Hello,
I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related!
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
1) Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most) 2) Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise) 3) Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better) 4) Memory - 1GB or better 5) Can be configurable either via serial or VGA. 6) Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern. 7) spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else) 8) I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U switch or so?)
Old Sun/Cobalt hardware (Raq4) from the early 2000s was brought to my attention by a friend, but that hardware is in low supply and the prices are outrageous for the specs/age of machine.
*** I'm curious if there's certain hardware that you folks are using and fit all/most of my criteria. *** It would be cool if they made a Raspberry Pi with dual onboard NICs, but it still doesn't cut it since it takes SD cards and not a hard drive.
Have a great Friday! Thanks for any feedback.
On 01/11/2013 02:55 PM, SilverTip257 wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although they only have a dual core, and a real lower power cpu - it tends to be fast enough for most things. eg. I am using those to test the installers in 5.9/i386 and x86_64 in various conditions and the install time is very acceptable.
Plus, they run CentOS5/6 32 and 64bit perfectly.
From: Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org
On 01/11/2013 02:55 PM, SilverTip257 wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for
use
as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although they only have a dual core, and a real lower power cpu - it tends to be fast enough for most things. eg. I am using those to test the installers in 5.9/i386 and x86_64 in various conditions and the install time is very acceptable. Plus, they run CentOS5/6 32 and 64bit perfectly.
You will have to add a NIC to get a second port... And you have an optional ILO card. Only 2 slots available.
JD
On 01/11/2013 03:12 PM, John Doe wrote:
I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although
You will have to add a NIC to get a second port...
Most NIC's only need 1 port... :D
And you have an optional ILO card.
yup
Only 2 slots available.
it also only costs £90 and is proper HP kit, with 4 sata swap caddies and very good build quality and is very silent, proper x86_64 platform with Hardware Virt.
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.orgwrote:
On 01/11/2013 03:12 PM, John Doe wrote:
I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although
You will have to add a NIC to get a second port...
Most NIC's only need 1 port... :D
And you have an optional ILO card.
yup
If I had that on my list it would narrow my results to mainly full-blown servers. :P
Only 2 slots available.
it also only costs £90 and is proper HP kit, with 4 sata swap caddies and very good build quality and is very silent, proper x86_64 platform with Hardware Virt.
Hardware virt support is definitely a plus. Neat little boxes - I'm going to look around a bit more, but these look good (specs/size). Thanks Karanbir!
-- Karanbir Singh +44-207-0999389 | http://www.karan.org/ | twitter.com/kbsingh ICQ: 2522219 | Yahoo IM: z00dax | Gtalk: z00dax GnuPG Key : http://www.karan.org/publickey.asc _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 01/11/2013 02:59 PM, Karanbir Singh wrote:
On 01/11/2013 02:55 PM, SilverTip257 wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
I have a couple of HP MicroServers N40L's with 8gb of ram each; although they only have a dual core, and a real lower power cpu - it tends to be fast enough for most things. eg. I am using those to test the installers in 5.9/i386 and x86_64 in various conditions and the install time is very acceptable.
Plus, they run CentOS5/6 32 and 64bit perfectly.
I too had been looking at these as the servers I use at present for testing are using way too much power (I have 3 off dual core Poweredge 860s with 8GB of RAM).
Looking at the specs for N40Ls though put me off because they're rated at 150W. Or am I missing something here?
Cheers,
Phil...
On 1/14/2013 7:24 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
Looking at the specs for N40Ls though put me off because they're rated at 150W. Or am I missing something here?
that may be the PSU rating, but 55W active is more typical, and thats with 4 3TB 7200rpm SATA drives.
btw, those AMD Neo CPUs are no slouches, they seem quite a bit faster than the equivalent Intel Atom processors.
I have a N40L with 8GB ram and 4 x 3TB running FreeNAS off a 4GB USB stick (internal), runs quite nicely. 8.1TB (binary) usable with ZFS raidz... its functioning as my home SMB and Media server, I get a consistent 80MB/second reading/writing large files from a windows desktop -> freeNAS using windows file sharing over gigE, thats about as good as it gets (the SATA drive on my desktop formatted NTFS probably isn't much faster).
