Home Automation Domotica Forum Europe, Bwired Forum

Currently I'm using an older laptop (Dell Insirion 5150) to host XP with HomeSeer, Squeezebox Server, Plugwise and IIS with some custom aspx stuff. This works, but it's a little to slow for me. For a while I'm looking at different replacement options, but I recon my fellow forummers are possibly struggling with the same question.

I'm looking at the following replacement options:
<b>- New Laptop</b>
<u>Pro's</u>
a. Fast
b. Comes with UPS functionality (internal battery [;)])
c. Low powerconsumption (<-- is this true? amd or intel?)
<u>Con's</u>
a. Not made for 24x7 operation (who has a possitive experience?)
b. Possibly noisy and hot
c. Price
d. Limited expandability
<font color="red">Price 500-700 (Dual Core Intel/2-4 GB Ram/320GB+ HD)
Example: http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/246443/s ... 1ef-s.html</font id="red">

<b>- Mac Mini</b>
<u>Pro's</u>
a. Small
b. Low powerconsumption (Tane confirmed this --> around 15 Watt lowest of them all)
<u>Con's</u>
a. Price
b. Limited expandability
<font color="red">Price: 469-539
TIP: Take the cheaper one for 469,- and upgrade the harddisk and memory. This will give you more power for less money. Check out this site for the details --> http://blog.fosketts.net/2009/03/17/upg ... i-attitude
Example: http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/234368/a ... html</font id="red">

<b>- Atom based machine (ION330 Dual Core version)</b>
<u>Pro's</u>
a. Low Powerconsumption
b. Small
c. Cheap
<u>Con's</u>
a. Slower then other options
b. Limited expandability
<font color="red">Price: 250-400 euro
Examples: ASRock ION330 --> http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/zoeken/? ... ck+ion+330
POV --> http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/245650/p ... dney).html
Self build:
http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/cat/47/m ... pm8N5lrrDw

TIP: There is a new version of the ASRock ION330 about to hit the market. Read it here before slapping yourself for buying to early --> http://tweakers.net/nieuws/63358/asrock ... html</font id="red">

<b>- Underclocked (dual core) AMD or Intel CPU</b>
<u>Pro's</u>
a. Expandable
b. Fast (underclocked, so if more power is required this is possible)
<u>Con's</u>
a. bigger (depends on casing, but probably bigger than other options)
b. Powerconsumption??????? (who can shed a light about this?)
<font color="red">Price: 400-????
Example: uhmm...to much..self build or prebuild from a vendor.</font id="red">

The requirements for me are:
- Low powerconsumption. I'm aiming for +/- 30 Watt
- Quiet
- Has enough power to host:
Minimum:
1. Windows 7 (or possibly 2008)
2. HomeSeer
3. Squeezebox Server
4. Plugwise
5. Some ASPX sites which query's Access/SQL databases and posts back the results or converted images
Additional:
a1. Record from 2 digital TV Cards
- Reliable (24x7)

The questions are:
1. What would you choose, and why?
2. Share your experience with serverhardware

<hr noshade size="1">
<font size="1">Why Tailwind? Because Jeffrey was already registered ...</font id="size1">

Nice topic. I'm still looking for a good replacement for my HS server. Perhaps this helps (sorry it's in Dutch):
http://tweakers.net/reviews/1429/6/twea ... ni-pc.html

Also take a look at:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/63358/asrock ... ettop.html


Herbus (Jos)

@herbus: if you have additional requirements, please post them. If you have additions to the pro's/con's also post them.

<hr noshade size="1">
<font size="1">Why Tailwind? Because Jeffrey was already registered ...</font id="size1">

The ATOM 330 is not slow and perfect for handelinge a Domotica Homeserver with for example Homeseer, plugwise and other applications.
In my situation I was running the Bwired website also on this server and this was sometimes, when it was busy on Bwired to much!
So I replaced the ATOM 330 Dual 1.6 dual core for a AMD4850E, Jetway mini itx JNC81-LF (HDMI etc), Chenbro http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/pr ... php?sku=79 with 4gb ram and a 128GB Corsair solid state drive. It's now on 62watt including a nobreak (8 watt), 3 very silent vents and some usb domotica controllers attached to it.
I will make a ful review later

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Pieter Knuvers
http://www.bwired.nl <i>Online House in the netherlands. Domotica, Home Automation.</i></font id="size1">

" a1. Record from 2 digital TV Cards"

It will be difficult to fulfill this requirement with an atom itx board. TV card would need to be USB based in the first place and second it would require quite a lot of processing power next to running homeseer etc etc.

