

Ask HN: Best Plug Computer or energy efficient server? - drKarl

I am looking for a high performance, low power, energy efficient computer to use as a server 24x7. I found fit-pc2 but then found PlugComputer such as the original SheevaPlug, TonidoPlug, PogoPlug, Ionics EMS, Marvell and GuruPlug.<p>I find GuruPlug Server Plus specially interesting, it's small, consumes less than 5W and costs less than $150, but I've read that it's got issues with overheating.<p>Do you know a good alternative? A PlugComputer or another low power, cheap computer to use as a 24x7 server?
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ggruschow
I use a dell mini 9 for my business. It sits in a closed ventless cabinet and
hasn't overheated. It uses <7w with wifi and screen on, but mine are off.
Also, there are no moving parts and it's got a built in UPS... I got it new
for $199 last year.

~~~
gmac
I've also found the netbook route an excellent choice.
<http://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/> runs beautifully on a Dell Mini 10v with
Ubuntu Server.

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dcarlson
I have a sheeva plug. It's been running my home phone system (based on
Asterisk) for the last year or so. It was easy to set up and has worked well
for me. Several services are running on it, including apache, which serves a
webpage i use to get my voicemail. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'high
performance', but it does the trick for me.

I know you're already aware of it, just thought I'd share my experience.

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drKarl
Thank you for sharing your experience!! Any issues with overheating?

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stevek
I spent quite a few days tinkering with putting linux onto a nas device which
was a lot of hassle and didn't perform well (music streaming).

In the end I just got an cheap fanless atom board and was done in a few hours.
Obviously not as power efficient as a plug computer, but way more time
efficient. There's a lot to be said for staying with the mainstream x86
distros etc.

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mstevens
I've had positive results with the pcengines alix boards for routers:
<http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm> . I suspect they'd work well for other
server use.

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preek
If you can afford an Core i7 server right now, you might consider a Mac Mini.
When idle it consumes less than
10W(<http://www.apple.com/macmini/environment.html>). And when you need the
power, you got it.

I'm using one at least and I'm very happy with it.

~~~
adoyle
Reliability is a key factor for me with low-power being important, too. I've
been running Mac Minis as servers since they first came out. Right now I have
~25 of them running at the MIT Museum, about half of those run exhibits and
shut themselves off from 11PM to 8AM, a couple are used for desktops, the rest
are running 24x7, some as servers, some as development machines. I've never
had a Mac mini die. I'm in the process of moving our internal file server from
a PowerMac G5 to a Mini.

We just got our first new, low-profile Mini and it's great. Not having to deal
with the power brick is a huge win, and the power cord seats much more firmly
than the old cords do.

I'm also experimenting with two Eee Box B202's running Ubuntu. One has been
running 24x7 for the last 6 months without any problems.

Plug computers are interesting and for a while I thought they could make good
controllers for touch-screen kiosks. But the iPad pretty much blows away
anything we could put together with a plug, a USB display driver and a monitor
(except in screen size).

~~~
drKarl
Mac Minis are great but in this case I think they are overkill. Starting at
$699 and 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 320M it is more expensive that what
I had in mind, and more powerful than what I need.

I could buy 3 GuruPlug Server at $129 to separate responsibilities and have
one dedicated to http serving, another for file serving (using it like a NAS,
scp/ftps server, smb/nfs) and another for firewall, and all of them would cost
half than a Mac Mini.

~~~
adoyle
You definitely can hit different sweet spots with plugs vs Minis. That's one
reason I was playing with the Eee Box. They cost just under $300 with a decent
amount of RAM and disk, plus HD DVI out. If you don't need a display then even
that's overkill.

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jlintz
Just a warning about the GuruPlug Server Plus, I ordered mine on 5/28/2010 and
still have not received it. They identified an issue with overheating and have
not shipped out any models in a couple of months. After finally getting in
touch with them I was told it would ship in mid july and I'm still waiting for
it.

~~~
jlintz
Actually looks like they just made a statement a couple of days ago about the
issue <https://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/news.aspx>

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zmyrgel
I like the Intel Atom's. I have a mini-atx case with MSI Intel Atom board with
two gigabit ethernet ports. Still tempted to upgrade to newer Atom to be able
to go completely passive system. Combine with SSD drive and totally silent
server.

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mooism2
"High performance" precludes the SheevaPlug/GuruPlug/etc, surely? What do you
mean by "high performance"?

I am setting up a Fit-PC2i currently, which at least has the power of a
netbook.

~~~
drKarl
Well, it doesn't need to be able to perform advanced calculations for the LHC
in Switzerland, but it must have enough CPU juice to be reliable as a server.
Perhaps HTTP/FTP/POP3/DNS server, download server, Firewall, there are many
possible uses and I think that GuruPlug and their kind provide enough CPU
performance for such tasks.

I'm concerned about what I read about problems with overheating, though.

~~~
niels_olson
The "CPU juice" required of a server, per page sent, is fairly low compared to
the "juice" a client uses to run the browser that page is rendered in. Run
munin, awstats, and top to get a feel for your server load: you should get a
sense of how much it takes to manage one user, and how many simultaneous users
you have, etc. For development, assuming you have another machine for your
GUI, a 400 MHz Apple G3 B&W with 256 MB RAM will run Debian Lenny with Apache
and PHP just fine
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_G3_%28Blue_%26_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_G3_%28Blue_%26_White%29)),
so I would think any of the plugs would be fine. If you are deploying a
service and marketing it to millions, you're going to need a bit more than a
plug :-)

~~~
drKarl
Yes, of course it's not intended to run a service for millions of users, it is
mainly http server for developing purposes, file serving (scp, ftp), perhaps
dns server and firewall.

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preavy
The Excito Bubba Two looks promising. Has anyone here used one?

~~~
drKarl
Really nice, and it is linux (Debian) based, and provides ssh access with root
privileges.

[https://www.excito.com/bubba/products/technical-
specificatio...](https://www.excito.com/bubba/products/technical-
specifications.html)

And is silent (even 0db with a SSD)

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coffeenut
It looks like GuruPlug is closer to 15W (3A @ 5V).

~~~
ax0n
Note that the power supply's rating is not indicative of the machine's usual
consumption. When all else fails, you really should hook these things up to
something like a Kill-A-Watt to measure it.

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pkirk
What about an Acer Aspire Revo 1600 to use like a server and also as a
mediacenter connected to the bigscreen tv? 16-20W idle.

~~~
drKarl
I'm not trying to build an HTPC/PVR, so I don't even need video out - ssh
connection would be enough.

I'm looking for something minimalist: Minimal size, minimal prize, minimal
power consumption.

