Notebooks and Mini ITX Machines as Home Servers? 99
An anonymous reader asks: "I recently moved into a townhouse (the first time on my own, actually) and need to get a server up and running before the other trivial stuff (furniture, getting food in the fridge, *getting* a fridge, etc, etc). I need the basic set of services - HTTP, FTP, DNS, SMTP/POP3 for any self respecting geek. The drawback is that I'm on a limited budget (money and space wise) and need a server that is *extremely* energy efficient, takes up little space, makes no noise, and generates very little heat. A basic P4 notebook seems to fit the bill - small, low power consumption, built in screen/keyboard/mouse (no need for KVM), wireless so I can stick it on the top shelf of my closet, and generates less heat and noise than your average desktop. Is there any reason to consider, say, a mini ITX rig (such as a shuttle) over this? Any drawbacks?"
Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
Twostep
Re:Cost (Score:2)
There's nothing economical about a P4 laptop.
Notebook? Cheap? (Score:1)
Go the MiniITX. Make yourself a cool case, submit to some places, feel better about yourself and meet new and exciting people.
Re:Notebook? Cheap? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Notebook? Cheap? (Score:2, Informative)
Another poster warned about HD reliability, though. We'll see what happens.
Re:Notebook? Cheap? (Score:1)
Re:Notebook? Cheap? (Score:2)
Low Performance (Score:4, Informative)
These machines are designed to be low-power, high-efficiency machines, where the emphasis is a quiet, cool system, rather than a high-performance one. For instance -- home theatre, mobile audio/video (car, truck) or light terminals in high-traffic areas. Many of them have hardware assisted MPEG decoding, to allow them to play DVDs and such in a home-theatre setting without heating up or glitching due to the limitations of the CPU.
If you wanted to run one of these as a TCP service provider (http, ftp, etc.) you're probably fine. But I wouldn't use this for anything "heavy" including, a high-volume e-mail server, Active Directory or DNS server, etc. The CPU just doesn't have enough power to push these services with sufficient performance.
Cliffnotes:
Mini-ITX: Good for light useage. Applications: Personal HTTPd/FTPd, personal e-mail server, home router, file server.
Bad applications: Active Directory / PDC, DNS, etc.
Re: what?!? (Score:3, Informative)
what do you mean a mini-itx system doesn't have enough cpu power to handle dns and mail. get real. stop running exchange.
Re: what?!? (Score:2)
Re: what?!? (Score:1)
A 200Mhz sparc II is not a better processor than a VIA. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Re: what?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sparc 5s and Sparc 10s ran on CPUs that would be considered underpowered in a PDA these days.
Sure, they got good throughput compared with PCs of the time thanks to their more sensible bus, but they don't stand a hope in Hell of keeping up with any modern CPU (and that includes C3s).
Sparc 5... (Score:2)
Read: OLD. On the order of a 486 or maybe a classic Pentium in power.
Re:Low Performance (Score:2, Insightful)
ISPs used to regularly run high-volume email/DNS servers on machines ten times slower than that ITX box. It should be able to handle anything an individual might want to do.
Re:Low Performance (Score:2)
Re:Low Performance (Score:2)
>high-volume e-mail server, Active Directory or DNS server, etc.
Heh.
I guess Active Directory really is a pig, I ran NDS trees with several thousand accounts on 486 servers. And since when is DNS CPU-bound?
Re:Low Performance (Score:2)
If you want to be very brave you might want to look at some of the old Power Macs. They are small, don't make a lot of noise, and can run Linuz. I have seen 7500 for under $20 They can use IDE so you can put a bigger drive on them. Gentoo makes one for the Power PC so rock on. Me I just picked up an AMD K6 for $20 that I will stick in a closet for my server. As for a router. You can pick them up for under $100.
Laptops work, but be careful (Score:4, Insightful)
Some cautions to consider: laptops aren't designed as servers. I've heard stories of hard drives not surviving continuous use. Newer systems with fans still generate noise and heat--be sure it's ventilated.
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:5, Informative)
My point is about the HD. I use a 10GB 2.5in notebook harddrive in here, for noise and heat considerations. My Exim SMTP proxy and Squid run GREAT, no real issue aboutthe form-factor. This has served me for 2-plus years. I tar the whole thing up nightly - via SSH - onto my big workstation. Even if the drive blows, I pop another cheapie in the box, boot with Knoppix, and restore!
