theYinYeti Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Hello, I read this article and saw the linked-to video and it was a revelation. Now I'm thinking: I should run my own server. As my needs are small, I'd like to find a Linux-compatible PC with any computing power, but: — less than 100 €, or at least less than 250 €, — using less than 5 W if possible, or at most 15 W, — and having at least an Ethernet port, two if possible. Do you have suggestions? Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pindakoe Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 I haven't read the article (not enough energy to work through the French which is a language I can only understand parts of), but you may want to look at Bubba. Don't know whether it has enouygh horse power, but it can operate below 15W... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tux99 Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 A VIA C3 or C7 based server is your best bet (can be passively cooled), they aren't cheap, but you should be able to get one with less than 250$ euros, maybe this one: http://linitx.com/viewcategory.php?catid=1...amp;pp=116,1012 I have an older version of one of these: http://linitx.com/viewcategory.php?catid=1...;pp=116,118,119 with an 8GB SLC CF card (Transcend Industrial) it's totally silent and fast enough for server use. These are even smaller, but not as powerful: http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted February 18, 2009 Report Share Posted February 18, 2009 (edited) I would not recommend using a solid state storage device on a server, since servers tend to have high read/write, and the life of SSD's is greatly affected by this. Edited February 18, 2009 by tyme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted February 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2009 tyme: Would SSD/CF/USB… be OK for high read and no write (using ramfs)? pindakoe and tux99: Thanks for the suggestions. I had a careful look, and I did further search based on that. I will welcome all additionnal / other advice. At some point, wether I buy or not, I'll report on my conclusions. Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tux99 Posted February 19, 2009 Report Share Posted February 19, 2009 (edited) I would not recommend using a solid state storage device on a server, since servers tend to have high read/write, and the life of SSD's is greatly affected by this. It really depends what kind of services you are running on it, in my case only /var/log/ get's frequent writes and that can be mounted as RAM disk (but I haven't bothered to do that yet). A desktop machine (with a default install) if used for web browsing will actually by default do a lot more disk writes due to firefox, adobe acrobat, flash, and other plugins caching many MBs of data at every session in the user's home directory. I found it more tricky to reduce disk writes on a notebook running off an SSD (HP mini-note) than on my server, because for desktop use the writes are all over the place while for server use they are concentrated on a few well defined directories. On the other hand, I have previously used a 1GB Kingston CF card (the cheapest ones with no speed rating) for swap and /var exclusively, and after 2 years of use it still had no signs of defective sectors (I have now retired that card and only use it accasionally as a USB stick with an adapter and it's still working fine). YinYeti, high reads are certainly not an issue. One more tip, buy as much RAM as possible, so you don't need a swap partition and have space for a RAM disk. Edited February 19, 2009 by tux99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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