Hey anyone have any idea on how to do this. I know the sun V440 run on something ridiculous like 200 Watts. What kind of hardware do you need exactly to build a server to minimize the amount of voltage you can use.

trix

Depends what you want it to do...

A project I have been working on for a while now is to replace my firewall/bastion host/QoS/blah blah utility box with a low power replacement.

Currently it is a 233mhz box with 64mb of ram, it has a 200W power supply, but probably only draws 20ish watts on average.

The plan is to replace it with this:


At peak it draws 5W, and should average about 2-3W draw, it is 266mhz and has 128mb of ram. It will run OpenBSD, which my current firewall uses, but I am going to mount the filesystem in memory so I do fewer writes to the CF card.

It's also the reason I haven't written the pf guide yet, I am going to make some significant changes to my current setup... I'll of course post on it (and take more pictures) as I go. This weekend is a long one, I will try and work on it.

-id

It's also important to note there is no fAN, cuz I fucking hate fan noise.

that is all.

-id

how much does it cost to build that server just curious :]. What happens if i miscalculate the power consumption o-0

trix

With the CF card and power supply it was about $180 US a few months ago. You could probably get it for cheaper now.

http://www.wisp-router.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=WRAP%2E1E23%2F1&eq=&Tp=

-id

what do you need to make a basic server?

trix

For the one above you just need to buy the board (~$140), a case (~$15), power supply (~$20) and a CF card (~$20 for a 1gb).

Might do better than that if you shop around, I was lucky and had the card, so my $180 guess was probably a bit low. Also I found one fully ready at http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?products_id=209

If you just want it as a server though I don't think it is a good option, my goal was a quiet and very functional firewall, I wouldn't serve a website, mail or anything else that required lots of disk writes off of it since CF cards have limited writes before they die. (about 100k)

I could probably give you a better idea of what hardware to use if you tell me what kind of server you want.

-id

yea im thinking of building a webserver that could probably serve a decent amount of people. I suppose if it is necessary, i would build the firewall on a different box

trix

You should always use different boxes for security and serving, but on a budget you can mix.

If you really need low power you might consider one of the low power VIA boards and a laptop hard drive, but it isn't a very robust solution. For cheap upfront costs just buy any old 1ghz or slower box off ebay, you can get old Cisco/Netranger IDS boxes for ~$200ish add a hard drive and you're set, that gear is made to be turned on 24/7 for years. (yes this box is one)... I'll post a pic sometime.

-id

An interesting article on VIA's new chip, 1.8ghz isn't bad at all...

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8508116370.html

-id