Low Power

[Biscuit]

If you where to build a computer with emphasis on extremely low power usage what angle would you take If it was to be used as as a kind of NAS (Network Attached Storage) device?

Just out of curiosity

[DDY]

I'd go ITX since those little boards come with low power CPUs, e.g. VIA C7 and Celeron 220.

I recently built a NAS box (500GB 3.5" plus a 80GB 2.5") with an Intel D201GLY2 (Celery 220) ITX board running on a 120W pico PSU with a 80W power brick. 80Ws is only good for one or two 3.5" drives, 120W should do three or four which I'm planning on doing when I got a 120W power brick.

[Biscuit]

Can you link me to some ITX motherboards please?

[DDY]

Here are some from LinITX and more at ITX Warehouse

Personally I don't use any of those sites because stuff is cheaper off eBay, for example I bought my Intel D201GLY2 off eBay for £37 plus £12 shipping from the US (to the UK) totalling £49 which is even cheaper than the Intel D201GLY (non 2 version) off ITX Warehouse excluding delivery.

For simple NAS applications something like a 350MHz PII will do the job fine, if you're not going to spend much you can also get cheaper used ITX boards off eBay, 800MHz and 533MHz VIA C3 boards go for less than £25 sometimes.

[Biscuit]

Can these mtoherboards also run from full size ATX supplies?

[dave87]

Yup, I've got my Jetway C7 1.5ghz running off a shuttle type PSU

[Magnets]

What sort of power do these small PCs use on full load?

[Biscuit]

If i where to go down the ITX route, would this be a pretty suitabel case?

Hiper Black Media Center Case With 200W PSU - Only 53mm High - Ebuyer

or

EV Shiny Piano Black/Red Super Slim Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - With 200W PSU 20+4pin 1x SATA - Ebuyer

or

Extra Value MATX Desktop/Tower Case - With 200W PSU - Ebuyer

or

EV Black MATX Cube Case with Acrylic Side/Top Windows - No PSU - 12cm Blue LED Fan - Ebuyer

[DDY]

All cases are compatible/suitable, rule of thumb; if an ATX board fits an ITX fits too.

But... If you're building a NAS box don't bother with the Hiper Media Case, it's only got one 3.5" bay.

[Biscuit]

yeah i notced that but was thinking i cud chuck in a 750gb-1tb hard drive in, if i suffered an issue witht he HDD i would be devestated tho :/ its a shame there isnt more purpose built cases for that sort of thing (ei space for the ITX board and then 3 or 4 3.5 bays EDIT- LinITX.com - Chenbro Mini-ITX Home Server/NAS Chassis - ES34069 i like this but shame its so expensive). Or if there is i cant fine em.

What kind of cases have any of you used?

Do you run linux on them? if so was it easy to intergrate into a windows and/or mac enviroment?

[peterb]

Regardless of the hardware platform, a Linux file server integrates easily into a Windows/Mac environment using the SMB protocol for file shareing. The open source version (which ships with most of the mainstream distros) is Samba. I have a micro ATX system operating as a fileserver, webserver and mailserver to a mixed windows/Linux network - but a Mac would fit in easily.

[DDY]

I used to own the Hiper media chassis, very nice case but the 40mm PSU fan whine spoils everything.

Have a look at NAS Lite, I have it installed on one of my NAS boxes, it's installed on an internal USB stick which I modded myself.

[arthurleung]

If you where to build a computer with emphasis on extremely low power usage what angle would you take If it was to be used as as a kind of NAS (Network Attached Storage) device?

Just out of curiosity

I'll give you a rought estimate

Core2Duo T7200 Notebook, 10.4W Idle, 18W Typical load, 39W peak load.
Thecus N299 -> 19W Single disk, 29W 2 Disks (RAID0 8MB/s)
Promise NS4300N -> 55W 4 Disks (RAID5 12MB/s)
Athlon 64 3000+ Desktop -> 107W 4 Disks (RAID5 65MB/s)

If you want something low-power I would suggest get a cheap dell laptop (not the one with Celeron, may be the lowest end Core2Duo) with a 2.5" external harddrive hooked in. If you need more space just plug in more harddrives.

If you need capacity in the range of a couple of TBs, a low power desktop will be perfect.

Conclusion:
Speed not important, price important -> cheap NAS box
Speed not important, capacity important -> 4-bay cheap NAS box
Lowest power usage, price not important -> cheap laptop + ext hdd
Capacity and speed important -> cheap low-power desktop

[Biscuit]

Only reason i am considering it is because i have lived in student accomation where electric is free and im constantly running my PC(look @ My System) aswell as my macbook pro. Im getting the feeling the electricity bills for running all my gear would be particualy fun so what i really would like is a CHEAP basic server that i can use as mail server/storage centre/basic downloading box running linux that can be left on. Would it be possible for a 1GHz-1.5GHz machine to run divx and videos etc so the thing could also be used as a media centre or is that pushing it a bit?

I saw some 1.3Ghz via things on ebay for £55 which included sata and thought it might be ok... im gnna check at home see what we got kicking around in the attic see if i can put something together maybe get a PCI sata adaptor for an old 1.3 AMD CPU or soemthing

[arthurleung]

Only reason i am considering it is because i have lived in student accomation where electric is free and im constantly running my PC(look @ My System) aswell as my macbook pro. Im getting the feeling the electricity bills for running all my gear would be particualy fun so what i really would like is a CHEAP basic server that i can use as mail server/storage centre/basic downloading box running linux that can be left on. Would it be possible for a 1GHz-1.5GHz machine to run divx and videos etc so the thing could also be used as a media centre or is that pushing it a bit?

I saw some 1.3Ghz via things on ebay for £55 which included sata and thought it might be ok... im gnna check at home see what we got kicking around in the attic see if i can put something together maybe get a PCI sata adaptor for an old 1.3 AMD CPU or soemthing

Those old machines aren't particularly power efficient.
I had an Athlon XP 2400+ bare system with 1 drive and it draw the same amount of power as my Athlon 64 3000+ with 4 disks just because one got a cheap PSU and the other is a Corsair VX

I think if you downclock your system to 1Ghz while not being used heavily would cut down power usage significantly there is no point buying an extra rig.

[Cistron]

You might want to buy a picoPSU (80-120W). In the low power ranges they are far superior on grounds of efficiency and therefore less cooling is required. Your electricity bill will be thankful as well.