If you would drop this requirement the atom 330 should be sufficient:

http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=53#ION-ITX ... 009-bundle

Shuttle X50

Touch screen and Atom 330
Price <400 euro

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Enver
Twitter http://twitter.com/Chak64%20My%20Domoti ... tane.nl/wp</font id="size1">

i have a 19 inch i7 intel machine, but i use that to run multiple vmware instances on. It has enough space to play around and is really fast. However, power consumption is bigger then normal. (but i replaced 3 machines now with 1 machine so thats in my eyes already a good improvement)

// Erik (binkey.nl)

I am running on an Atom330 (ASRock of Ebay) as well with a OCZ Vertes SSD drive, and this definately cannot be classified as slow. Its running Homeseer, Mainlobby server, Mainlobby client (touchscreen), Plugwise, Itunes, hosting an RDP session and a few other bits and bobs without any issue. Energy usage is about 40Watts which is 1/3rd of the P4 3Ghz HT system that was running this before.

I'm running VMWare server on an Asus Windows Homeserver wich is based on an Atom dual core systemboard. It runs Homeserver with 2 disks and 1 Virtual Machine for Homeseer and Plugwise. I also use the VM as an RDP client from outside the house.

Counsumes about 42 watts.

@biwired: I think you can get lower than 62 Watt with a little tweaking. Check out --> <font color="blue">http://www.au-ja.de/review-amd-athlon2- ... html</font id="blue">

@Foxtastic: The digital TV cards are Firewire (Digital Everywhere DTV-C). The load on a 2,3 Ghz AMD Venice (Single Core) is something like 20%, so that's not to much. It depends on the number of simultanious records. I can however not estimate how this load will be on a Dual Core Atom. Maybe it's also 20% and maybee it's 80% or worse.

@Tane: The shuttle is a bit outdated. An dual core Atom 330 is faster and better (ASRock ION330 or similar), but does not have a touchscreen. That's not a problem for me, because it's a server. The shuttle is cool as client though.
How about the speed and noise level of the Mac Mini?

@snelvuur: What's the powerconsumption of your machine (without the screen)? Are you using a 80+ powersupply? Have you tweaked (underclocked) anything?

@evja78: That's cool! 40 watts is great. Is it quiet (6 cm fan)?

@dickr43: Impressive...2 vm's and still 42 watt. Is it quiet?

<hr noshade size="1">
<font size="1">Why Tailwind? Because Jeffrey was already registered ...</font id="size1">

i do use a 80+ powersupply. the primary disk is ssd, which is also less consuming (if i am correct) but that gets nullified by 2x 1tb disks in raid-1 (backup for o.s. and vmware images) i just have to much storage needs for movies and stuff and i prefer speed above energy. I do try to kill a few wats where possible, just got 2 new d-link green hubs (8 ports) and all stuff in the kitchen is i believe A or better then A (A+ or A++)

// Erik (binkey.nl)

@snelvuur: ssd and 80+...so the consumption is minimized but with fast components. Do you know the consumption of the system?

<hr noshade size="1">
<font size="1">Why Tailwind? Because Jeffrey was already registered ...</font id="size1">
<i>
Edit: by admin</i>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
@dickr43: Impressive...2 vm's and still 42 watt. Is it quiet?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Yes, it's very quit and even better, small enough to fit on a shelf in the 'meterkast'.

It's running 1 VM, hosted on Windows Homeserver by the way.

I have just finished building my new HA/NAS server, replacing my 2 old ones, and thus saving energy.

It's based on the POV ION 330 board w Dual ATOM 330, SSD bootdrive, 4x 1.5TB disk in RAID 5, in a std mITX case and running the new Ubuntu 9.10, giving a nice fast system.

It provides HA system (DomotiGa), NAS functionality (4+ TB of storage with Samba/CIFS), Media streaming with Twonky Server for Video, Pic, Music, youtube, and 24/7 download functionality with torrent-flux-b4rt

It uses 46 Watt in idle mode, 48 Watt when disks are busy, and 52 Watts when CPUS are busy (compiling stuff etc). Nothing tweaked for lower power usage yet, haven't looked at the disk settings for example.
This board has 16x PCIe slot, and 4 onboard SATA 300 ports, so it's expandable.

Network read/write speed is about 80MB/52MB without tweaking anything, so can go even higher I guess, but it's already fast enough for HD.

I will provide a 'Building Ubuntu NAS from scratch guide' soon on my site, if there is interest.

Regards,
Ron.

* Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 motherboard;
* Intel Core2 Duo E8200 @ 2,66 GHz;
* 8 GB RAM;
* 2 x 250 GB OS Hard drives;
* 2 x 1 TB Hard drives for file storage.

Running 5 VMs smoothly (http://www.hekkers.net/domotica/CPUCharts.aspx)
Power consumption 72 W.


<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Robert
http://www.hekkers.net <i>Digit's Online Home.</i></font id="size1">