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmmm... that would be a useful FAQ: How to configure a Linux server to minimize/eliminate disk I/0.
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:1)
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:2)
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:2)
Linux is actually REALLY bad about avoiding disk io. Perhaps if you ran from a ramdisk root and unmounted the disk. There was also talk about running IP filters with a halted kernel, which would seem to as IO-less as you could expect to get. however, in these cases, you really don't need a disk at all, as you could net-boot the computer.
There are a couple of patches out there for 2.4.20, (google for morton+laptop mode) and there's a
Re:Laptops work, but be careful (Score:2, Informative)
Via Eden Processor on mini-itx (Score:2, Informative)
Does a home computer really use that much power??? (Score:3, Interesting)
This leads me to ask, why spend a bunch of money on a notebook or shuttle case to use as a server? If you're on a tight budget, won't one of those cost you a lot more than a regular PC would use in power?
Re:Does a home computer really use that much power (Score:1)
Re:Does a home computer really use that much power (Score:2)
It is more expensive than it used to be, but it is hardly expensive... It is now just costing california citizens what it costs to produce and ship the electricity that they use.
That said, thank the Government for buying power at the high point of the market and locking in those rates for 20 years, rather than let the free economy work and utilities lock rates when they are favorable
Three fans in the mini ITX (Score:3, Informative)
My biggest disappointment is the noise level. There are three fans in the thing: CPU, PS, and Case.
I can't really speak to power since I power on/off the unit as I need it.
Shuttle (Score:1)
If you're disappointed with the noise level, I'd recommend checking out the SS51G1, SB52G2, SS51G, or SB61G2, all of which have heat pipes, which are capable of cooling the CPU much more quietly than fans.
Doing this (Score:4, Informative)
After setting it up, you won't interact with it via the screen / keyboard anyway, so don't bother.
And if your C3 costs are getting too high, pick up a $200 lindows box at walmart.com. Just remember to upgrade the fans to Panaflos, as the walmart box is tremendously, tremendously loud.
BTW, for more silencing tips, visit SilentPCReview.com. That's Silent PC Review dot C-O-M. [silentpcreview.com]
Re:Doing this (Score:2, Informative)
There are other reasons...
I bought 10 of them for a "we need a working demo tomorrow" compute farm (I already had a bunch of 1.26GHz Tualatin P3's from old system pulls). They are quite lovely to look at. However, I have had no end of trouble with them and would recommend you stay away (at least from my SV-25 systems). YMMV, maybe I got a bad sample.
PSU:
Adequate for an 80GB 7200RPM drive and CD-RW. The fan in the PSU, however, is all but guaranteed to die jus
Re:Doing this (Score:1)
I had a Shuttle that blew its PSU after two days of 100% CPU usage, one month before the warranty ran out.
Unfortunately, being the inquisitive git I am, I cracked it open to see what failed (looked like a transformer basically melted from the heat), which broke the seal on it. Short story is they refused to replace it for free - I paid about $US25 for a new one.
They're not really made for heavy use, although they are good as a second home box for the kids.
Re:Doing this (Score:1)
laptops rule (Score:4, Insightful)
Options:
Get an old pentium and make do, for 350.
Best Buy has HP 1.8ghz celeron lappy's for 699 and up
If you do need the power of a P4, then you will probably have to pay for it.
Pros of the laptop:
Built in UPS
Very low power consumption
Cons:
compatibility may be an issue if you run linux
longevity not as good as server
bang per dollar
OTOH, you mention the mini-itx cases. Why? Because they are cool? I don't think they use any less power than a full size. Is there a space constraint?
with the mini itx
Pros
Cheaper
sort-of expandable
cheaper replacement parts
looks cool -- chicks dig it
Cons
more power usage
I guess my big question is what are you gonna do with it? "The usual geek stuff" can be handled with a P-300 last I checked-- just buy an old laptop. But also, is power that expensive? You are *buying* a house, the ten bucks a month in electric surely won't bust ya. I don't get it.
Re:laptops rule (Score:5, Funny)
Well it just doesnt feel right to have a complete half-tower case buzzing in a corner just to run a firewall and an apache. Gotta be minimalistic and smooth. On one hand, its nice to have a small quite laptop or old IBM Pentium1 system with no processor fan in a corner, and on the other, to be an extremist and get an old and obnoxious AS/400 system and try to run the webserver off it. Yet other geeks try things like running it off dreamcast or a beowulf of Linux PDAs. A simple computer just doesnt help that sense of self-respect. What if there are geeks in the new neighborhood?