On 01/14/2013 09:03 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 1/14/2013 7:24 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
Looking at the specs for N40Ls though put me off because they're rated at 150W. Or am I missing something here?
that may be the PSU rating, but 55W active is more typical, and thats with 4 3TB 7200rpm SATA drives.
btw, those AMD Neo CPUs are no slouches, they seem quite a bit faster than the equivalent Intel Atom processors.
I have a N40L with 8GB ram and 4 x 3TB running FreeNAS off a 4GB USB stick (internal), runs quite nicely. 8.1TB (binary) usable with ZFS raidz... its functioning as my home SMB and Media server, I get a consistent 80MB/second reading/writing large files from a windows desktop -> freeNAS using windows file sharing over gigE, thats about as good as it gets (the SATA drive on my desktop formatted NTFS probably isn't much faster).
Ah, thanks for that. I thought that it may be something along those lines.
In which case, for testing purposes, they'd be ideal; the drives I'd use would be relatively small & the load would be pretty minimal most of the time.
Much obliged.
Cheers,
Phil...
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:03 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 1/14/2013 7:24 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
Looking at the specs for N40Ls though put me off because they're rated at 150W. Or am I missing something here?
that may be the PSU rating, but 55W active is more typical, and thats with 4 3TB 7200rpm SATA drives.
btw, those AMD Neo CPUs are no slouches, they seem quite a bit faster than the equivalent Intel Atom processors.
I have a N40L with 8GB ram and 4 x 3TB running FreeNAS off a 4GB USB stick (internal), runs quite nicely. 8.1TB (binary) usable with ZFS raidz... its functioning as my home SMB and Media server, I get a consistent 80MB/second reading/writing large files from a windows desktop -> freeNAS using windows file sharing over gigE, thats about as good as it gets (the SATA drive on my desktop formatted NTFS probably isn't much faster).
+1 on the setup. ,I have it with 10GB ram (I found out that this ram block: Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 also works in the HP N40L, so in theory you could go to 16GB ram, 8GB cost me €30).
I would advise against using any cobalt hardware for anything even remotely useful anymore. Other than the R550, everything else is so old as to be ineffective.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 5:54 PM, Natxo Asenjo natxo.asenjo@gmail.comwrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:03 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 1/14/2013 7:24 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
Looking at the specs for N40Ls though put me off because they're rated at 150W. Or am I missing something here?
that may be the PSU rating, but 55W active is more typical, and thats with 4 3TB 7200rpm SATA drives.
btw, those AMD Neo CPUs are no slouches, they seem quite a bit faster than the equivalent Intel Atom processors.
I have a N40L with 8GB ram and 4 x 3TB running FreeNAS off a 4GB USB stick (internal), runs quite nicely. 8.1TB (binary) usable with ZFS raidz... its functioning as my home SMB and Media server, I get a consistent 80MB/second reading/writing large files from a windows desktop -> freeNAS using windows file sharing over gigE, thats about as good as it gets (the SATA drive on my desktop formatted NTFS probably isn't much faster).
+1 on the setup. ,I have it with 10GB ram (I found out that this ram block: Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 also works in the HP N40L, so in theory you could go to 16GB ram, 8GB cost me €30).
-- natxo _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 1/14/2013 2:54 PM, Natxo Asenjo wrote:
+1 on the setup. ,I have it with 10GB ram (I found out that this ram block: Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 also works in the HP N40L, so in theory you could go to 16GB ram, 8GB cost me €30).
yeah, I found out they could take 2 x 8GB about 30 hours after I'd placed my order for 2x4GB ....
hmm, that PN isn't ECC, did you use non-ECC memory? I'm kind of a stickler for using ECC on servers, helps prevent bit errors from creeping in.
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:30 AM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 1/14/2013 2:54 PM, Natxo Asenjo wrote:
+1 on the setup. ,I have it with 10GB ram (I found out that this ram block: Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 also works in the HP N40L, so in theory you could go to 16GB ram, 8GB cost me €30).
yeah, I found out they could take 2 x 8GB about 30 hours after I'd placed my order for 2x4GB ....
hmm, that PN isn't ECC, did you use non-ECC memory? I'm kind of a stickler for using ECC on servers, helps prevent bit errors from creeping in.
for a home server I'm willing to take the chance ...
