Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-08 Thread Chip Marshall
On April 08, 2008, Bill McGonigle sent me the following:
> Thanks for the feedback on the Green drives.  Good to hear!
[snip]
> I read earlier that even thought they're billed as "5400-7200 RPM"  
> drives, they're either 5400 or 7200 depending on model.  WD seems to  
> obfuscate what's really going on, at least without having dug deep  
> into spec sheets.

There's a pretty good review of the WD RE2-GP drives at Tech Report.
http://tech-report.net/articles.x/13578

Apparently the new ones run at 7.4W read/write, 4.0W idle. Concerning
rotational speed, from the article:

  Western Digital won't reveal the exact spindle speed of its GreenPower
  drives, saying only that they run somewhere between 5,400 and 7,200
  RPM. Spindle speeds vary depending on capacities, too, although all GP
  drives at a given capacity run at the same speed. We've also confirmed
  that RE2-GP drives share the same spindle speeds as their
  like-capacity Caviar GP counterparts.

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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-08 Thread Frank DiPrete


Bill McGonigle wrote:
> On Apr 7, 2008, at 23:10, Bob King wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>>  I suspect the hard drives will be pushing things.  Figure 15 watts
>>> per disk.
>>
>> Startup  watts for the laptop drive I used in my new router was 4.5  
>> watts.
> 
> I've got a set of the Western Digital 'Green' drives coming in  
> tomorrow (whoops...today now):
> 
> 8.5 Watts - only 5400 RPM though (so I'm expecting to cache  
> aggressively).  I'm trying to build a quiet, powerful 1U server so  
> every Watt counts in keeping the fans slow (quiet).  We'll see, WD's  
> haven't been so reliable for me.

For what it's worth I've had good luck with WD's this year and abysmal 
experience with seagate, so things may be looking up for you. 8.5 watts 
is *nice*.


> 
> -Bill
> 
> -
> Bill McGonigle, Owner   Work: 603.448.4440
> BFC Computing, LLC  Home: 603.448.1668
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Cell: 603.252.2606
> http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833
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> 
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-08 Thread Bill McGonigle

On Apr 8, 2008, at 00:10, Bill McGonigle wrote:

> 8.5 Watts - only 5400 RPM though (so I'm expecting to cache
> aggressively).

Ah, nutz, I see Seagate just released something darn close in 7200RPM:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5552484

-Bill

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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-08 Thread Bill McGonigle
Thanks for the feedback on the Green drives.  Good to hear!

On Apr 8, 2008, at 09:01, Star wrote:

> Since we're using them primarily as NFS mounts over Gigabit Ethernet,
> the bottleneck hasn't been the I/O.  They're currently configged in
> RAID-10 (software) with ext3 FS's.

Yeah, and that's a good strategy for dealing with slow drives - RAID  
1 or 10 helps ameliorate their slow seeks.  With the ariel density  
these days I don't think rotation speed is so important anymore for  
transfer, at least for the average case, but the seek can still hurt.

I read earlier that even thought they're billed as "5400-7200 RPM"  
drives, they're either 5400 or 7200 depending on model.  WD seems to  
obfuscate what's really going on, at least without having dug deep  
into spec sheets.

-Bill

-
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BFC Computing, LLC  Home: 603.448.1668
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-08 Thread Star
>  I've got a set of the Western Digital 'Green' drives coming in
>  tomorrow (whoops...today now):
>
>  8.5 Watts - only 5400 RPM though (so I'm expecting to cache
>  aggressively).  I'm trying to build a quiet, powerful 1U server so
>  every Watt counts in keeping the fans slow (quiet).  We'll see, WD's
>  haven't been so reliable for me.
>

At work, we recently deployed a storage server in the data-center
stuffed full of 1T Green Drives, and I've gotta tell you:  Far more
then I expected out of them.  They can boost performance up to
"nearly" 7200 rpm's when demand is high (power curve goes up with it).
 Since we're using them primarily as NFS mounts over Gigabit Ethernet,
the bottleneck hasn't been the I/O.  They're currently configged in
RAID-10 (software) with ext3 FS's.  Haven't really noticed a huge
difference in cache usage from our older choice of drives.  It's only
been a few weeks with them, so I can't speak to the longterm
reliability, though.


