advice needed for building a power efficient linux server

speedy · Post by **speedy** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:28 am

I need to build a power-efficient, silent and quick

LAN linux based file/SVN server for the company I work in.

My initial thoughts on the subject are:

* CPU speed not critically important + server will be idle in non-peak hours - find a CPU / MB combo which can drop to very low power states by linux when idling. MB should have no fans - bonus would be CPU fan which does not rotate when there is no need (ie. as in my GA 965-DQ6 + Core 2 Duo 4300, original boxed fan is not rotating at all)
* 1-2 TB HDDs - 2x - 4x Samsung HD501LJ SATA in RAID (hopefully they can endure getting into sleep mode and back when needed)
* lowest power and no fan GFX card (as a game developer I've got tons of old ones from beta testing)
* most efficient PSU for the measured range of power usage with room for 4 HDDs. PSU will be bought last after measuring components.

I'd appreciate any advices and pointers to useful informations about the subject.

ps. server will be 1-4hours "hot"-backed up using rsync by another one, with easy fall-back and fall forward, so there is no need for expensive and/or redundant components.

VanWaGuy · Post by **VanWaGuy** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:39 am

Any reason not to go with onboard graphics? An under-volted AMD BE-2300 and motherboard with onboard graphics can certainly be power-efficient, silent and quick.

speedy · Post by **speedy** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:33 am

Good hint. I will check if such on-board solution consumes less power then an old 2d gfx. card in PCI slot...

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:18 pm

I'd recommend onboard everything. Passive power supply. External SATA raid-in-a-box. This is possible to cool with one 5v fan on each box, for very low noise. The advantage is that the computer can be run in "on" mode 24/7. The only two heat sources wil be the CPU and memory. The rest of the case will be essentially blank(the DVD drive is essentially a modern floppy and idles all the time).

Solid Snake · Post by **Solid Snake** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:25 am

I never understood why some of you guys want to build silent servers. They're SERVERS for pete's sake! A sane set of priorities for a server (especially one a business depends on) would be the following:

1. Data reliability (lost data==huge problems)
2. Component reliability (busted parts == downtime)
3. Performance

Notice that power consumption and noise aren't in the top 3, and quieting such a machine may compromise the top 3.

I'd recommend a 65W AMD64x2 system with plenty of onboard SATA/ATA connectors and a high power 80+ PSU. I built such a server with paired drives and like you, I use rsync. They all spin down after an hour, and only the first drive in each pair is available from the network. The second drive in the pair is a mirror that's updated once a week. In the event of a hard drive failure, working off week-old data isn't a problem, and it prevents against the more likely issue of accidental deletion. Since the shadow drives only run about an hour a week, I expect them to outlive the primary drives, and replace them once the primaries kick the bucket.

Run the fans filtered, and run them fast. Put the machine in a remote location where it can make all the noise it wants and most importantly, KEEP IT COOL.

that Linux guy · Post by **that Linux guy** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:39 am

Actually, I was going to start suggesting quite parts too, but I have to agree with the previous poster. I would focus on acoustics when youre done and bored after going over security logs, and "putting out fires" around the office. I say that cause you sound like a SysAdmin to me.

Either way, for quite and reliable, Areca RAID cards in VIA EPIA running 2GHz C7 cpus can be cooled passively. If not there are some very nice quite heatsinks you can get for them (Microcool Northpole XE comes to mind). Mini-ITX systems are often passively cooled and quite spry when running a stripped down server OS. Sure they don't run Vista well, but what does? ^_^

EPIA boards can be expensive sometimes, so if money is priority over acoustics, just build a mid range machine with passive heatsinks, and either a Seasonic or possibly an Antec Phantom PSU, and a decent case and you should be good.

Past that, stick the the preciously mentioned top 3 priorities of a server, and youre golden.

scdr · Post by **scdr** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:43 am

Solid Snake wrote:I never understood why some of you guys want to build silent servers. They're SERVERS for pete's sake! A sane set of priorities for a server (especially one a business depends on) would be the following:

1. Data reliability (lost data==huge problems)
2. Component reliability (busted parts == downtime)
3. Performance

Notice that power consumption and noise aren't in the top 3, and quieting such a machine may compromise the top 3.

Run the fans filtered, and run them fast. Put the machine in a remote location where it can make all the noise it wants and most importantly, KEEP IT COOL.

Missed out Cost or cost effectiveness.

If you will notice, power efficient was the first desired feature mentioned,
power efficient includes keep it cool(er), and reduce operating cost, reducing the number of moving parts (e.g. fans) can help improve reliability - more fans = more points of failure, faster fans wear out sooner.

Performance only needs to be good enough to do what needs to be done for a reasonable machine lifetime. Sort of an old-school goal; as the high operation costs of servers and server rooms become more apparent, many organizations now moving to efficiency, rather than flat performance as a goal. (Climate saving computing initiative, Green 500, etc.)

speedy · Post by **speedy** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:51 pm

Scdr figured exactly what i'm aiming when building the server(s).

@Solid Snake:

1. Data reliability

2 hot-mirrored servers, proper backups and good mainstream desktop components fit our needs. Also, checksums in server software we use would catch random bit mistakes.

2. Component reliability

Again 2 hot-mirrored servers solve this easily. And parts are cheap.

3. Performance

They're meant to be multimedia content creation file servers, so no need for high end CPUs and insane amounts of ram. Only network and storage speed really make a difference.

Bonus: This way you could put them in the kitchen, specially if they are silent so you can talk over the lunch. And.. khm.. guess where is the current server set located ATM... :p ;>