-- natxo
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related!
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
Google fanless pc or fanless computer.
Fanless systems tend to be low power consumption, or low power systems tend to be manufactured by the same companies that make fanless.
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:
Hello,
I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related!
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
I don't know about the power details, but we have used a fair number of small desktop boxes (mini-ATX I think) with Atom processors which are small, quiet, and low power.
Typically they need a low-profile NIC.
We have run various versions of CentOS back through 4 without problems.
Bill
Am 11.01.2013 um 19:53 schrieb Bill Campbell:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:
Hello,
I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related!
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
I don't know about the power details, but we have used a fair number of small desktop boxes (mini-ATX I think) with Atom processors which are small, quiet, and low power.
Typically they need a low-profile NIC.
We have run various versions of CentOS back through 4 without problems.
it does not address all requirements but anyway :-) this low power hw came into my mind http://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm
-- LF
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 08:02:36PM +0100, Leon Fauster wrote:
Am 11.01.2013 um 19:53 schrieb Bill Campbell:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:
Hello,
I'm slightly off-topic here, but it is somewhat CentOS related!
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
I don't know about the power details, but we have used a fair number of small desktop boxes (mini-ATX I think) with Atom processors which are small, quiet, and low power.
Typically they need a low-profile NIC.
We have run various versions of CentOS back through 4 without problems.
it does not address all requirements but anyway :-) this low power hw came into my mind http://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm
I don't know anything about this company or its products, but I just stumbled across this, FYI:
http://www.lemote.com/en/products/mini-computer/2010/0310/111.html
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 2:09 PM, fred smith fredex@fcshome.stoneham.ma.uswrote:
it does not address all requirements but anyway :-) this low power hw came into my mind http://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm
Alixes have AMD Geode CPUs so they're x86
I don't know anything about this company or its products, but I just stumbled across this, FYI:
http://www.lemote.com/en/products/mini-computer/2010/0310/111.html
The Lemote you linked to has a MIPs processor. Not terrible I suppose, but unless I want to run Debian or Gentoo I don't think that's going to work. If I stick to x86 I have more options to work with.
-- ---- Fred Smith -- fredex@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us----------------------------- The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:3 (niv)
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Thanks,
On 1/11/2013 6:01 PM, SilverTip257 wrote:
it does not address all requirements but anyway:-)
this low power hw came into my mindhttp://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm
Alixes have AMD Geode CPUs so they're x86
they are 5 watts, which is great, and many of them have dual ethernet, 1 has 3 ethernets.
but they only have 256k memory, and don't have any SATA, just CF and maybe a PCI slot. and the geode is a really slow CPU, probably 1/4 the speed of an Atom. fine for a firewall router, running a totally stripped down OS like pfSense. not so fine for what the OP needs.
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:32 AM, Leon Fauster leonfauster@googlemail.com wrote:
it does not address all requirements but anyway :-) this low power hw came into my mind http://pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm
I held back my vote for PC Engines (memory, hard disk not met). The latest Soekris net6501 is a better fit; it meets all of the OP's requirements.
-- Arun Khan
On 01/11/2013 06:55 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
I use the Soekris 6501 fairly extensively. It's available in a much smaller than 1U case, or 1U if you prefer: http://soekris.com/net6501.htm
However, Supermicro makes some systems that are probably just as good, with two instead of four NICs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101365
Once you add RAM to the Supermicro, the two are very similar in cost.
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 8:40 PM, Gordon Messmer yinyang@eburg.com wrote:
On 01/11/2013 06:55 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for
use
as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
I use the Soekris 6501 fairly extensively. It's available in a much smaller than 1U case, or 1U if you prefer: http://soekris.com/net6501.htm
Oh wow - those 6501s have SATA ports and all. And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x.
[0] http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
However, Supermicro makes some systems that are probably just as good, with two instead of four NICs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101365
Once you add RAM to the Supermicro, the two are very similar in cost.
This Supermicro has a BMC card which is nice, but for $400 US I'd really want Intel VT-x like Karanbir's system has. The Atom D525 CPU [1] doesn't have VT support, but has 64-bit support. This system is still a viable option - Thanks!
