Craig White wrote:
I'm surprised how little discussion of what I would have thought was a common need - a low-power server - there seems to be.
I think that you are more or less unique in describing low power consumption as a priority for a server.
I wonder if that is true? Maybe the word "server" is used in two different senses. I'm thinking of a "home server" - one that links to the internet, and serves a few laptops on a small wifi or ethernet lan. This is on all the time, so power usage will mount up.
I think the word server was used historically for a computer serving a large number of terminals or nowadays laptops, perhaps in a small business or university department. In this case, as you say, power usage will come way down in the order of priorities, after reliability and related issues.
Server grade components tend to be constructed for more rugged continuous usage. While you can obviously succeed in obtaining low power hardware, you will lose much in terms of redundancy, over engineering for wider tolerances, higher internal temperatures, etc.
As I said, we are thinking of different scenarios. I've been quite struck by the fact that my ancient PIII home server seems quite adequate for the task - running httpd, ssh, dovecot, collecting email, etc.
It seems to me that a mini-ITX with one SATA laptop disk should be able to do the work without difficulty. I'm not sure if a fanless VIA EPIA system, or something similar, could contain a disk, though?
Regarding RAID, I wonder if that is worth it for such a system, if one does nightly backups? I see that disks now are often guaranteed for 5 years, which must mean the half-life is something more than this. I would rank other possible disasters - fire, flood, etc, far higher than this - always as I said in a home setting. And it wouldn't be that difficult to change the disk if it failed.