Home fileserver - quiet,cheap and low power usage

desp · Post by **desp** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 12:42 pm

Hello people,
I have been meaning to build a server to use at home.
I'll be using Linux as OS and the main task for the server is to be a fileserver and a torrent server. It will also be running irssi and centerICQ..

I have the follow criterias to fill:

+ It must be quiet
+ It must be cheap
+ It must use as little power as possible (since it will be running 24x7)

What should I go for? An Epia 5000 or do you guys have a better alternative?

Desp

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 1:51 pm

desp wrote:Hello people,
I have been meaning to build a server to use at home.
I'll be using Linux as OS and the main task for the server is be a fileserver and a torrent server. It will also be runing irssi and centerICQ..

I have the follow criterias to fill:

+ It must be quiet
+ It must be cheap
+ It must use as little power as possible (since it will be running 24x7)

What should I go for? An Epia 5000 or do you guys have a better alternative?

Desp

Low powered Sempron would allow you more expandability than an EPIA 5000 if you want to add more storage later.

Also, if you aren't entirely opposed to MSFT, they're offering a new OS package called 'Windows Home Server' (just announced at CES) that is pretty damn slick. Granted, it isn't free, but it is very well thought out (I've been beta-testing it for a few months).

-Derek

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:52 pm

Is it really just going to be a file server? Why not get yourself a passively cooled P-III 500E or 500EB? They have a thermalk design of liek 15 Watts or so if I remember correctly. Also, the P-III will probably be only a few bucks on e-bay.

Throw a little RAM in there and a RAID card (for RAID1+0, 5, or 6 for redundancy), you're sailing.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:45 pm

RAID for anything other than redundancy on a 500MHz machine is way overkill. You exceed the capabilities of the DMA channel at about 40MB/s, give or take. Any modern drive can do that by itself.

The server for my small company is a dual PIII (550MHz) and it is more than plenty. It runs the usual Apache, MySQL, PHP and Tomcat; it houses some reasonably-sized databases.

When I bought it, it was the loudest machine I ever heard. After a bit of the usual surgery, it is quiet. I could bring it down to nearly silent levels, but it is good enough as it is.

If you get an old PIII, do try to get a server in a reasonably-sized case (namely, no 1U). They are pretty rugged machines, and with some updating of heatsinks/fans and disks, they will last a long time.

desp · Post by **desp** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:48 pm

Thanks for the replies!

I'm not a Linux fanatic but due to the cost of the Microsoft product they aren't an option. I'm doing my last year at the University, so money is scarce.

I've got this tip as a PM that I should use a AMD Sempron Mobile CPU and an ASRock motherboard. I think this sounds nice, since the Sempron is using max 25W.

Then I need a PSU with a high efficiency rate which of course should be a silent as possible.

The harddrives I want to use are either SATA or PATA and should be silent and not get very warm as I want tu have a minimum of fans.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:51 pm

I'll agree with the last couple of posts. An old PIII system is all you really need. I've got a PIII 700 as my main web browser and audio player, and also for some file storage. I'm planning on putting in a few more drives and running them in RAID5.

I should check to see how much power my PIII system uses... *grabs Kill-a-Watt*

Edit - At idle, the system draws 47W, and at load, it uses 64W. That's with a separate sound card and a CD-drive though. I'm sure that I could drop it down a bit, but that's the power being drawn out of the wall.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:18 am

desp wrote:I'm not a Linux fanatic but due to the cost of the Microsoft product they aren't an option. I'm doing my last year at the University, so money is scarce.

If that was a comment on the software I run on my server, note that I run FreeBSD, not Linux. Don't overlook it if you go the OSS route.

For an older machine where the cost of hardware is very low, it makes little sense to spend as much on the OS as you do on the hardware unless you are getting something in particular that you cannot live without. For most servers that just is not so, though Microsoft's new home server system might hold appeal to some for ease of set-up.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:59 am

Well if you want the ultimate in low power usage, you really can't beat the EPIA based systems. I've had mine up and running passively for about a year now and it draws a whopping 10 watts. Under full load with disk operations it goes up to about 14 watts. That's pretty tough to beat on anything as cheap as these. Mine consists of:

Morex 3677 case: $77
Epia 533 mobo: $100
256mb ram: $25
4200rpm Toshiba 2.5" HD: $60

And that's about it. Using those prices it comes in under $270 even, which is what I paid for mine, not counting shipping costs. You'll need to use a spare CD rom drive, keyboard, mouse, and monitor to get the OS installed, but once that's done you should be able to run it all on it's own and just access it via telnet and/or remote desktop. The only sound it makes is from the hard drive itself.

I use a Toshiba MK4025GAS since it was rated as one of the most quiet on SPCR, but I think it has since gone out of production, so you can just use whatever's currently rated the most quiet 2.5" drive.

As a file server it will sustain 8-9mb/sec, which is about what you would expect out of a very low power server with just a 100mbit ethernet connection. I also run Apache on mine, but not much of anything else. You may want 512mb of ram if you plan to do much more than just file and web server, but honestly I've been amazed at how well mine runs with 256mb of ram as long as I never go into the x-windows GUI.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:14 am

AZBrandon wrote:The only sound it makes is from the hard drive itself.

sounds like fun.... what did you do with the fan?

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:23 pm

klankymen wrote:sounds like fun.... what did you do with the fan?

Originally I used an in-line resistor to run it at about 5 volts, but of course the case comes with an incredibly BAD quality fan, and you can't fit anything but a 60x10mm fan in the original location so I just jammed a thermocouple into the CPU heatsink and ran it passive. It generally idles around 43C and peaks at 49C or so the way I use it.