[1] http://ark.intel.com/products/49490
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Thank you everyone for your helpful hardware suggestions.
On 01/13/2013 10:15 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x. [0] http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
Before you get too excited, the board's firmware is comBIOS, which is a Soekris-specific firmware that is designed to work well with a serial console. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did give KVM virt a quick pass and did not get it working. They do run a 64-bit Linux, with good support for serial console and gigabit Ethernet.
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:12 PM, Gordon Messmer yinyang@eburg.com wrote:
On 01/13/2013 10:15 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x. [0]
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
Before you get too excited, the board's firmware is comBIOS, which is a Soekris-specific firmware that is designed to work well with a serial console. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did give KVM virt a quick pass and did not get it working. They do run a 64-bit Linux, with good support for serial console and gigabit Ethernet.
Any ideas why KVM didn't work?
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 1/14/2013 5:44 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
Any ideas why KVM didn't work?
KVM on atom ? Are you series? just wondering? for 5-15w I wouldn't try it. just run the proper services on this machine.
There is no device which does everything you want. only the sata drive will consume more then the cpu+board etc.. so the cpu will consume 5-15w but this can be done with any atom based board.
you can by a nice 1U device with couple nics in it but without SATA HDD.
If you can define your real needs and not just say that space is needed you will might narrow it down to something that can actually work for you and not a dream.
I would like to have a very fast computer which will consume 5w and runs 16 VMs.. and to consume 5w but can use 30w in cases more cpu is needed.
Eliezer
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:14 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:12 PM, Gordon Messmer yinyang@eburg.com wrote:
On 01/13/2013 10:15 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x. [0]
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
Before you get too excited, the board's firmware is comBIOS, which is a Soekris-specific firmware that is designed to work well with a serial console. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did give KVM virt a quick pass and did not get it working. They do run a 64-bit Linux, with good support for serial console and gigabit Ethernet.
Any ideas why KVM didn't work?
Unless, the comBIOS cripples the VT-x feature, CLI qemu-kvm with "-vga none" is worth a try.
-- Arun Khan
Doesn't meet all your needs, but you can find old netbooks for $200 or less. I've taken a couple from the laptop case and put it in a box. It accepts a laptop drive (I'm using a 90G SSD). You can add a separate NIC via USB. I'm running RedHat on them at the moment, but I assume CentOS would work just as well.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:14 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:12 PM, Gordon Messmer yinyang@eburg.com
wrote:
On 01/13/2013 10:15 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x. [0]
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
Before you get too excited, the board's firmware is comBIOS, which is a Soekris-specific firmware that is designed to work well with a serial console. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did give KVM virt a quick pass and did not get it working. They do run a 64-bit Linux, with good support for serial console and gigabit Ethernet.
Any ideas why KVM didn't work?
Unless, the comBIOS cripples the VT-x feature, CLI qemu-kvm with "-vga none" is worth a try.
-- Arun Khan _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 14/01/2013 15:03, Arun Khan wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:14 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:12 PM, Gordon Messmer yinyang@eburg.com wrote:
On 01/13/2013 10:15 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
And it looks like their Atom E6xx CPU [0] supports Intel VT-x. [0]
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/atom-e6xx/overview
Before you get too excited, the board's firmware is comBIOS, which is a Soekris-specific firmware that is designed to work well with a serial console. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did give KVM virt a quick pass and did not get it working. They do run a 64-bit Linux, with good support for serial console and gigabit Ethernet.
Any ideas why KVM didn't work?
Unless, the comBIOS cripples the VT-x feature, CLI qemu-kvm with "-vga none" is worth a try.
I re-call such a discussion on the Soekris mailing list, can't locate the thread, but there were issues with virtualisation even though the atom chip supported it.
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for use as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.)
I upgraded my firewall device to an Atom-based D2500CCE. IIRC, I installed 2x2GB of RAM, booting from a cheap SSD, powered by a PicoPSU, and running PFSense. I think this configuration pulls roughly 16 watts at idle, maybe a couple more watts when fully loaded. This board has dual Intel gigabit ethernet ports.
