine for a NAS, but too slow as a DVR, and had no PCI-E slot for upgrading. So, $70 for the motherboard + CPU + video, and it costs about $49/year to run.

So then I sold the Atom for what I paid for it (on Ebay), and switched to an AOpen i915-HFS socket 479 motherboard - which was $45 shipped on Ebay (there's plenty more there now), bought an ATI Radeon 4350 ($30 after MIR at Newegg), and bought an Intel 750 Pentium M (1.8GHz) CPU for $35, put it in the case with a small efficient power supply and I'm pulling 45W out of the wall, but I can do everything listed above. About the only limitation now is that I can't record and watch HD at the same time. But blu-ray playback is flawless, and so is playing 1080i OTA TV (again, not at the same time). I can record HD and use it as a VPN proxy, and also do a backup. Everything works well. I've been very pleased. And it costs ~$44/year to run.

At the end of the day, I spent money on shipping things around and messing with computers, but I sold the Core 2 Duo system for much more than Pentium M system and everything will pay for itself in a couple of years.

If you really think you'll be using this system 24/7 for years as a NAS, I would invest in efficiency and use a less powerful (and power hungry) CPU. The Atom boards make excellent NAS systems - especially ones with better chipsets than the one that I listed above. You'll sell your CPU alone for the cost of the motherboard + CPU and it will be fine for acting as a NAS as long as you aren't planning on streaming 1080p video off of it or anything too strenuous... and at the end of a couple of years, it will save it's cost multiple times over in power efficiency.

 

[Madwand1]

Turn it off or use automatic sleep mode and LAN wake-up.

 

[pm]

Yeah, or that. Good advice.

I couldn't turn mine off, or use LAN wake-up because I'm using it as a DVR. But for a straightforward NAS, or a low-use webserver (although that first request will have some delay), then sleep-mode and wake-on-lan is a good choice.

 

[Shyatic]

But will it run Windows 2008 (decently)?

I need a domain to use for group policy testing, learning new things etc... I am mostly self taught and having those resources available to me at home is very beneficial... I guess I'll do some research on the Pentium Ms and see where it puts me. I should be fine given what I have to do, and I am sure I can hack my system to support audio and the rest (because 2008 disables it all).

Much obliged

 

[mooseracing]

Serv 08 runs on my Amd Geode 1.7Ghz, granted after adding AD it slowed boot ups down like ti does to any server. Otherwise File transfers and normal use are fine.