Which hardware for a modest server at home?

Question

I would like to setup a small machine running a linux/unix OS to run a few servers: FTP, SMTP (exim), sshd, a webserver (some Python WSGI server like paster), maybe a web proxy.

I expect that the web server load will be very low (if my applications ever gets popular, I will need another solution anyway because of my limited upload bandwidth of 100kB/s).

I just need to find the correct hardware to do this. I need something relatively small. It should also be energy efficient (should use less than 100W on average, preferably even less) because it will be up 24/7, and silent.

I was thinking about a linutop 3, or a Mac mini (but I cannot find information about the average energy consumption of the latter).

Do you have other ideas ? Would the linutop be ok for my requirements ?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Intel Atom 230 [1], 4W TDP (you can hardly beat that power usage) paired with 2GB of RAM (maximum the atom/motherboard combination can support), some cheap sata II disk and a miniITX case [2].

I'm running this setup at home as a development machine (I have multiple virtualized guests via XEN on it) for Rails/PHP apps, enough speed, silent, cheap and not power hungry combination.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Atom_microprocessors
2. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091 too bad you can't buy that case where I live

Answer 2

Take a look at the FitPC.
or Asus Eee Box PC

Answer 3

You may want to look at the sheevaplug You could either plug in an external USB drive or get a 32 gig sd card. While it isn't as user friendly as the other options it draws something like 5 wats and will be quiet.

Answer 4

I would recommend going with a NAS enclosure that runs Linux. I have the D-Link DNS 323, with 2 1Tb drives. Out of the box it comes with FTP UPnP and Bittorrent servers.
A very easy hack opens its OS to further additions like SSH, Apache and anything else that runs on Linux. Take a look at this site for further ideas.
And of course, I have the basic functionality of being able to back up all my computers and documents :)

You can get it for ~ $120 + bring your own disk (any size SATA).

Answer 5

The Mac mini page says "Extra small. Extra green.

Mac mini uses 45 percent less power than the previous model — less than 13W while it’s idle. This makes Mac mini the most energy-efficient desktop computer in the world."

Answer 6

Whatever's onsale at Office Max (or Best Buy, etc) will be fine.

Presuming you're familiar with the Linux distro you want to run, anything consumer hardware can run a light server.

If you're looking for cheap-to-operate, checkout pretty much any bookcase system. Newegg's list.

Answer 7

It might be a bit bigger than what you are thinking of, but I have gotten a lot of mileage from a HP ML115. This is about the size of a mini-tower PC and has a 1.8ghz Opteron chip. I think mine is a standard one which has a TDP of about 100W and there is also a low power one that uses about 65W. Note that if the processor is mostly idle (as it probably will be on a home server) the power usage will be lower than that.

The system can take 4 SATA hard drives, so you can have a mirror or even a RAID-5 or RAID-10 for data protection. They are quite cheap - new ones are about £300. I bought one for £165 off ebay.

Answer 8

I'd say this Atom 270 1.6GHz barebones, along with this 500GB HDD and this 2GB RAM, will set you back about $200 (depends on how much shipping & tax to your zipcode). Should use a tiny amount of power due to the Atom CPU.

Answer 9

Take a look at dell server. they run pretty silent and you will have plenty of upgrade options in case you need. I am running all of the above on dell server 400sc 24x7 for last 5 1/2 yrs..

Answer 10

I have this bubba server. It is not the fastest machine, but it is small and silent.