For my home theater PC, I'm running an ASRock H67M-ITX and Core i3-2100 CPU, with 2x4GB of RAM and SSD. I have it inside a Habey EMC-800B case, using the included power supply. Idle power consumption is about 22 watts. It's been a while since I measured power consumption at load, but I'd guess 50--60 watts (it's idle 99% of the time though). Note that even when "idle", MythTV seems to use a little CPU, so if I kill mythfrontend, my idle power consumption drops another watt or two.
Only one NIC on the Asrock board, but it has a PCIe expansion slot so you could easily add another. I'd expect an add-on NIC to add around one to five watts of power consumption.
My personal workstation uses an Intel DH67GD micro-ATX motherboard, i5-2500k CPU, 4x4GB RAM, SSD, and traditional ATX power supply (Seasonic SS-300ET). It pulls about 30 watts when idle. Only one NIC on that motherboard.
For all the above, I'm talking AC (i.e. at the wall) power consumption, in the USA (so 115 Volts), measured with a Kill-A-Watt (not high-precision, but should be reasonable within a watt or two). What follows is stuff with which I have no personal experience, but have read about:
The Intel S1200KP mini-itx motherboard. It has built-in dual gigabit NICs, socket 1155, so you can use anything from a Celeron up to a Xeon, depending on how much you want to spend and what your upper-bound computational needs are. I was considering that for my firewall/router replacement. With a PicoPSU I would suspect that one could get 20 watts or lower idle power consumption.
With an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and Pentium G2120, SilentPCReview built a system that pulls 16.5 Watts[1]. (The article is a case review, but power consumption information is included.) That DQ77KB board also has dual gigabit NICs.
You might also be interested in Intel's "NUC - Next Unit of Computing"[2]. About 10 watts power consumption for dramatically under-clocked i3 CPU.
In general, with modern Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPUs, it's almost trivial to build a high-performing system that has 30 watt or less idle power consumption. If you cherry-pick components, it's not terribly hard to get a system with 20 watt idle power draw. The modern Intel CPUs all have roughly the same idle power usage (at least the consumer line, not sure about Xeons). That goes for the more expensive low-power variants as well. The difference of the low-power variants is their upper-bound power consumption is lower than their peers. But you can often fake that by deliberately limiting the max frequency in the BIOS. Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because their computation efficiency is so much higher. With something like Atom, you get more deterministic power draw, but a severely compromised upper-bound on computational power. In your requirements, you mentioned "various coding projects". If you are working in a compiled language (e.g. C, C++, Java), for substantially large projects, your compile times will be painful on Atom, but pleasantly fast on a Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPU.
[1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Akasa_Euler_Fanless_Thin_ITX_Case
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Matt Garman matthew.garman@gmail.comwrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for
use
as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.)
The Geode CPUs do not support PAE [0]. While CentOS 5.x would work, 6.x requires a kernel recompile (not complaining, but noting).
[0] http://joseph.freivald.com/linux/2010/04/22/alix-centos-image/
I upgraded my firewall device to an Atom-based D2500CCE. IIRC, I installed 2x2GB of RAM, booting from a cheap SSD, powered by a PicoPSU, and running PFSense. I think this configuration pulls roughly 16 watts at idle, maybe a couple more watts when fully loaded. This board has dual Intel gigabit ethernet ports.
For my home theater PC, I'm running an ASRock H67M-ITX and Core i3-2100 CPU, with 2x4GB of RAM and SSD. I have it inside a Habey EMC-800B case, using the included power supply. Idle power consumption is about 22 watts. It's been a while since I measured power consumption at load, but I'd guess 50--60 watts (it's idle 99% of the time though). Note that even when "idle", MythTV seems to use a little CPU, so if I kill mythfrontend, my idle power consumption drops another watt or two.
Only one NIC on the Asrock board, but it has a PCIe expansion slot so you could easily add another. I'd expect an add-on NIC to add around one to five watts of power consumption.
My personal workstation uses an Intel DH67GD micro-ATX motherboard, i5-2500k CPU, 4x4GB RAM, SSD, and traditional ATX power supply (Seasonic SS-300ET). It pulls about 30 watts when idle. Only one NIC on that motherboard.
