Small cheap low power server?

danielsbrewer · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject: Small cheap low power server?

I am wondering whether any of you could suggest a suitable bit of hardware that would run as a home server. It needs to be small, have low power consumption but powerful enough to run a low bandwidth mail and web server (not very powerful if I am not mistaken). Oh yes, and it would be nice if it was very cheap as well (quite if possible).

Can anyone suggest something suitable?

I do have a very old ibm laptop (pentium 120 I think) but I am not sure if there is enough space to install gentoo or power to run the required applications. Any thoughts?

gullyg · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject:

Depends what you call cheap, but i'd check out the mini-itx and nano-itx standards.

http://mini-itx.com/

hth

Iain
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Cadorna · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:12 am Post subject:

oooooooo, I'm running a mysql/apache/qmail-ldap/ldap/nfs for portage/samba/firewall on a pentium 120 with 64 MB RAM and it's runs like a charm
if you don't have enough space for portage or compiling in that imb you told, set up nfs in your box (assuming it also runs gentoo) and share portage and a compilation directorie

danielsbrewer · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:26 am Post subject:

Interesting. Maybe I will give it a go with my laptop then. Might be a bit of a struggle. Any tips?

malloc · l33t Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 762

Get a SPARC or UltraSPARC system. They come very very cheap in 2nd hand and you can throw just about anything at them and they'll handle it like champs.
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Cadorna · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:42 pm Post subject:

[quote="danielsbrewer"]Interesting. Maybe I will give it a go with my laptop then. Might be a bit of a struggle. Any tips?[/quote]

the only thing I can remember now as a tip it's to chroot to a directory in your fast computer and make the compilation and installation there (also putting it works doing it in you server harddisk attached to your fast machine, but don't know if it can be done with laptop harddisk), when finish, copy it to your server
I will have to install another bussines server in the next days, and maybe I can think of anything else

dj_farid · l33t Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 613

Well, the laptop has all the power that you need for those tasks as long as you keep it console only.
I had an AMD K5 166MHz as a server before. Stage two install took four days to compile. I would recommend to use stage3 anyway.

Remember to disable all the powersaving features in the bios. Remove the battery, if it is still there. The battery can get hot and damage the laptop if it is plugged in all the time.

Laptops of that era used to have problems with heat. The fans used to be very poor, if any. The heatsinks on the CPU were usually also poor. You could check how the heatsink/fan is doing before you leave the machine on for several hours. If it has a heatsink or fan glued to the cpu, remove it, clean it and glue it back with fresh glue.
If you are lucky the heatsin/fan thing is not glued on the cpu. In that case clean it and put some fresh thermal paste there.
You could also use a bigger heatsink, if you are lucky with a model with the CPU located under the keyboard. Just keep the keyboard open in that case. You won't use it anyway.

The harddrive used to have heat issues also. Many early models (486-P133) used to have the HDD mounted in a case of steel. The heat made the harddrive expand, but the case did not expand. If the harddrive was mounted with all four screws and this happened, it usually broke the harddrive. I would check this also. Only use three screws if the harddrive is inside those steel-cases.

There are adapters for mounting laptop-harddrives with normal IDE-cables.
Just keep in mind that laptop disks are always slower than normal disks. Especially these older disks.

madmango · Guru Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 507 Location: PA, USA

danielsbrewer · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:35 am Post subject:

danielsbrewer · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:37 am Post subject:

Thanks dj_farid, that is interesting and useful information, but I am not sure if I am brave enough to delve into the internals of a laptop just yet!

tkdfighter · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:04 pm Post subject:

I have a pentium 90 w. 48megs of RAM running as an apache/nfs server. Works just fine, exept that I got sick of the long compile times, so I switched it over to Debian after doing a stage1 hardened install. No more playing around with CFLAGS

, but a server should be stable first, speed comes second :roll:

Bob P · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:06 pm Post subject:

if you're looking for cheap hardware, look around for computer shows in your area. we have them in the Chicago suburbs and you can find all sorts of cheap old hardware to handle jobs like that. you should be able to find a Pentium class desktop for about $20. IIRC, you could get a P2-400 with 128MB, 6GB, 10/100, sound for about $40. these are the bottom of the barrel at the shows -- they're cheap because nobody knows what to do with them.

although the P1 boxes are typically full size, you can find alot of the compaq P2 boxes with the compact desktop footprint.

these prices are typical for boxes without peripherals. you should be able to find a low res 14-inch CRT for $5, a KB for about $3. you probably won't need a mouse.
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danielsbrewer · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:25 pm Post subject:

Interesting thanks. I wonder if they have the same sort of thing in London. I will have to have a look.

dj_farid · l33t Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 613