I tired to look for an IBM S/360 or S/390 mainframe (will start mortgage to get it) but theyre too rare a commodity. Just needed something fancy to run Quake and impress the snottiest of geeks. I think I'll go with the AS/400.
Re:laptops rule (Score:1)
Re:laptops rule (Score:2)
Where is this city again?
Re:laptops rule (Score:2)
I tired to look for an IBM S/360 or S/390 mainframe (will start mortgage to get it) but theyre too rare a commodity. Just needed something fancy to run Quake and impress the snottiest of geeks. I think I'll go with the AS/400.
Well, apparently there's an S/390 on eBay right now [ebay.com] if you are interested. Don't know if it's complete, since I haven't played with S/390 hardware at all, but if I remember correctly, the drives would be in the next rack over, so you might have some more shopping to do.
Re:laptops rule (Score:2)
I am also thinking of wiring something like it up for public shell accounts, but I have to see its capabilities.
Re:laptops rule (Score:3, Informative)
And if you have the inclination and about 425 pounds to spare, you can get a totally fanless Via setup [mini-itx.com] with a silent Seagate Barracuda (the 5400 RPM Seagate IV is legendary). That's as silent as you can get without resorting to Compact Flash.
Pros:
Dead silent
Cheap replacement parts
High coolness factor
Sort-of expandable
Low power consumption
Cons:
Bang per dollar
Re:laptops rule (Score:2)
Then you state
Cons
more power usage
if you hit Here [mini-itx.com] you will notice that the MAXIMUM power consumption of a power supply is 100 watts.. and that definatly is a LOT less then what i have in my desktop which should also calculate to some decent savings over time.
smaller, cheaper, better (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance:
http://www.soekris.com/
It's an X86 PC that boots off of a CF card. Perhaps you could use this with an external HD enclosure, or network-mounted storage?
Laptop disks = slow.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best bang for the buck is probably an off-the-shelf compact system with a low-end processor in it. Use power management and a LCD screen and the power consumption/heat won't be too bad. Replace the fans with quiet ones and tuck it in a corner somewhere. Go see what's available cheap at the big chains, or check out the compact machines that Dell is making these days...
-Bill
Seems overkill (Score:4, Informative)
Think about it, how fast does a household server need to be? Assuming that you don't have anything more than a 1.5mbps 'net connection (which I highly dobut), you don't need massive processing power, or all the bells and whistles of a P4 notebook or Mini-ITX system. A Pentium3 or Pentium2 notebook may perfectly fit the bill. You can easily find a used P2 or P3 very cheaply.
That being said, I would steer clear of the VIA-powered systems. A 1ghz VIA chip is said to be slower than a 400mhz celron (ouch!). The P4/Athlon-based Mini-ITX rigs are a much better bet in terms of performance, but they will draw more power and make more noise (unless you choose to underclock the chip -- this has been proven to produce good results).
Of course, you may want to revaluate why you're even doing this. Why does a server need to consume low power and be quiet?
Re:Seems overkill (Score:1)
For me, I have a dual P3-500 (which I'm actually thinking of pulling out the 2nd CPU to reduce power usage and heat production) with a 3Ware RAID controller acting has a Samba file server, MP3/Ogg streaming server, and thinking about using it has a VPN server if I go WiFi. Sure, it takes a longer time to compile a kernel or re-compile the base
Re:Seems overkill (Score:1)
My server (Score:4, Interesting)
If you need more speed for some reason, try a Via C3 processor. With a good heatsink you shouldn't need a fan at all.. even if, the fans required make little or no noise.
I found that harddrives are too loud. If you need to write to the disk, get one of those 'low noise' harddrives. Alternatively, you can try a flash disk which would be quiet and wouldn't have to be spun-down; however, you would only have a limited number of writes.
Re:My server (Score:2)
Wired has one subnet, wireless has a subnet, and the VPN has a subnet. Having the multiple subnets makes filtering easier.
Re:My server (Score:1)
Re:My server (Score:1)
It was much cheaper than any laptop I've seen, and works great.
Re:My server (Score:2)
The PII is now a development workstation.
