Recommend me a server?

TechMinerUK · 26 Apr 2016 at 07:53

Hi, last November I purchased a Lenovo TS140 to act as my home media (And now visualization server). However recently when playing around with Server 2012 I found it has no S3/4 states so I can put it into sleep or hibernate to save power.

So, does anyone have any ideas for a replacement as I do like the server but I also need to be able to put it into hibernate and then wake it up using WOL.

As always any help is appreciated

TechMinerUK · 26 Apr 2016 at 13:38

ASE001 said:
I had the same problem, I eventually got a Raspberry Pi and relay board (£5) and switch the power on/off on my servers.
You have to set your servers to boot on power restore.
There are plenty of websites and YouTube videos on how to set it up.
I created a simple web page to control the power from my smart phone, very simple I can post the code if required?
My Pi also doubles up as my VPN server too.

That seems like a pretty good setup but ideally I could use a server with the functionality built in so I don't have to worry about configuring the Pi on the network if the server gets moved

TechMinerUK · 26 Apr 2016 at 14:34

nutcase_1uk said:
You'll struggle as you're trying to make a server do something it's not designed for
Maybe as workstation of some kind?

I thought maybe some of the home/small business servers would have had the function as they arent mission critical

TechMinerUK · 26 Apr 2016 at 19:31

ASE001 said:
You can get a USB to GPIO adapter. Something like a '8 Channel USB GPIO Module With Analog Inputs', google it and you will find it for around £15. Connect it to your PC and you can control a relay board as with the Raspberry Pi.

So the Raspberry Pi would not be necesary with the USB GPIO module? If so how would that work when the PC is turned off :confused:

TechMinerUK · 27 Apr 2016 at 07:40

ASE001 said:
I though you had another PC that was all the time?

Not as far as I'm aware

TechMinerUK · 27 Apr 2016 at 19:13

Carbon Copied said:
Would replacing the mainboard with a more feature packed server board not be an option?

Sure but some of the servers appear to be as cheap as a mainboard and CPU :eek:

K.C. Leblanc said:
Have you looked at Lenovos AMT management. I'm not familiary with it, but it should let you turn it on remotely.
EDIT: Nevermind I think I'm talking rubbish. HP servers have a doofer called iLO which would do what you want, but it seems Lenovo's equivalent isn't fitted to your server.

I know, the AMT management allows you to remote into the PC BIOS when running but unfortunately wont allow me to turn it on

TechMinerUK · 30 Apr 2016 at 19:52

Quick update, does anyone know what the Dell T20 Pentium version is like as I've spotted it is £70 at the moment. Would this be better than a N40/54/70 microserver and does it have WOL?