Most mini-ITX motherboards only have 2 SATA ports, also there are almost no ITX cases with more than 2, 3.5" bays, I think there is one that has 4, but its really expensive!
Dual Atom based server?
- Thread starter 3dcandy
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Most mini-ITX motherboards only have 2 SATA ports, also there are almost no ITX cases with more than 2, 3.5" bays, I think there is one that has 4, but its really expensive!
My home and main box is a 1.2ghz via soc with a gig of ram. It runs file and web server perfectily happily even while I am using it, not even noticable. Runs Archlinux.
Dual atoms are overkill for no gui home/toy webserver, its pointless. Would say 1gb ram is enough as well.
Do what you want. Still a massive overkill for what you want. When it comes to the 10 years time, there will be other tech, which will be more efficient and more powerful then your "futureproof" dual atoms. My point is, theres no point in being futureproof for what you want.
Cheers....haven't been able to find many m-itx boards without atoms. they seem to come in at good prices, around £65 for a dually atom. I understand what you're saying, but from what I've seen the dually atoms provide the best power/price/efficiency ratio. C7 boards command the same prices and use around the same wattage, maybe a bit less. I won't just use it for webserving, file serving etc. but as much as I can get away with as it will be on 24/7. Current pc that is on 24/7 is a Q6600, 1tb, Radeon 4850 monster, thus my saving electricity mission!
Not looked at the power usage myself, but was told that dual atoms use more then core 2 duo when idle... Why not look at via SOCs? At home I am using a VIA C7 EDEN 1.2Ghz that allegedly uses 7W TPD (not sure of that is idle or not, but its fanless and thus very quiet). Obviously theres the overhead of the PSU, hdd's ect ect, but hdd's should not be more then 12W each (board supprots 2), or there abouts.
Actually, heres the spec list, the only downside is that it only supports max of 1gig of ram, which would be nice to have 2, but really I haven't noticed it using swap heavily unless I am trying to do some GUI image manipulation. It does struggle playing flash videos though, but using things like youtube-dl and iplayer-dl provides easy local files for mplayer to use. It can probably play some light games, but I never tried. Also it does not like javascript heavy sites. You can use it, but it might be a tad slow. But like I said its a power/performance tradeoff. Personally, quiet happy with my one, especially after discovering iplayer-dl package, so that I no longer need to boot my other dual core something pc.
* * VIA C7 EDEN 1.2Ghz Processor - Fanless
* * VIA CN700 + 8237RP
* * 7W TDP (Thermal Design Power) - This is the maximum theoretical amount of power (in Watts) that a processor may consume and therefore dissipate as heat.
* * Front Side Bus: 133MHz
* * Graphic Interface: integrated 128bit 2D/3D VIA S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro Processor
* * 1 x 240-pin 533Mhz DDR2 DIMM Socket which supports Max 1GB - Unbuffered non-ECC memory required.
* * Audio: Onboard 6-Channel CODEC Compliant to AC 97'
* * USB: 4 USB ports + 4 x Internal USB 2.0 headers
* * Serial ATA: 2 SATA connectors
* * IDE: 1 x ATA 133 IDE connector
* * Expansion Slot: 1xPCI Slot (PCI 2.2)
* * Dual Realtek RT8110SC 10/100/1000 LAN
* * Dimensions : 170x170mm
* * RoHS compliant
But it depends just how much you want to save on power, you can google for the above, and might find the website I bought from, they have several such SOCs available with different requirements. I bought that one to be my main machine and everything server, hence the dual sata and dual T1000 lan.
Actually, heres the spec list, the only downside is that it only supports max of 1gig of ram, which would be nice to have 2, but really I haven't noticed it using swap heavily unless I am trying to do some GUI image manipulation. It does struggle playing flash videos though, but using things like youtube-dl and iplayer-dl provides easy local files for mplayer to use. It can probably play some light games, but I never tried. Also it does not like javascript heavy sites. You can use it, but it might be a tad slow. But like I said its a power/performance tradeoff. Personally, quiet happy with my one, especially after discovering iplayer-dl package, so that I no longer need to boot my other dual core something pc.