Re:My server (Score:2)
Similiar setup here, but I keep my HDDs running. Old P166, with a newer 80 gig HDD. It sits in the basement, running exim / leafnode / samba / imaps / bogofilter / iptables / NAT / DHCPd / CUPS / ident / sshd. Planning to throw a caching DNS server on their pretty quick, so I don't have to remember machine IPs on the local network, as well as setting up a ntp server for the house.
One bit of advice though: In my current system, the bottle neck seems to be the onboard IDE. If you do a lot of file tra
Best of both worlds (Score:5, Interesting)
Have been there many times (Score:3, Interesting)
Ive had to look for a small minimalist firewall+server, and the best thing Ive come across is an old Pentium1 IBM system. Its low-profile, and the power supply is 200W. 200MHz and 64MB Ram using FreeBSD has been enough for me serving 7 domains with their webpages, mysql and postgresql, qmail with virtualhosts, ircd, samba, VPN and other things I cant remember. Ive also installed similar systems at other places including homes and offices, and manage them through ssh. Uptimes have been since the installation and have never had a performance problemo.
Am thinking now to replace the IBM system with a Sun Ultra 5, just for the heck of it. I dont think you should go for a power-guzzling Duron or any system with a loud processor fan. Nor should you have to go with an ATX tower with extra drive bays. Be minimalistic and efficient and you wont need a Pentium4 unless you plan to serve your webpage through an IBM Websphere and DB2.
Re:Have been there many times (Score:1)
built in UPS... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:built in UPS... (Score:1)
Sounds Familiar (Score:5, Informative)
I too have been looking into putting together a small media server/web services
machine. A little research turned up, Mini-ITX [mini-itx.com].
I would start here, its a pretty good site that has a lot of information of
what you can do with mini-itx and features note worthy products as they come
out. Personally I think what you need is a HUSH [hushtechnologies.net].
Its the size of a dvd player, its completely silent and its so low power that
the power supply (95watts I think it is) is external. It might not be the cheapest
itx option out there but it fits all your (and mine) requirements and adds the
nice look factor aswell. They seem like a pretty good shop and they even let
you buy it without an OS, which I'm sure you'll (and me too but for different
reasons) appreciate. If you do get one I suggest getting it with 128ram and
buying more ram elsewhere, they're based in Germany and the value of the Euro
really shoots up the price of ram (and everything else I imagine). Btw I don'
work for these guys so don't assume I do, but I'd gladly trade a free one for
advertising these guys as often as possible.
And before anyone says it, I have imagined a beowulf cluster of these :)
G3 iMac (Score:3, Informative)
The gray ("Graphite"), blue ("Indigo") and white ("snow") models look nice and fit into most decors. They were selling new for about $800 until recently. Used ones should be in the $500 range.
Note that the G4-based flat panel iMacs and the G4-based CRT eMacs have CPU fans.
Re:G3 iMac (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:G3 iMac (Score:4, Informative)
As a bonus, the iMac is plugged in on a shelf in the closet then connected over Airport, the monitor's set to power off after 5 minutes. Hard drive spins down after 1 hour of inactivity (seems to work best for me... the 5 second spin-up isn't usually noticable, and that should help extend the life of el cheapo drive)
That machine works as my home office's HTTP/FTP/Firewall/Router/POP/SMTP box/MP3 Repository/sliMP3 server/render farm manager. It's got plenty enough horsepower to even do a decent amount of real-time GDlib/Imagemagick work on some of my PHP/SQL development sites, and almost real-time PDF generation on-the-fly. It's also got various cronnable tasks running for logging and workstation maintenance.
As long as you're using the machine as a server and not interacting with Aqua (G3-class machines without Quartz extreme have some serious overhead when using Aqua), you've got more than enough power for what you're asking.
I've also got a shuttle box (SB51G) that's the most sound piece of Wintel hardware I've ever owned -- dirt cheap, super fast and it has AGP (IE testing, Maya and gaming is all Win's good for for me, anyhow -- I might as well have AGP). Reasonably cheap to put together ($250ish barebones) and Red Hat and Mandrake run very well on it if you're stuck on the Intel/AMD side of the fence.
I'm a scavenger and recycler myself when it comes to home servers. Web & file sharing services really don't require that much horsepower -- and OS X is *way* more elegant to administer than most Linux distros I've experienced.