For all the above, I'm talking AC (i.e. at the wall) power consumption, in the USA (so 115 Volts), measured with a Kill-A-Watt (not high-precision, but should be reasonable within a watt or two). What follows is stuff with which I have no personal experience, but have read about:
The Intel S1200KP mini-itx motherboard. It has built-in dual gigabit NICs, socket 1155, so you can use anything from a Celeron up to a Xeon, depending on how much you want to spend and what your upper-bound computational needs are. I was considering that for my firewall/router replacement. With a PicoPSU I would suspect that one could get 20 watts or lower idle power consumption.
With an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and Pentium G2120, SilentPCReview built a system that pulls 16.5 Watts[1]. (The article is a case review, but power consumption information is included.) That DQ77KB board also has dual gigabit NICs.
You might also be interested in Intel's "NUC - Next Unit of Computing"[2]. About 10 watts power consumption for dramatically under-clocked i3 CPU.
In general, with modern Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPUs, it's almost trivial to build a high-performing system that has 30 watt or less idle power consumption. If you cherry-pick components, it's not terribly hard to get a system with 20 watt idle power draw. The modern Intel CPUs all have roughly the same idle power usage (at least the consumer line, not sure about Xeons). That goes for the more expensive low-power variants as well. The difference of the low-power variants is their upper-bound power consumption is lower than their peers. But you can often fake that by deliberately limiting the max frequency in the BIOS. Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because their computation efficiency is so much higher. With something like Atom, you get more deterministic power draw, but a severely compromised upper-bound on computational power. In your requirements, you mentioned "various coding projects". If you are working in a compiled language (e.g. C, C++, Java), for substantially large projects, your compile times will be painful on Atom, but pleasantly fast on a Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPU.
I'll have to keep the 'real' cpu point in mind because after all this box will be idle much of the time.
[1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Akasa_Euler_Fanless_Thin_ITX_Case
[2] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_NUC_DC3217BY _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Thanks!
Maybe you have a look on my Serversystem, described on my Homepage http://itnoobz.org/?page=Server. Unfortunately in German :( It only consumes 28 W under high load. Works perfectly till 6 Months.
Intel® D2500CCE inkl. Intel® Atom D2500 2x Kingston ValueRAM SO-DIMM 2 GB DDR3-1066 2x Western Digital WD20EURS 2 TB be quiet! Pure Power L7 300W
Further Questions?
Am 14.01.2013 um 18:47 schrieb SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Matt Garman matthew.garman@gmail.comwrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for
use
as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.)
The Geode CPUs do not support PAE [0]. While CentOS 5.x would work, 6.x requires a kernel recompile (not complaining, but noting).
[0] http://joseph.freivald.com/linux/2010/04/22/alix-centos-image/
I upgraded my firewall device to an Atom-based D2500CCE. IIRC, I installed 2x2GB of RAM, booting from a cheap SSD, powered by a PicoPSU, and running PFSense. I think this configuration pulls roughly 16 watts at idle, maybe a couple more watts when fully loaded. This board has dual Intel gigabit ethernet ports.
For my home theater PC, I'm running an ASRock H67M-ITX and Core i3-2100 CPU, with 2x4GB of RAM and SSD. I have it inside a Habey EMC-800B case, using the included power supply. Idle power consumption is about 22 watts. It's been a while since I measured power consumption at load, but I'd guess 50--60 watts (it's idle 99% of the time though). Note that even when "idle", MythTV seems to use a little CPU, so if I kill mythfrontend, my idle power consumption drops another watt or two.
Only one NIC on the Asrock board, but it has a PCIe expansion slot so you could easily add another. I'd expect an add-on NIC to add around one to five watts of power consumption.
My personal workstation uses an Intel DH67GD micro-ATX motherboard, i5-2500k CPU, 4x4GB RAM, SSD, and traditional ATX power supply (Seasonic SS-300ET). It pulls about 30 watts when idle. Only one NIC on that motherboard.
For all the above, I'm talking AC (i.e. at the wall) power consumption, in the USA (so 115 Volts), measured with a Kill-A-Watt (not high-precision, but should be reasonable within a watt or two). What follows is stuff with which I have no personal experience, but have read about:
The Intel S1200KP mini-itx motherboard. It has built-in dual gigabit NICs, socket 1155, so you can use anything from a Celeron up to a Xeon, depending on how much you want to spend and what your upper-bound computational needs are. I was considering that for my firewall/router replacement. With a PicoPSU I would suspect that one could get 20 watts or lower idle power consumption.
