Low power customizable NAS?

[Kurt Granroth]

That's an interesting way to think about power consumption -- power per 
"job", essentially, rather than just power over time.  I think that if I 
was creating a media server that would do live transcoding, then 
something like a Core i3 would definitely be the better choice.

In my case, though, I just want a static server and so pretty much none 
of the tasks will take appreciable amount of computing.  This means that 
the idle and low-peak levels matter a lot more.

On that note, I'm not sure how much I believe some of their power 
consumption results.  They have an Atom 230 based system idling at 33 
watts.  I've seen *multiple* results of an Atom N270 based system idling 
at 10 watts (SSD) to 14 watts (2.5" drive).  Now the 230 is a slightly 
different class of Atom and also has a more power hungry chipset... but 
TWICE the power?  I'm dubious.

That does make me want to track down some more power consumption figures 
for the Athlon, though.

On 10/5/10 2:29 PM, Stephen wrote:
> This is something to consider also the Athlon 2000+ beat the atom
> overall in power consumption, and the i3 did amazingly well in power
> efficiency
>
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Atom-Athlon-Efficient,1997-5.html
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616.html
>
> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Kurt Granroth
> <kurt+plug-discuss at granroth.com>  wrote:
>> Thanks for the pointers.  Those definitely look more "industrial" than
>> I'd prefer.  If I did roll my own, I'd certainly want to use commodity
>> boards.  "Call for pricing" translates in my mind to "if you have to
>> ask, you can't afford it" :-)
>>
>> The more I researched this, the more I realized that there are an
>> embarrassment of choices!  The last I looked (5 or 6 years ago), it was
>> relatively difficult to construct a silent and low power system with
>> massive compromises.  Not so anymore.
>>
>> Now the question is at what level to settle on.  There's the SheevaPlug
>> (and similar) that use up about 10 watts but need more storage and can't
>> really handle any notable processing.  Moving up a notch, you can get a
>> N270 Atom mini-itx system that also hovers between 10-15 watts but is a
>> bit faster and will typically have a much larger (up to 1 TB) hard
>> drive.  Then you can move up to an NVIDIA ION system with a dual-core
>> Atom and now we're maybe in the 30 watt range but this can handle HD
>> output, if necessary.
>>
>> Decisions, decisions.  That's why I was kind of hoping that some local
>> folks would have used some of these systems and could comment on how
>> well they work for them.
>>
>> On 10/04/2010 01:42 PM, Kevin Fries wrote:
>>> We used to use these great mobos from a company called CongaTec
>>>
>>> http://www.congatec.us/qa6.html
>>> http://www.congatec.us/qcarrier.html
>>>
>>> This 95x140 motherboard and QSeven module can handle 2 Data drives.
>>>
>>> I know you said you would prefer not to roll your own, but if you do,
>>> this is an awesome setup.
>>>
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>>> On Oct 4, 2010 2:27 PM, "Kurt Granroth"
>>>> <kurt+plug-discuss at granroth.com
>>>> <mailto:kurt%2Bplug-discuss at granroth.com>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm looking for a NAS that looks roughly like so:
>>>>
>>>> o Very low power usage (~10 watts or less, ideally)
>>>> o Can run squid or similar proxy
>>>> o Can serve up files like you'd expect as NAS to do
>>>> o Can stream media
>>>> o Can run Linux or, at least, is customizable
>>>>
>>>> Anybody using anything like this already?
>>>>
>>>> I'm not opposed to rolling my own with mini-itx or the like but I'd
>>>> prefer not to.  I do wonder if the proxy requirement is more of a
>>>> deal-breaker since most NAS units try to stay strictly in the storage
>>>> realm.
>>>>
>>>> One thought is adapting a Pogoplug or Seagate Dockstar or the like.  I'm
>>>> not yet sure if that'll do all I want, though.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>> Kurt
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