CentOS - Oct 2009 - Low End NAS hardware.

Hey,

The recent discussion on NAS/SAN and the Thecus N8800 got me to thinking.

Bit of background. I have an old Dual Athlon MP2800+ that I'm using
for a home web/file server. It runs fine but between the noise of the
various fans and it's location in the living room, I've been asked by
my spouse to find a replacement for it that's smaller & quieter.
Looking at the Thecus, and based on experience with Atom based
Mini-ITX systems at work, I was thinking about rolling my own.

My questions is, for a small home server that runs apache/php/mysql
and Samba, how well do the Mini-ITX boards like the VIA C3/7 & Intel
Atoms handle this sort of task? I've used VIA systems as MythTV
frontends but never as file/web servers. I'd expect they'd do fine for
home use but I've never tried.

Thanks,


-- 
Drew

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie

Drew wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> The recent discussion on NAS/SAN and the Thecus N8800 got me to thinking.
> 
> Bit of background. I have an old Dual Athlon MP2800+ that I'm using
> for a home web/file server. It runs fine but between the noise of the
> various fans and it's location in the living room, I've been asked
by
> my spouse to find a replacement for it that's smaller & quieter.
> Looking at the Thecus, and based on experience with Atom based
> Mini-ITX systems at work, I was thinking about rolling my own.
> 
> My questions is, for a small home server that runs apache/php/mysql
> and Samba, how well do the Mini-ITX boards like the VIA C3/7 & Intel
> Atoms handle this sort of task? I've used VIA systems as MythTV
> frontends but never as file/web servers. I'd expect they'd do fine
for
> home use but I've never tried.
> 
I looked at doing the same thing. I have an old Athlon XP ~ 1800 MHZ at 
home, made noise, pumped a lot of heat into the closet. Sure, itx would 
be low power and smaller, but the pieces parts seemed quite pricey to me 
and what I had worked fine. So I cranked the cpu speed down in the bios 
to 700 MHZ, lowered the cpu voltage, switched the case fans to run off 
5v. Still runs apache, samba, firewall, dhcpd, etc. without a hitch. 
Never noticed the slowdown in normal activities.


Dual processor board? Try removing one cpu to cut down on power.


-- 
tkb

Drew schrieb:
> Hey,
>
> The recent discussion on NAS/SAN and the Thecus N8800 got me to thinking.
>
> Bit of background. I have an old Dual Athlon MP2800+ that I'm using
> for a home web/file server. It runs fine but between the noise of the
> various fans and it's location in the living room, I've been asked
by
> my spouse to find a replacement for it that's smaller & quieter.
> Looking at the Thecus, and based on experience with Atom based
> Mini-ITX systems at work, I was thinking about rolling my own.
>
> My questions is, for a small home server that runs apache/php/mysql
> and Samba, how well do the Mini-ITX boards like the VIA C3/7 & Intel
> Atoms handle this sort of task? I've used VIA systems as MythTV
> frontends but never as file/web servers. I'd expect they'd do fine
for
> home use but I've never tried.
>
>   

You could buy one of those new MacMini servers ;-)

SCNR ;-)

The question I ask myself is: do I really need a home-server?
How much shared data do I have anyway? And is it really "data" or just
pictures, movies, MP3s?

What exactly does the home-server do that couldn't be done on the
clients connected to it, once they are running?



cheers,
Rainer

Drew wrote:
> My questions is, for a small home server that runs apache/php/mysql
> and Samba, how well do the Mini-ITX boards like the VIA C3/7 & Intel
> Atoms handle this sort of task? I've used VIA systems as MythTV
> frontends but never as file/web servers. I'd expect they'd do fine
for
> home use but I've never tried.
I run FreeNAS, which is ZFS file server, apache+php but no database, and 
with Bittorrent continuously running, on an Intel Mini ITX motherboard, 
the single core Intel 280 (or 270? forgot) with the 2 GB RAM. CPU 
Utilization rarely reach 50%. Only goes to 60% when I am running Unison 
over SSH.
And the RAM usage is around 60% from 2GB with full Bittorrent access.
The only bad thing about the this Intel Atom motherboard is that it only 
have 2 port SATA. Thus I need to install Sil3114 4 port SATA to drive 
the other 4 disks. Now my system is running 6 SATA disks and booted from 
an PATA Compact Flash. Since I used up the only PCI slot for the SATA 
card, I must be happy with its onboard 100BaseT network.

Therefore, I think for your requirement, the Intel Atom are just fine. 
You may go to the dual core Atom 330 with Gigabit Ethernet since the 
price difference is negligible.