* * VIA C7 EDEN 1.2Ghz Processor - Fanless
* * VIA CN700 + 8237RP
* * 7W TDP (Thermal Design Power) - This is the maximum theoretical amount of power (in Watts) that a processor may consume and therefore dissipate as heat.
* * Front Side Bus: 133MHz
* * Graphic Interface: integrated 128bit 2D/3D VIA S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro Processor
* * 1 x 240-pin 533Mhz DDR2 DIMM Socket which supports Max 1GB - Unbuffered non-ECC memory required.
* * Audio: Onboard 6-Channel CODEC Compliant to AC 97'
* * USB: 4 USB ports + 4 x Internal USB 2.0 headers
* * Serial ATA: 2 SATA connectors
* * IDE: 1 x ATA 133 IDE connector
* * Expansion Slot: 1xPCI Slot (PCI 2.2)
* * Dual Realtek RT8110SC 10/100/1000 LAN
* * Dimensions : 170x170mm
* * RoHS compliant
But it depends just how much you want to save on power, you can google for the above, and might find the website I bought from, they have several such SOCs available with different requirements. I bought that one to be my main machine and everything server, hence the dual sata and dual T1000 lan.
Ahhh now there's a problem. I develop a lot using jquery and would like it to handle that nicely. However, the specs do seem good. Got my eye on a dual core atom mobo on fleabay that's currently at £15. The mobo supports 2 gig ram too which should help the mysql server a bit. As you say, it's a trade off, I have a case waiting with psu, hard drives are knocking about and I'm sure I can rustle up an optical drive (dvd+-r/w) for backups etc. main drive to start will be a 200 gig sata with something bigger later...
The Linux kernal seems to support dual atoms with the crappy intel graphics well, thus me going along this route. I shall investigate the SoC option too, but with plenty of laptops and pc's here it's not a problem to use them for other means leaving this machine I'm building simply as a webserver/fileserver/download box which it will probably be overkill, but compared to this monster, much better performance per watt!
The Linux kernal seems to support dual atoms with the crappy intel graphics well, thus me going along this route. I shall investigate the SoC option too, but with plenty of laptops and pc's here it's not a problem to use them for other means leaving this machine I'm building simply as a webserver/fileserver/download box which it will probably be overkill, but compared to this monster, much better performance per watt!
If you are doing headless server, ie no GUI or light gui for simple tasks and not your personal machine, then you will not have any javascript worries as all, as that is done one clientside. And its not that bad, just really crap javascript up the arse websites are a wee bit slow. And the server will only serve data for you, but yeah for £15, its much cheaper then when I bought mine more then a year and a half ago.
Maybe you can find some via SOCs on that fleabay too. A friend has a 900mhz pico-itx, smaller then mine in size, and that can easily handle any non-game related home server. Believe that uses even less power. In fact there are many many options for you, such as
SheevaPlug
Eee_pc_box and the like, there are a few, this one actually uses some sort of Atom cpu.
Basically there are lots for you to have a look if you are not in a hurry Wiki on linux based devices.
Maybe you can find some via SOCs on that fleabay too. A friend has a 900mhz pico-itx, smaller then mine in size, and that can easily handle any non-game related home server. Believe that uses even less power. In fact there are many many options for you, such as
SheevaPlug
Eee_pc_box and the like, there are a few, this one actually uses some sort of Atom cpu.
Basically there are lots for you to have a look if you are not in a hurry Wiki on linux based devices.
yeah, not too much of a hurry...although I might wimp out and run it with gui! just gotta reduce some electricity useage...the 4850 must use more than your system alone, but it was too good a price to refuse. Also it's a Windows 7 Ultimate box.....
Well if you want to use it as a server, even with GUI, you do not need much in terms of resources. But if you want to run it as a main box, I would recommend looking for something a little bit faster then 1.2ghz. The box I have is perfect for me, but not going to be most people's cup of tea when it comes for main machines.