Even with it pegged, such as running mprime for hours it tops out at ~60C which is sort of still within spec for the EPIA 533 chip. I've read numbers as low as 65C and as high as 85C for the maximum rated temp, but since it just keeps on running with the case entirely passive now for almost a year, I've figured that's apparently good enough.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:54 pm

I would go dumpster diving and pick out a PIII. Most under 600 mhz can be run passive or with a very low speed fan. For the storage, get a PCI IDE/SATA controller for $15-$25 and a PCI gigabit card for $5 and you will be all set.

You can also get one of the linksys NAS devices and put linux on it. There is a whole community dedicated to hacking the NSLU2. That is as low power as you can get.

desp · Post by **desp** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:22 pm

I'm not that lucky in regard of dumpster diving. The Linksys NSLU2 was in the race from the beginning but the lack of computer power and memory has disqualified it.

I have been looking at the used PIII you can get, but the sellers all want little to much for their "junk". This is why I want a epia 5000 or a Sempron Mobile with a nice motherboard.

lm · Post by lm » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:51 am

My vote for used P3 also. In fact I'm still using one daily. It's green to buy a used machine!

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:29 am

I would give you mine but you are half way across the world!

desp · Post by **desp** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:52 am

Thanks!

It's the normal problem, all the good deals are miles away from me...

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:37 am

autoboy wrote:I would give you mine but you are half way across the world!

i know i'm going off topic... but i've always wondered about the sense of that figure of speech... all the way across the world would take you back to where you are

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:46 am

klankymen wrote:
autoboy wrote:I would give you mine but you are half way across the world!
i know i'm going off topic... but i've always wondered about the sense of that figure of speech... all the way across the world would take you back to where you are

Right, that is why I said half way across the world.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:25 am

ya i know, but that makes the half part kinda superfluous, if its as far as you're gonna get

yaya, i know its just a figure of speech... theyre always redundant

desp · Post by **desp** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:48 am

Now I have got a system I was very tempted to get an epia system or a sempron mobile system. But since I'm a student and money is a VERY important factor it turned out to be a free P3/866Mhz system I got.

The computer is a GX150 which the univeristy was going to throw a way due to a very noisy PSU fan(broken). I have exchange that fan to a ADDA AD0612LX-G76GL. This fan is much quiter but don't have as high cfm rating as the orignal SUNON KD1206PHS2. Hopefully the PSU wont get to hot...

It lacked memory and a harddisk, for memory I used a a 256Mb and a 128MB Sdram/133 I got in my junk box.

As harddisk I'm think of buying a Samsung 320gb as they are best priced. Right now I'm using a 40gb IBM drive that is very loud!

Have anyone exchange the CPU fan? It's seems that DELL is using a special 3-pin connector for the fan, but is is just to solder together a the cables from the old CPU fan to the new CPU fan?

The old CPU fan is a JMC/DATECH 0620-12HBTL

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 8:02 am

desp wrote:Have anyone exchange the CPU fan? It's seems that DELL is using a special 3-pin connector for the fan, but is is just to solder together a the cables from the old CPU fan to the new CPU fan?

That's probably all you have to do. I did similar surgery on an old 250W HP power supply in my dual PIII. It too had a different connector, and I just soldered on the one from the old fan. It worked fine. I really doubt there is anything special to the old fan: Dell and others just use the stock part.

It is also the sort of change that is easy to tell if it works or not. After the change, just turn on the computer (or jumper the main connector and turn on the supply by itself) and see if the fan starts turning. If it does, you did it right. If it does not, then you did not.

Congrats on finding an old computer! I think you will be pleased with its performance for your task. You don't really need much for a simple server.

desp · Post by **desp** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:55 am

This is the "final" setup

Dell Optiflex GX150 SFF
CPU: P3 866MHz
Ram: 256+128 Mb (SDRAM 133)
HD: Samsung HD320LD SpinPoint T133 320GB

I have change the PSU fan to an ADDA AD0612LX-G76GL (60x60x10) and the CPU fan to an ADDA AD0612LX-A76GL (60x60x25).

The CPU fan is undervolted to 7V.

The whole system isn't silent but rather silent. The only thing I'm a bit disappointed with is the lack of possibilities to grow storage wise since it's rather crammed in the box.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:26 am

Congratulations!

I think you will be please with what this system can do. If you start getting into any mail filtering (spam, anti-virus) you may wish to expand the memory a bit, but for serving simple static web pages or music files, this should be fine.

Also, often you can remove the cooling fan from the CPU entirely. You do need to have a decent heat sink and a case fan (which you don't mention) or enough air flow through the power supply to keep temperatures down. I don't have any CPU heatsinks on my dual PIII, but there is a shroud covering them, and a 92mm case fan drawing air over them.

It seems the PSU mod worked!

desp · Post by **desp** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:53 am

No, there isn't any case fan. There is no room for it if I don't make a hole in the case myself. But I need to think about the looks since my girlfriend isn't that thrilled about an extra computer.

Regarding the memory, I will try to get more memory strip as soon as a 256 mb DIMM shows up for reasonable price.

Then the memory will be maxed out for this computer.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:58 am

If there is no hole for a case fan, it is probably better to leave well enough alone.

Appropriate memory shows up pretty regularly. Here I pay about $20 for 256MB; local conditions may of course vary.

Home fileserver - quiet,cheap and low power usage

Home fileserver - quiet,cheap and low power usage

Re: Home fileserver - quiet,cheap and low power usage