10 watt file, mail, web, media, download, print home server

[dougz]

For Windows, Mac, and Linux clients.

Review article (Joe Barr, linux.com):

Have you considered setting up a server on your home LAN, but shied away from the idea because you didn't want to dedicate a machine to the task, or want to spend a lot of time setting it up and managing it? If so, you might be interested in Excito's Bubba, a cute little Linux-based server appliance from Sweden that makes running and managing a server easy and fun...

...easy enough to use that Windows and Apple users can quickly harness it to do their bidding, and familiar enough to Linux users that they can use GUI and CLI alike to make it sit up and do tricks.

The hardware is solid and the documentation is excellent. The functionality provided is perfectly suited for the home office/small office environment. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 9. If Excito married Bubba to a router running in the same box with the same ease of use, I'd give it an 11.

http://enterprise.linux.com/enterprise/ ... html?tid=7

From vendor site:

Bubba – The Mini Server

Comfort and control!
All you want from a full-size PC you get from our mini-sized Bubbaâ„¢ server, designed to fit your home better than an always running PC. With Bubbaâ„¢ server you get a product in a small form factor but still fully featured: .. [ read more ]

• Torrent downloader: Turn off your computer and relax! Let Bubba download your large files instead of leaving your PC on all the time. Bubba also handles HTTP and FTP downloads.

• File server: Allows you to access all your files from work or school at all times. Time to live life smarter and forget about USB memories and other portable media.

• Streaming media server: Put your MP3 collection in the 'music' folder on Bubba, and all your music will be instantly available to all Itunes compatible (DAAP) players.

• Web, e-mail and FTP server: Fully featured server functionality allows you to turn off your PC .

• Central e-mail server: Bubba can retreive your email from various accounts, collecting them in one place. Check all your email at one place, via Bubba's webmail or IMAP/IMAPS.

• Print server: Plug your USB printer in to Bubba, and share it to all your home computers.

• Easy to use: All pre-installed functinality is controlled via a simple web based interface.

• Linux device: Except for the above mentioned pre-installed functionality, Bubba is essentially a standard Linux computer, but with the advantages of being silent and small. Choose from 30000+ Linux Debian applications and configure Bubba to do whatever you want.

Technical data
Software
Running Linux 2.6, Debian
Apache web server
Dovecot IMAP server (IMAP, IMAPS)
Postfix SMTP server
Fetchmail (for fetching email from other pop or imap accounts)
File server (http, samba, ftp)
Download manager (bittorrent, http, ftp)
Printer server, supporting all major brands
Streaming media server (DAAP)
Internal Linux available for advanced users


Hardware
3.5â€

[nightmorph]

--

[NeilBlanchard]

Greetings,

How is this different from most NAS units?

[dougz]

How is this different from most NAS units?

Provides many additional services besides NAS. Don't need the other services, cheaper to buy a NAS.

It is, however, extremely expensive compared to everything else on the market.

Please elaborate & cite examples. I'm sincerely interested. The price does give pause, but I'm thinking (for me) file server, print server, plus media server.

At the extreme low end, you have the NSLU2, but I don't think there's any way to get a significant number of services running simultaneously.
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

Somewhat cheaper to roll my own, say with the Asus Via C3 box, but a poster here had noise issues with his.

Small, quiet, cheap -- pick any two...

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

The only NAS unit I have used, from Buffalo Technologies, had the printer server, FTP server, and other services. It had four hard drives, defaults to a RAID 5 set up, though you can change that to JBOD, RAID 0+1, or all one big "drive", IIRC. It cost about $600 for the 0.6TB (four 160GB drives), and while it wasn't really quiet, it was not very loud either.

[dougz]

Re: Buffalo Technologies

I didn't realize they were so cost-effective, but you are right. I checked their site and they link to PriceGrabber.

The Buffalo is far more sophisitcated in NAS than the Bubba mini server. More expandable by far. Nice set of additional services -- http://www.buffalotech.com/comparison-c ... rastation/

Buffalo's 1.0 TB TeraStation Home appears to be the cheapest unit with a media server. USD$600 and up.

It appears that the media streaming may be less flexible in the Buffalo. I'd suspect that it would be louder (no fanless supply on low-end, multiple disks, additional fan for disks.)

Buffalo cites Windows & Linux clients for file service; doesn't mention Mac.

Bubba also adds Apache web server, Dovecot IMAP server (IMAP, IMAPS), Postfix SMTP server, Fetchmail (for fetching email from other pop or imap accounts), Download manager (bittorrent, http, ftp).

Any reasonable Linux hacker could provide equivalent function using an old PC, but it takes a bit of expertise & a bit of work. Result would take more expertise to administer.

It would be very hard to come close to the Bubba's power consumption, particularly in a low-cost box. Closest you could probably get would be fanless mini-itx Via C3 or C7 with PicoPSU and single disk. Add a mini-ITX case. Not cheap.

