Re: Power supply efficiency on older model Sun equipment

On Aug 30, 2008, at 9:14 AM, Andre van Eyssen wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Aug 2008, D G Teed wrote:
>
>
>> computer hardware habits.  I plan to consolidate the duties of
>> a dual PIII and Ultra 1 into one Atom based file, email and web  
>> server.
>> The new system will have an 80plus rated power supply.
>> Hopefully it will run at under 40 watts.
>
> But will it have enough I/O capacity that you won't be grinding your  
> teeth every time you have to copy a few DVD isos to/from the  
> fileserver? Will the Atom boards on the market run a real operating  
> system? Will you trust the machine with non-ECC memory? Are you  
> ready to put all your computing eggs in one basket with no RAS  
> features?


The Atom MB has dual SATA ports on-board, and a PCI slot for  
additional expansion, if needed (older PCI SATA or SCSI RAID card).

I've toyed with an Intel Atom MB and quite like it (very capable, well  
supported chipset, not too expensive), but I question running  
production-level work loads on one (except as a novelty - it is based  
on a desktop chipset, not a server chipset).

The Atom MB [0] will run a "real operating system" - I see no reason  
Solaris x86, OS X, Linux, *BSD, and many others won't run - aside from  
the CPU, it is all pretty standard hardware (Intel 945GC/ICH7  
chipsets), and the CPU is simply a "regular" x86 core tweaked to  
conserve power/generate less heat). Of course, WinXP, Server 2003 and  
likely Server 2008 would also be supported, but I suspect you don't  
consider them "real" operating systems.

I think an Atom-based file server with one or two *typical* home users  
would be absolutely fine, esp. with a nice RAID card installed (like  
an older 3Ware or other) to minimize data loss - such a system would  
rival many file servers sold commercially about 4-5 years ago. But  
with a RAID card installed, you are limited to the on-board 10/100  
Ethernet - if you can forgo the RAID card, you could add a gigabit  
Ethernet port, but it would be on a PCI slot...

I suspect you will start to see Atom-base Windows Home Server systems  
soon - there are already many netbooks out based on the Atom CPU.

As for power savings, all you would save would be the power consumed  
by the CPU itself - the chipset, disk, etc. would still use just as  
much power as a similar modern system, but running a handful of 1 TB  
SATA drives would consume much less power than larger number of  
smaller SCSI drives (one 300G SATA drive stores about as much as five  
73 Gig SCSI drives, and would use 1/5th the power I assume), so in a  
forklift upgrade, you could see some serious power usage reduction,  
but I agree using that as a cost-justification is probably a weak  
argument.

Were remote server management an issue, there are several lower-cost  
conventional server boards out now (I am familiar with SuperMicro MBs,  
but they are not the only ones) that have console redirect and remote  
system monitoring, and that may be enough for a "serious" home system...

Ken

[0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121342&Tpk=intel%20atom