But if you're looking at the Shuttle boxes and convinced to go that route, they're mighty sound, even if they aren't mini ITX. I believe they're technically micro-ATX.
Re:G3 iMac (Score:2)
The monitor is required to cool the machine. It uses convection. The monitor heats the air around it, that air rises bringing in cool air underneath. They get mighty warm, although I do know of others that have used them in a server configuration.
What? (Score:2)
Shuttle != mini-itx (Score:3, Informative)
my experiences (Score:1)
Don't use the MSI NetPC MS-6215T [msicomputer.com] system as a server. The power supply is only 90 watts. I ran it 24/7 for a year, the next time I powered it down, it wouldn't power back up. Was running a P3 Tualatin (low power) 1.13ghz, Geforce PCI card, Wifi, and 60gb hard drive. Now I power the system with a standard sized ATX power supply sitting outside the case. Works b
An old notebook is fine but... (Score:2, Informative)
I used the notebook as a fileserver in college, but that
I do this (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea of batteries as a UPS is kind of a problem. You'll probably fry the expensive battery in less than a year. I only use batteries when I need to move the machines and run on a real UPS the rest of the time.
Memory on an older laptop can be a problem. The ones I have use EDO SO-DIMMs. Going from 2x64m to 2x128m would cost me $300-800. If I had picked laptops that used a pair of SDRAM sticks, I could probably get to 256m for $50.
One of my biggest problems with using these laptops as servers is that it feels like such a waste. I've got friends that could still squeeze a good bit of life out of them, especially on a wireless lan. In fact I've given away most of my stack and I'm down to just one busted-up spare.
Consider a flashdisk (Score:3, Interesting)
The only caveat is that you need to have enough ram for your application to never need swap (64 meg is more than enough for basic non-X, non-java server and/or firewall use). Never ever run a swap file or partition on flash media - you will quickly exhaust the limited write cycles of the flash media.
-Isaac
USR8200 (Score:2)
Just get a 2nd hand ofice workstation (Score:1)
You don't need a monitor or keyboard for a simple server (that's what ssh & vnc is for
If you buy and old pII and underclock it you don't even n
My solution (Score:2)
power supply for mini-itx (Score:2)
the board and hard drive (2.5" laptop drive) use little enough power that i was able to take the fan out of the power supply without it overheating (its been 10 months). with adequate ventilation you should be able to rip the fan out also- just remove the cover of the power supply or drill some extra holes in it so the air can circulate.
mini-itx makes 2 fanless motherboards as well, b
Netwinder (Score:1)
well i use... (Score:2)
i run gentoo on my main box and export
XBOX (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:XBOX (Score:2)
A modded Xbox seems like the perfect hacker accessory with respect to home appliances. Seems perfect for game time during the down season. And is CHEAP.
Notebook a bit noisy (Score:2)
However, even the small noise it does make, is pretty annoying when trying to listen to a quiet passage of music, DVD, etc. (it's in my front room).
So if you're starting from scratch, I'd recommend getting an VIA Eden 600Mhz based mini-itx setup, so it's silent, and assuming you need a lot of storage, invest in a laptop
Don't use a P3 dell laptop. (Score:2)
Laptops are very very bad with heat. They are not really designed to run 24/7.
So as others suggested the Mini-ITX is cheaper, more efficient and a lot more likely to stand up to working 24/7. You can also add decent harddrives and memory.
Avoid BookPCs and/or small wattage power supplies! (Score:1)
The 3rd time I simply extracted the motherboard and everything else to another full size case with a power supply with 2-3 times the capacity.
Check out http://groups.msn.com/BOOKPC/powersupply.msnw for more info.
Pentium? Luxury! (Score:2)
* Except when it's not.
** Except when it does.
Here's what I use... (Score:1)
Using a CDROM drive temporarily connected to the setup, I installed Clarkconnect, which is based upon Red Hat 7.3. Clarkconnect gives you a simple web-based interface and lets you run and manage several types of servers, including mail, samba, DNS and Squid. The box runs headless tucked into
find an old P-166, they are everywhere (Score:1)
Older Pentium (Score:1)
Service Processors, not Laptops (Score:2)
Mini-Itx and via c-3 (Score:2)
Re:Mini-Itx and via c-3 (Score:1)
Laptops & 486s (Score:2)
Buy a server class machine... (Score:1)
I vote for Mini-ITX (Score:2)
I use it for file storage, web and mail s