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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Bill McGonigle
On Apr 7, 2008, at 23:10, Bob King wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
> wrote:
>
>>  I suspect the hard drives will be pushing things.  Figure 15 watts
>> per disk.
>
>
> Startup  watts for the laptop drive I used in my new router was 4.5  
> watts.

I've got a set of the Western Digital 'Green' drives coming in  
tomorrow (whoops...today now):

8.5 Watts - only 5400 RPM though (so I'm expecting to cache  
aggressively).  I'm trying to build a quiet, powerful 1U server so  
every Watt counts in keeping the fans slow (quiet).  We'll see, WD's  
haven't been so reliable for me.

-Bill

-
Bill McGonigle, Owner   Work: 603.448.4440
BFC Computing, LLC  Home: 603.448.1668
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833
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VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf

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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Bob King
On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>  I suspect the hard drives will be pushing things.  Figure 15 watts
> per disk.


Startup  watts for the laptop drive I used in my new router was 4.5 watts.
You pay more for a laptop drive, but the power usage is certainly lower...as
is the max storage available on each drive.

I used a VIA C7 board at 1.2GHz with twin Gb NICs. During boot, the system
peaks at 35 watts. Have not run any numbers on throughput yet.

You can get a pretty decent server with a light appetite for power.
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread V. Alex Brennen
On Sun, 2008-04-06 at 22:07 -0400, Peter Dobratz wrote:

> For the backup server, I want to setup a separate box, probably
> running Debian.  As the primary purpose of this computer is just to
> store the backups, my primary feature consideration is power
> requirements.  Is there anything out there that can run Linux, have a
> few 250 GB or greater hard drives, and run on around 50 Watts or less?
>  It can be a headless box that I ssh into.

For a similar solution, I plug an external SDD (Spun Down Disk)
drive into a Dell portable.  As for a low power system that
runs Linux,  I've used disk-less fan-less boxes in the past
that were similar to these:

http://www.norhtec.com/products/index.html

I used them for network monitoring in NOC's running openssh,
wireshark, tcpdump, and iperf, on them.  The company that
made the particular brand, which was StrongARM based, that
I had used back then is no longer in business.

As for the external SDD drive, I have a Fantom External USB
Drive (Fantom Titanium-II TFD500U16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB
Cache USB 2.0 External). In addition to spinning down when
not in use, it is also fan-less.

After ten minutes of inactivity the drive goes into low power 
mode.  It automatically reactivates when any file systems that
exist on it are accessed.  I power off the drive when I'm not 
using it in order to save additional energy.  But, because my
backups (database exports) can take some time to download over
my cable modem I'll often go to sleep after starting the
back-up process and shut off the drive in the morning.

I'm not sure about the watt consumption on the device since I
don't have access to a Kill-A-Watt type meter.  But, it seems
minimal.  Aside from a portable drive drawing power over USB,
as some one else mentioned, I think it's as low as you'll get
for a reasonable cost given what you're trying to do.

One note of caution regarding my set-up.  Since the Fantom 
drives are fan-less, they rely on the metal case to dissipate 
the heat generated by the disk drive.  I've heard some people
say that their drives have had early failures, possibly 
due to over heating.  I've had my drive for almost a year
with no problems.  But, I have a second drive of the same
model that I replicate to just in case my luck runs out.

The Broad Institute has a very large array of SATA-II drives
(a full rack) that rely on Spun Down Disk technology to 
conserve power.  They have been very happy with the
technology at that scale.  That's what convinced me to try
it out at home.

A higher cost but much lower power solution would be a
Flash Memory based storage device.


 - VAB
-
V. Alex Brennen[EMAIL PROTECTED]
UNIX Systems Administrator x3-9327
MIT Libraries  http://vab.mit.edu/   



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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Drew Van Zandt
Transformer-based "wall-wart" efficiency: Typically 23 - 28 %
Switching "wall-wart" efficiency: Typically 80 - 90%

For a device that will be on 24/7, a switching supply pays for itself in
less than a year in New England.

