Hello

i would like to build a storage home server.
but i would like to talk about operating system and features...


the most important thing for me is it should be very
low power consumption and small...

so here is my first question:
is it possible to enable laptop power saving features on desktops?
like "turn hard disks off while idle"
if yes how?
and what distros support this feature?

the purpose of this BOX will be to install it put it on a shelf or somewhere very far away...(basement) and from time to time copy files from it and to it... so i would like to leave the server 24/7 powered on... but if idle power saving as much as possible....

i have allot more questions but ill wait with that :-)

thanks for any help

Depending on how old your cpu is, it probably has the ability to 'throttle' itself. It would have to be really old not to support this. The hard drives, display, and more should all be able to have power settings set in Linux. Sometimes this is hardware dependent and whether the motherboard supports it or not. Here are some programs/modules that normally come standard with most distros:

cpufreq - configures and controls the frequency the cpu runs at (this is the 'throttling' I was talking about)
powersave - all sorts of power management options and configurations

I run suse with KDE4 and KDE has a gui frontend for these programs called kpowersave.

I would opt against using a monitor at all , once its configured you really wouldn't need it , and if you do need to config use webmin so it comes straight off a webpage or ssh , as per the rest the hardware voltage requirements are so low its nominal. If you do wish to persue that route however , this page might help


Regards
JKZfixme

i am going to get new parts... so i still don't have the CPU :-)
what do you recommend? to get the cheapest CPU?


i was thinking to get the WD green hard drives
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/greenpower/index.asp


about monitor: i will use SSH after installation... so no monitor is needed... this will be a pure storage... no one will sit in front of it.


after reading the tips at http://www.lesswatts.org/tips/misc.php

i was wondering if i get from the beginning green metal parts...
i mean lets say a cheap GigaByte Motherboard with good power saving features... and a very green CPU (still did not choose one) and the green Hard Disks...

how much $$$ would i save per year if i not enable the turn hard drives off...

maybe its good enough to enable CPU power saving while idle and let the HDDs on... it will give them a longer life?



thanks

You're going to need some sort of graphics card to get through the OS install, so I would recommend getting a motherboard with integrated graphics; integrated graphics cards use less power than one that has a physical graphics card. Also, both intel and AMD have low-power cpu's. Get one of those at a low clock-rate since you won't demand much out of this box. i suspect you can put this all together for < $300(possibly close to $200) since performance isn't an issue.

edit: spinning up the HD's too often will reduce the life. Also, they use the most power when spinning up, it may even take as much power to spin up an HD as it the amount of power the HD would use for a few hours while idling (no disk usage).

yes on board card will be the best solution...


i have searched but i could not find a good chart where i can see what CPU is consuming how much watt...


maybe you have some link?

How about atom ccpu? Do you guys considering using atom-based system for a home/storage server?

Since we're in the topic of low-power systems, you might might to check the list of atom-based based mobos posted here:
http://kramfs.com/list-of-intel-atom...-motherboards/

that is if you're considering this efficient and powerful enough for a home/storage server....