Low power computing.

[tyggerjai]

So. kittling and fatcat, between them, suck up a fair amount of electricity. Fatcat, I think, I can replace with the baby wizard box I have, which uses 9/10ths of sweet fuck all power. But kittling does a fair amount of work, and in fact already needs an upgrade to something beefier. So I was thinking the VIA EPIA mini-itx boards, which have a 1Ghz chip, and use a trivial amount of power. And they're not *too* pricey, at ±$320, but what you're paying for, there, is small. I don't need small, I need low-power. SO does anyone know of a less expensive, low-power consumption answer, short of gutting a laptop (because, well, that's back to expensive :)?

I suspect I'll just have to bite the bullet and buy the VIA EPIA, but it'd be nice at least to hear some options.

Update: Uh, anyone care to speculate on the relative powerdraw of an Xbox vs a standard PC?
I assume they'd be roughly even, but it's worth thinking about, since I already have an Xbox I don't use. I'd need to get it mod chipped ...

sol.
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Comments

Depends.

[subtle-eye.livejournal.com]

How much (and what sort of) work is 'a fair amount of work'?

Cause if it's non-trivial and non-integer,
EPIA is not your friend. At all.

Other (interesting!) options include
Linksys WRT54G (200Mhz MIPS with wireless and switch) ~$160
Second hand 3YO Beigebox (~600-800Mhz P3) <$250

How much of that juice is non-CPU? CPU's will idle when doing nothing.
Platters spinning at 7200rpm eat a non trivial amount of power to keep
spinning. IO is basically free. Netboot?

Re: Depends.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

Netboot is impractical - one is the main internal file server, and hence has lots of disk, and one is the external web/mail server, and hence sits outside the firewall. The baby wizards have laptop hardrive anyway, so fatcat will be ok.

kittling is the main mp3 player/server and file server, so it not only stores and streams but also decodes mp3s, serves out NFS shares, exports X displays for other diskless boxes, etc. So the 1Ghz celeron level is probably overkill, but leaves room for expansion. It's currently a pII 333, and a little more grunt would definitely be welcome. I could look at consolidating its 2 main hard drives into one, that might help with the power, but I think it's time for an upgrade anyway, and I'd like to shave off as much power as I can.

I had been under the impression that the top end (M10000) EPIA boards were fine for multimedia/DVD players, which means they're more than enough grunt. I'm not doing rocket science :)
Server, not supercomputer. For burning CDs or ripping MP3s, I'll use the workstations.

I have a PIII 450 sitting around, but I don't know that it'd suck much less power than the PII 333.

sol.
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Re: Depends.

[subtle-eye.livejournal.com]

Maybe wait for the Nano-ITX boxes, they do MPEG4 accelerated decode as well. Plus they are cd-rom sized.

Re: Depends.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

Hah.
I've been around the block once too often to fall for "Wait for the next generation!" :)

By the time it comes out, a mini-itx board could have paid for itself :)

And if I do move to nano-ITX later, I can shuffle the mini-ITX into another role. It's never going to be a loss, I think.

sol.
.

[bunnikins.livejournal.com]

but it'd be nice at least to hear some options.

Take up whittling?