--DTVZ

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:14 AM, Alex Hewitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>
> On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> > There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off
> > the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside.  You have to be
> > careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the
> > enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB
> > drives that do work.
> >
> > Then some of the "tiny-PC" boxes previously mentioned can drive several
> > of these drives, providing a "server" that can run at very low power,
> > albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box
> > might also have its own internal drive).  You may want to test one or
> > two external enclosure/drive/"tiny-pc" combinations, as you are dealing
> > with fairly close tolerances here.
> >
> > I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit
> > more power most have an axillary power input to "get it over the hump",
> > which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output
> > providing the power to all the units at once.  You might want to look at
> > the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more
> > power than they provide.
> >
> > md
>
> As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware
> vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge
> designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are
> generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router
> that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh
> close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may
> have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat.
>
> -Alex
>
>
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Alex Hewitt

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:14 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> > There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off
> > the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside.  You have to be
> > careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the
> > enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB
> > drives that do work.
> > 
> > Then some of the "tiny-PC" boxes previously mentioned can drive several
> > of these drives, providing a "server" that can run at very low power,
> > albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box
> > might also have its own internal drive).  You may want to test one or
> > two external enclosure/drive/"tiny-pc" combinations, as you are dealing
> > with fairly close tolerances here.
> > 
> > I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit
> > more power most have an axillary power input to "get it over the hump",
> > which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output
> > providing the power to all the units at once.  You might want to look at
> > the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more
> > power than they provide.
> > 
> > md
> 
> As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware
> vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge
> designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are
> generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router
> that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh
> close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may
> have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat.
> 
> -Alex
> 
> 
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I believe this item,
"http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/"; that measures power
consumption might have been discussed on the list before but the same
folks now offer a more sophisticated model:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7acf/

I do endorse the ThinkGeek people. I've bought a number of useful items
from them and never had a problem...

-Alex

P.S. These items are especially useful for sizing UPSs.


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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Alex Hewitt

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off
> the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside.  You have to be
> careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the
> enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB
> drives that do work.
> 
> Then some of the "tiny-PC" boxes previously mentioned can drive several
> of these drives, providing a "server" that can run at very low power,
> albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box
> might also have its own internal drive).  You may want to test one or
> two external enclosure/drive/"tiny-pc" combinations, as you are dealing
> with fairly close tolerances here.
> 
> I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit
> more power most have an axillary power input to "get it over the hump",
> which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output
> providing the power to all the units at once.  You might want to look at
> the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more
> power than they provide.
> 
> md

As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware
vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge
designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are
generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router
that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh
close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may
have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat.

-Alex


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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall

> I'd recommend buying from a
> vendor with an easy returns policy, just in case.
> 

I agree with Ben's warning, and perhaps I was not clear enough in my
write-up that this was more or less a "study and try" scenario for those
that would build their own, ergo "easy returns" policies and deep study
of power requirements for both the enclosure and the disk are necessary.

For those that want an enclosure and disk that have been assembled and
tested by a manufacturer, here is an example:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=22807

I tried the Lacie 160 GB USB powered drive and it worked fine with the
one power connector to the USB 2.0 bus, with no additional power needed.
This is a follow-on product of 250 GB.

Note:  This is not an endorsement of Lacie or this particular product.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.


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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Ben Scott
On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off
>  the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside.

  FYI, from what I've read, some of those devices violate the USB
spec, in terms of power demands.  In particular, the idea of hanging
two USB A connectors off one cable does nothing -- the USB spec says
devices have to negotiate their power demands with the host
controller.  Or so I'm told.  These things frequently happen to work
anyway, but one should be aware of this.  I'd recommend buying from a
vendor with an easy returns policy, just in case.

-- Ben
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Mark Komarinski
Peter Dobratz wrote:
> So I want to setup a linux server at home to do backups from various
> computers around the house.
>
> Amanda looks promising ( http://amanda.zmanda.com/ )
>
> For the backup server, I want to setup a separate box, probably
> running Debian.  As the primary purpose of this computer is just to
> store the backups, my primary feature consideration is power
> requirements.  Is there anything out there that can run Linux, have a
> few 250 GB or greater hard drives, and run on around 50 Watts or less?
>  It can be a headless box that I ssh into.
>   

The Linksys NSLU2 may be close to what you want.  It works with USB 
drives (any size), is low power, runs debian and is fairly inexpensive.  
I picked up one on eBay last year for $90, then found some at the MIT 
flea last year for $45.  I have two, one acting as a fileserver for 
non-RAID data, the other as my DNS/DHCP/LDAP server.  Flash based, so 
aside from any drive noise, it's quiet.

