[lug] Low power servers.

[David L. Anselmi]

Quentin Hartman wrote:
> What defines "low power" for you?

I was thinking <20W, though not because I have any constraints.

My current server (dual P-III) runs about 75W (perhaps 10W more if it's working hard).  Although 
cutting that is nice, getting rid of fans and old, noisy, hard drives will also be nice.  The main 
reason I care about power is just to avoid using more than I need.

> http://www.logicsupply.com/products/vab_800

I guess I didn't say but I'd also like a price tag around $100.  I definitely don't need video, 
audio, or keyboard.

I don't need more than one Ethernet port.  Not really interested in wifi.

I need something to connect storage, perhaps flash for the OS but not necessarily (the Sheeva did 
better booting from a flash stick than a hard drive).  But whether USB-2, USB-3, eSATA, etc I don't 
much care.

I don't care whether the CPU is x86-ish or ARM.

So mostly I'm asking whether anyone has experience making this work and any gotchas you've had with 
certain hardware.

The web/mail server could probably run on a pi without any trouble (the Internet is likely the 
slowest piece by an order of magnitude).  The file server will be holding backups so throughput will 
be noticeable and more is better.  Looks like Ethernet will be the bottleneck, then USB2 if I 
upgrade to gigabit.

Probably I can get by with 2 pis at this point and move the file server to something else if I don't 
like what it does.

Thanks!
Dave