With an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and Pentium G2120, SilentPCReview built a system that pulls 16.5 Watts[1]. (The article is a case review, but power consumption information is included.) That DQ77KB board also has dual gigabit NICs.
You might also be interested in Intel's "NUC - Next Unit of Computing"[2]. About 10 watts power consumption for dramatically under-clocked i3 CPU.
In general, with modern Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPUs, it's almost trivial to build a high-performing system that has 30 watt or less idle power consumption. If you cherry-pick components, it's not terribly hard to get a system with 20 watt idle power draw. The modern Intel CPUs all have roughly the same idle power usage (at least the consumer line, not sure about Xeons). That goes for the more expensive low-power variants as well. The difference of the low-power variants is their upper-bound power consumption is lower than their peers. But you can often fake that by deliberately limiting the max frequency in the BIOS. Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because their computation efficiency is so much higher. With something like Atom, you get more deterministic power draw, but a severely compromised upper-bound on computational power. In your requirements, you mentioned "various coding projects". If you are working in a compiled language (e.g. C, C++, Java), for substantially large projects, your compile times will be painful on Atom, but pleasantly fast on a Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPU.
I'll have to keep the 'real' cpu point in mind because after all this box will be idle much of the time.
[1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Akasa_Euler_Fanless_Thin_ITX_Case
[2] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_NUC_DC3217BY _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Thanks!
---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 // _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Am 14.01.2013 um 18:47 schrieb SilverTip257:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Matt Garman matthew.garman@gmail.comwrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 silvertip257@gmail.com wrote:
I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for
use
as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services.
- Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most)
- Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise)
- Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better)
- Memory - 1GB or better
- Can be configurable either via serial or VGA.
- Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern.
- spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else)
- I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U
switch or so?)
The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.)
The Geode CPUs do not support PAE [0]. While CentOS 5.x would work, 6.x requires a kernel recompile (not complaining, but noting).
[0] http://joseph.freivald.com/linux/2010/04/22/alix-centos-image/
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 5 model : 10 model name : Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 498.048 cache size : 128 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu de pse tsc msr cx8 pge cmov clflush mmx mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow up bogomips : 996.09
-- LF
On 01/14/2013 11:20 AM, Matt Garman wrote:
Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because their computation efficiency is so much higher.
Thank you, I was just going to post something very similar. I recently upgraded from a system with an Atom to an Ivy Bridge i3-3220. The system is mostly idle but is used for a small webserver, grabs images from a webcam once a minute and is used as a backup target with rsync. Same 2GB, integrated graphics, 2 disks in a mirror. Idle power went from 18W to 24W for the whole setup. I didn't measure full power on the old system but on the new one it peaks at 83W. However my kill-a-watt shows that over a two weeks, the power usage of the new system is almost identical to the old one. The reason is that a rsync run (through ssh) took almost 50 minutes before, now its down to about 6 minutes. So max power for 6 minutes vs 50 minutes makes up for the 30% increase in idle power...
Peter.
On 01/11/2013 09:55 AM, SilverTip257 wrote:
*** I'm curious if there's certain hardware that you folks are using and fit all/most of my criteria. *** It would be cool if they made a Raspberry Pi with dual onboard NICs, but it still doesn't cut it since it takes SD cards and not a hard drive.
For what it's worth, we're using a box from Aleutia that is quite good. We got an older unit, but the http://aleutia.com/x1-small-low-power-server is close to what we bought. Works great.
This is fully integrated, but could be built up from the right parts if you wanted to do so. Not exactly cheap, but we've been pleased.
As to non-Intel boxen, something like a GuruPlu ServerPlus would be up you alley, with an eSATA port, dual GigE, and dual USB2. Less expensive than the Aleutia dual core Atom. But ARM, not Intel, and so something like Redsleeve would be needed. No VGA, either, totally configured either via JTAG/UART or through the network. The GuruPlug comes with a Debian derivative. Boot is either on internal flash or via microSD card, but the eSATA port gives you expansion.
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