Cheap, low-power home servers
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- Drooling Iguana
- Sith Marauder
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Cheap, low-power home servers
I've been thinking of getting myself a computer to use as a file/ssh/BitTorrent server. Something small that doesn't consume very much power (as this computer will be left on 24/7) that's powerful enough to run a BitTorrent client, NFS/Samba server, and maybe allow me to log in remotely using VNC or remote-X to do basic web browsing and the like.
The Kuro Box would fulfil pretty much all these requirements, however the online store shown on the website charges way too much to ship to Canada and I can't find anywhere else to buy one from. Does anyone have any other suggestions for this sort of thing?
The Kuro Box would fulfil pretty much all these requirements, however the online store shown on the website charges way too much to ship to Canada and I can't find anywhere else to buy one from. Does anyone have any other suggestions for this sort of thing?
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
I've heard decent things about this box. Should work, unless you want something even smaller. How much are you looking to spend, anyway?
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"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
- Uraniun235
- Emperor's Hand
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You could probably just get a used computer somewhere for super-cheap and use that. Alternatively, you could probably part out a used computer via Craigslist or something. If you need OMG SILENT you could snag a really huge CPU heatsink with a quiet fan.
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"On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it." - RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
- Drooling Iguana
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Size and noise aren't the issues (although smaller and quieter are, of course, better,) power consumption is. As for price, the Kurobox I mentioned earlier comes to about $200, so something in that range. I'm going to be running Linux on it and I'd prefer as few headaches due to badly-supported hardware as possible, so that should be taken into account.
Also, I'm going to be running it headless so I don't need any kind of video hardware, but if it does have a video card of some sort TV out would be a real plus as it would allow me to use it as a media station.
That Asus box Beowulf linked to seems like it might be suitable, too. I'd have to supply my own RAM but I've got a 512MB stick from my old computer that I'm not using now so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to look into it a bit further, though.
EDIT: Looks like newegg doesn't ship to Canada, so that makes things a bit more difficult.
Also, I'm going to be running it headless so I don't need any kind of video hardware, but if it does have a video card of some sort TV out would be a real plus as it would allow me to use it as a media station.
That Asus box Beowulf linked to seems like it might be suitable, too. I'd have to supply my own RAM but I've got a 512MB stick from my old computer that I'm not using now so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to look into it a bit further, though.
EDIT: Looks like newegg doesn't ship to Canada, so that makes things a bit more difficult.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
- Uraniun235
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 13772
- Joined: 2002-09-12 12:47am
- Location: OREGON
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Is electricity particularly expensive where you live?Size and noise aren't the issues (although smaller and quieter are, of course, better,) power consumption is.
"There is no "taboo" on using nuclear weapons." -Julhelm
What is Project Zohar?
"On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it." - RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
"On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it." - RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
- Drooling Iguana
- Sith Marauder
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- Joined: 2003-05-13 01:07am
- Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
No, I'm just really anal about it.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
- Master of Cards
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- Uraniun235
- Emperor's Hand
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you don't need a RAID card (not that any card you got for $25 would do decent RAID anyway) just a drive controller cardStark wrote:I just used an old 300mhz server. Cost nothing (well, maybe $25 for a RAID card to use proper drives). Runs all the linux services I need.
"There is no "taboo" on using nuclear weapons." -Julhelm
What is Project Zohar?
"On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it." - RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
"On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it." - RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
- Drooling Iguana
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 4975
- Joined: 2003-05-13 01:07am
- Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of old computers to convert into a server. The closest thing I have is my old box that needs a new PSU and motherboard, which would also mean getting a new CPU, which would mean that when all is said and done I'd be spending as much as I would be to get a Kurobox, and substantially more than I would be if I could find a way to get that Asus computer shipped to Canada, and end up with a machine much less suited to the task I need it for.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
My home server is a athlon64 +3500 with 1gb of ram, & 7 hard disks totalling 1.81 TB running win2k3 enterprise (go go MsdnAA!) What it does keeps on expanding; web (ASP.NET, php & static files), file & ftp server, SQL 2k5 Express with ~500mb over 3 databases, a few irc clients, video watching computer and several applications which love hashing stuff.
It only uses about 70-80 watts, since it spends most of it's time with the video card idling (cheapest PCIe gfx card I could get) and the monitor on standby.
You can never have enough computing power & storage
It only uses about 70-80 watts, since it spends most of it's time with the video card idling (cheapest PCIe gfx card I could get) and the monitor on standby.
You can never have enough computing power & storage
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"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.