In the last 20 hours (had to reboot due to a kernel update), xfce (window manager) used up about 15 minutes of cpu time:
In comparison, firefox used up 84 minutes, mysql just 3. But yes, if I knew what performance of my system would be like with modern crappy webdesign, and flash, I would have gone for a slightly faster CPU, or perhaps a system with some more umph in terms of multimedia. While it can do 720p videos perfectly fine (I have yet to find decent 1080p to test), you do need to uncompress them, turning ~200mb files into 600-700mb files. But hey space is cheap, cpu time isn't.
Anyway, have fun looking for something that fits you
In the last 20 hours (had to reboot due to a kernel update), xfce (window manager) used up about 15 minutes of cpu time:
Code:
[koshi@Skully scripts]$ ps auux|grep xfce
koshi 1735 0.0 0.6 16760 5964 ? S Jan17 0:03 xfce4-session
koshi 1748 0.0 0.1 3452 1772 ? S Jan17 0:00 /usr/lib/xfce4/xfconfd
koshi 1758 0.0 1.1 36180 11600 ? S Jan17 0:35 xfce4-panel --sm-client-id 2c1443628-c4b6-4e56-9122-fa90b380f931
koshi 1781 0.0 0.4 17988 4388 ? S Jan17 0:02 xfce4-settings-helper --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 2d3f676de-f99a-4d69-9a2e-76c61e56c74a
koshi 1824 0.0 0.7 19104 7724 ? S Jan17 0:00 /usr/lib/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-menu-plugin socket_id 20971554 name xfce4-menu id 5 display_name Xfce Menu size 36 screen_position 11
koshi 1826 1.2 0.7 16640 7388 ? S Jan17 14:48 /usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-systemload-plugin socket_id 20971555 name systemload id 12328349364 display_name System Load Monitor size 36 screen_position 11
koshi 1827 0.0 1.1 54036 10928 ? Sl Jan17 0:00 /usr/lib/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer-plugin socket_id 20971556 name xfce4-mixer-plugin id 12372395630 display_name Mixer size 36 screen_position 11
koshi 9987 0.0 0.0 4136 824 pts/7 S+ 15:45 0:00 grep xfceIn comparison, firefox used up 84 minutes, mysql just 3. But yes, if I knew what performance of my system would be like with modern crappy webdesign, and flash, I would have gone for a slightly faster CPU, or perhaps a system with some more umph in terms of multimedia. While it can do 720p videos perfectly fine (I have yet to find decent 1080p to test), you do need to uncompress them, turning ~200mb files into 600-700mb files. But hey space is cheap, cpu time isn't.
Anyway, have fun looking for something that fits you
cheers mate..I'm actually looking forward to it....shall be good fun, and last Linux server was great but as it needed to be used by missus etc. it got converted to a windows box. However, we are blessed to have a few more options so I can get a linux server up and running again. I might go for ubuntu 9.10 and have a looksy at other things too!
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Considering the TDP of a dual core Atom is 8W IMHO you'd be insane to go your chip over a dual core Atom.
I take it back, you are right. Just a shame they brought out the dual-core one after I bought mine... And they do appear to be cheaper as well.
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Well, for just downloading and samba sharing, consider ebay! I have a pentium 2 @ 350Mhz, 512mb ram, cheapo PCI 4xSATA interface, and a cheapo 100mbit pci NIC. Running Debian Etch. Oh, and software raid-5 via MDADM.
Tasks: website dev (LAMP+MySQL), torrent client (torrentflux), network server (SAMBA share), usenet client (SABNzbd). 3x750gb SATA, 1x300gig SATA.
All in? 55watts. Sure, it's a little sluggish on unrarring things, but that's what RSS is for; the new things arrive at 3am! Plus the most expensive part by a long way was the hard drives. It'll happily stream a 1080p x264 from the SW RAID-5 over lan, while downloading at the same time. That's me a happy chappy!
Tasks: website dev (LAMP+MySQL), torrent client (torrentflux), network server (SAMBA share), usenet client (SABNzbd). 3x750gb SATA, 1x300gig SATA.
All in? 55watts. Sure, it's a little sluggish on unrarring things, but that's what RSS is for; the new things arrive at 3am! Plus the most expensive part by a long way was the hard drives. It'll happily stream a 1080p x264 from the SW RAID-5 over lan, while downloading at the same time. That's me a happy chappy!