Hello, I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related! I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services. 1) Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most) 2) Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise) 3) Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better) 4) Memory - 1GB or better 5) Can be configurable either via serial or VGA. 6) Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern. 7) spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else) 8) I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U switch or so?) Old Sun/Cobalt hardware (Raq4) from the early 2000s was brought to my attention by a friend, but that hardware is in low supply and the prices are outrageous for the specs/age of machine. *** I'm curious if there's certain hardware that you folks are using and fit all/most of my criteria. *** It would be cool if they made a Raspberry Pi with dual onboard NICs, but it still doesn't cut it since it takes SD cards and not a hard drive. Have a great Friday! Thanks for any feedback. -- ---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 //
On 01/11/2013 02:55 PM, SilverTip257 wrote:> I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use > as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although they only have a dual core, and a real lower power cpu - it tends to be fast enough for most things. eg. I am using those to test the installers in 5.9/i386 and x86_64 in various conditions and the install time is very acceptable. Plus, they run CentOS5/6 32 and 64bit perfectly. -- Karanbir Singh +44-207-0999389 | http://www.karan.org/ | twitter.com/kbsingh ICQ: 2522219 | Yahoo IM: z00dax | Gtalk: z00dax GnuPG Key : http://www.karan.org/publickey.asc
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 <silvertip257 at gmail.com> wrote:> Hello, > > I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related! > > I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use > as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.Google fanless pc or fanless computer. Fanless systems tend to be low power consumption, or low power systems tend to be manufactured by the same companies that make fanless. -- Dale Dellutri
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:>Hello, > >I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related! > >I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use >as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services. > >1) Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most) >2) Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise) >3) Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better) >4) Memory - 1GB or better >5) Can be configurable either via serial or VGA. >6) Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern. >7) spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else) >8) I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U >switch or so?)I don't know about the power details, but we have used a fair number of small desktop boxes (mini-ATX I think) with Atom processors which are small, quiet, and low power. Typically they need a low-profile NIC. We have run various versions of CentOS back through 4 without problems. Bill -- INTERNET: bill at celestial.com Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC URL: http://www.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way Voice: (206) 236-1676 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820 Fax: (206) 232-9186 Skype: jwccsllc (206) 855-5792 If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws. EDWARD ABBEY (1927-1989)
On 01/11/2013 06:55 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:> I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use > as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.I use the Soekris 6501 fairly extensively. It's available in a much smaller than 1U case, or 1U if you prefer: http://soekris.com/net6501.htm However, Supermicro makes some systems that are probably just as good, with two instead of four NICs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101365 Once you add RAM to the Supermicro, the two are very similar in cost.
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 <silvertip257 at gmail.com> wrote:> I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use > as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services. > > 1) Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most) > 2) Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise) > 3) Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better) > 4) Memory - 1GB or better > 5) Can be configurable either via serial or VGA. > 6) Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern. > 7) spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else) > 8) I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U > switch or so?)The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.) I upgraded my firewall device to an Atom-based D2500CCE. IIRC, I installed 2x2GB of RAM, booting from a cheap SSD, powered by a PicoPSU, and running PFSense. I think this configuration pulls roughly 16 watts at idle, maybe a couple more watts when fully loaded. This board has dual Intel gigabit ethernet ports. For my home theater PC, I'm running an ASRock H67M-ITX and Core i3-2100 CPU, with 2x4GB of RAM and SSD. I have it inside a Habey EMC-800B case, using the included power supply. Idle power consumption is about 22 watts. It's been a while since I measured power consumption at load, but I'd guess 50--60 watts (it's idle 99% of the time though). Note that even when "idle", MythTV seems to use a little CPU, so if I kill mythfrontend, my idle power consumption drops another watt or two. Only one NIC on the Asrock board, but it has a PCIe expansion slot so you could easily add another. I'd expect an add-on NIC to add around one to five watts of power consumption. My personal workstation uses an Intel DH67GD micro-ATX motherboard, i5-2500k CPU, 4x4GB RAM, SSD, and traditional ATX power supply (Seasonic SS-300ET). It pulls about 30 watts when idle. Only one NIC on that motherboard. For all the above, I'm talking AC (i.e. at the wall) power consumption, in the USA (so 115 Volts), measured with a Kill-A-Watt (not high-precision, but should be reasonable within a watt or two). What follows is stuff with which I have no personal experience, but have read about: The Intel S1200KP mini-itx motherboard. It has built-in dual gigabit NICs, socket 1155, so you can use anything from a Celeron up to a Xeon, depending on how much you want to spend and what your upper-bound computational needs are. I was considering that for my firewall/router replacement. With a PicoPSU I would suspect that one could get 20 watts or lower idle power consumption. With an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and Pentium G2120, SilentPCReview built a system that pulls 16.5 Watts[1]. (The article is a case review, but power consumption information is included.) That DQ77KB board also has dual gigabit NICs. You might also be interested in Intel's "NUC - Next Unit of Computing"[2]. About 10 watts power consumption for dramatically under-clocked i3 CPU. In general, with modern Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPUs, it's almost trivial to build a high-performing system that has 30 watt or less idle power consumption. If you cherry-pick components, it's not terribly hard to get a system with 20 watt idle power draw. The modern Intel CPUs all have roughly the same idle power usage (at least the consumer line, not sure about Xeons). That goes for the more expensive low-power variants as well. The difference of the low-power variants is their upper-bound power consumption is lower than their peers. But you can often fake that by deliberately limiting the max frequency in the BIOS. Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because their computation efficiency is so much higher. With something like Atom, you get more deterministic power draw, but a severely compromised upper-bound on computational power. In your requirements, you mentioned "various coding projects". If you are working in a compiled language (e.g. C, C++, Java), for substantially large projects, your compile times will be painful on Atom, but pleasantly fast on a Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPU. [1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Akasa_Euler_Fanless_Thin_ITX_Case [2] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_NUC_DC3217BY
On 01/11/2013 09:55 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:> *** I'm curious if there's certain hardware that you folks are using and > fit all/most of my criteria. *** > It would be cool if they made a Raspberry Pi with dual onboard NICs, but it > still doesn't cut it since it takes SD cards and not a hard drive. >For what it's worth, we're using a box from Aleutia that is quite good. We got an older unit, but the http://aleutia.com/x1-small-low-power-server is close to what we bought. Works great. This is fully integrated, but could be built up from the right parts if you wanted to do so. Not exactly cheap, but we've been pleased. As to non-Intel boxen, something like a GuruPlu ServerPlus would be up you alley, with an eSATA port, dual GigE, and dual USB2. Less expensive than the Aleutia dual core Atom. But ARM, not Intel, and so something like Redsleeve would be needed. No VGA, either, totally configured either via JTAG/UART or through the network. The GuruPlug comes with a Debian derivative. Boot is either on internal flash or via microSD card, but the eSATA port gives you expansion.