-Mark
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off
the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside.  You have to be
careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the
enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB
drives that do work.

Then some of the "tiny-PC" boxes previously mentioned can drive several
of these drives, providing a "server" that can run at very low power,
albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box
might also have its own internal drive).  You may want to test one or
two external enclosure/drive/"tiny-pc" combinations, as you are dealing
with fairly close tolerances here.

I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit
more power most have an axillary power input to "get it over the hump",
which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output
providing the power to all the units at once.  You might want to look at
the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more
power than they provide.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.


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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-07 Thread Star
On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Peter Dobratz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So I want to setup a linux server at home to do backups from various
>  computers around the house.
>
>  Amanda looks promising ( http://amanda.zmanda.com/ )
>
If you might be contemplating letting the workstations manage their
backups in a push method, you may also want to take a look at "Time
Warp" or "Fly-Back" for linux.  Not sure about a windows method here,
however, some crafty scripting with rsync or rsnapshot can give you
full backups to remote devices and save a lot on space.  Think Apple's
Time-Warp while using hard links to represent files that haven't
changed.  My backups are tiny now without playing the incremental
game.


>  For the backup server, I want to setup a separate box, probably
>  running Debian.  As the primary purpose of this computer is just to
>  store the backups, my primary feature consideration is power
>  requirements.  Is there anything out there that can run Linux, have a
>  few 250 GB or greater hard drives, and run on around 50 Watts or less?
>   It can be a headless box that I ssh into.
>

I've recently fallen in love with the Buffalo line of products for
networked storage.  Healthy drive size to start with, and a couple of
USB 2.0 ports to add more when/if necessary.  The tinkerer in me
doesn't like that it's all prebuilt and shiny, but for plug-in-and-go
it's a good measuring-stick.
-- 
~ *
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-06 Thread Ben Scott
On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Peter Dobratz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is there anything out there that can run Linux, have a
> few 250 GB or greater hard drives, and run on around 50 Watts or less?

  I suspect the hard drives will be pushing things.  Figure 15 watts
per disk.  Three disks -- without anything else -- will then consume
basically all of your 50 watt power budget.  But you can have them
power-down when not in use, brining your long-term average power
consumption down quite a bit.

  That leaves the rest of the system, and solutions in this area are
plentiful these days.  Some possibilities:

Various vendors have all sorts of bity-boxes with USB ports.   You
could use one of those, and attach external USB hard disks.  Koolu
(http://koolu.com/) is one big name -- it claims to use <10 watts.
LinkSys has all sorts of crap that might fit the bill.  See
http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware for a list of other possible
devices.

Soekris (http://www.soekris.com/): While targeted mainly at
flash-based storage, some of their SBC (single-board computer) designs
have parallel IDE, and all are very low power.

Mini-ITX motherboards are often lower-power designs.  I've seen
mention of models with at least four SATA ports.

-- Ben
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Re: low power linux PC?

2008-04-06 Thread Dan Miller
I just order a fit-pc that draws 5 watts.

http://www.fit-pc.com/new/

It doesn't have the space that you are looking for, but with a new drive 
and some working you could get it to whatever size you want. Due to the 
low profile, it only takes laptop hard drives.

I'll have pictures once I get mine (its in transit right now).

Dan

Peter Dobratz wrote:
> So I want to setup a linux server at home to do backups from various
> computers around the house.
> 
> Amanda looks promising ( http://amanda.zmanda.com/ )
> 
> For the backup server, I want to setup a separate box, probably
> running Debian.  As the primary purpose of this computer is just to
> store the backups, my primary feature consideration is power
> requirements.  Is there anything out there that can run Linux, have a
> few 250 GB or greater hard drives, and run on around 50 Watts or less?
>  It can be a headless box that I ssh into.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter
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