Looking for a linux server to run at home 24/7 - how to get something runnig cheap (electrictiy wise

gameover

gameover

gameover

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Hi,

I am going to run a linux server for three purposes -
1) so i can rsync another linux server and use it as a backup (can't do on windows box due to ntfs not holding file permissions correctly)
2) so i can share files to other computers on the network (ideally i would want to password protect them. I would be accessing them from osx and xp)
3) stream videos, music to playstation 3/xbox 360

how can i do this, and how can i set up the machine so it doesn't use much electricity? I plan on running it 24/7, without a monitor (just ssh once its set up). I've heard mac minis are very energy efficient - so i may consider one of these, but really i'm after something cheaper.
 
A mini itx box with Intel Atom. The basic D410, D425, D510 or D525 boards from Intel will do the job fine. No fancy graphics chips or anything on them, as you won't need such on a file server. The only problem I could see is the lack of SATA ports. I think those boards only have two. Either a ODD and HDD or two HDDs and a network or headless install. But there's always the PCI slot if you decide to add a PCI SATA controller.
 
I use to run an intel Atom board with a PCI card for extra SATA ports which was very low powered however I ended up getting a NAS which did the same thing but used less power... considered a NAS?
 
A NAS should be able to do all of the things the OP listed (although they should check on whether the provided streaming tools to what they want for point 3) for less power than a full server.
 
A NAS is a small machine which runs an embedded Linux system with a web gui and allows you to add 1 to 8 hard disks (dependent on model) in various forms of RAID configurations. They come in cheap (normally slow and rubbish), medium and expensive price ranges. Qnap and Synology are reasonable brands from home use. They can be picky over disks so check the manafacturers compatibility tables. You would normally connect them to your network via a gigabit wired connection, so to connect over wifi your device would talk to the router/ap over wifi and then from there to the NAS over the wired network.

A NAS uses very little power and even less when not being accessed (we're talking of the order of 20W here).

Normally they have apps such as bit torrent and DLNA/iTunes servers built in.
 
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