Of course, maybe AMD's forthcoming DTX will be a more economical alternative to mini-ITX.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

The case fan in the Buffalo Technologies unit isn't too bad if I remember correctly; but the PSU fan is a tad louder than it could be. I believe it is a mATX PSU with an 80mm fan? We all know how to quiet one of those, right? The case fan is a 92mm Adda and fairly quiet, I think:

[Moogles]

Brilliant little box, very expensive for what it does though. You can configure a Mac Mini to do everything Bubba can... and more, much more. The prices listed on their website are high, but you'll have to add shipping +VAT. It's prohibitively expensive unfortunately.

Does it have a fan btw? I haven't been able to spot one. Might be some thermal issues?

[dougz]

Does it have a fan btw? I haven't been able to spot one. Might be some thermal issues?

It is quiet - no fans - and uses less power than any desktop lamp.
http://www.arm.com/iqonline/bubba.html

I suspect that the lack of fan may be part of the reason for the high price. Fanless boxes are almost always pricey -- mini-ITX, Hush, etc.

The 80 GB Bubba would be 264 euros plus 40 euros shipping, totalling about USD$411 (barring any duties.) Cheaper than a Mac Mini, but not by that much. Also cheaper than comparably sized Shuttle SFF. Less CPU horsepower than either Mac Mini or Shuttle.

It would appear that you are paying for the customizations to Linux, admin web pages, and low power/fanless operation, as well as probably fairly small production runs.

Personally, I'm going to wait for AMD's DTX systems and roll my own home server. I do want low power & quiet, but I'm too cheap for Bubba.

[Moogles]

Question. Silverstone's NS312 http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ns312/ns312.html with your choice of harddrive, and the same customized Linux version shipping with Bubba would essentially be the same thing? It uses an ARM9 Core processor with 64MB ram.

[dougz]

Question. Silverstone's NS312 http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ns312/ns312.html with your choice of harddrive, and the same customized Linux version shipping with Bubba would essentially be the same thing? It uses an ARM9 Core processor with 64MB ram.

Nice catch, Moogles.

The specs on the SilverStone website are a bit limited. If there is a way to download a .pdf of the manual, I haven't found it.

The SilverStone doesn't appear to provide some of the non-NAS services that the Bubba does (if they are desired)

Apache web server
Dovecot IMAP server (IMAP, IMAPS)
Postfix SMTP server
Fetchmail (for fetching email from other pop or imap accounts)
Download manager (bittorrent, http, ftp)
Printer server, supporting all major brands
Streaming media server (DAAP)

According to the SilverStone review on the German site epiacenter.de, noise is not an issue. The Google translation says

Noise

The point of noise must be neglected, since the Silverstone “NS312â€

[dougz]

Does anyone in the brain trust happen to know what John "Maddog" Hall uses for his 10 watt servers? Mentioned in article

Hall admitted to owning a colossal desktop machine sucking up 550 watts, but turns it off when he’s not working. The bulk of the PC farm in his own home are small 10-watt Linux machines running various services like recording his TV programs or running Asterisk, an open source application he uses for Voice over IP.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/h ... p?id=43319

I googled around and didn't find any details.

[AZBrandon]

I built my own mini-ITX linux server that my kill-a-watt says draws 10 watts for around $300 or so and have run passively, although the chipset overheats if you do sustained data transfers with the case fan turned off. You can beat on the server all you want with the fan running 5v though since that's all the cooling it needs, at least in my experience.

Anyway, I'm not familiar with this 200mhz ARM9 processor they mention. I do know that my 533Mhz VIA processor is not very fast for floating point ops, but plenty fast for general use. I even ran Windows XP on mine for a while with a meager 256mb of ram and it wasn't half bad. I'm pretty sure I could build another box like mine for $250-300, much like I did 18 months ago, meaning the main difference would simply be CPU power. Who has info on that CPU?

[dougz]

I built my own mini-ITX linux server that my kill-a-watt says draws 10 watts for around $300 or so and have run passively...

I'd bet that's what Hall did. If you don't use a Via C3/C7, you have to use a RISC chip or a severely underclocked mobile X86 to run that frugally.

What is interesting about Hall's interview comment is that he uses a 10 watt box for recording TV. That would imply a PCI slot, wouldn't it? That appears to preclude RISC boxes like the Bubba, SilverStone and NSLU2 (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/)

FYI: Cheapest fanless Via I've seen -- http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/mini.html

[MoJo]

It may use 10W, but you can get pretty low with a DC PSU and cheap underclocked Sempron or PIII system. If you can live with a bigger box, the cost savings and extra performance/flexibility will more than make up for an extra few watts used.

How much will using 10W instead of, say, 25W save you? How long would the server have to run to make it cheaper than a Sempron system? I'm thinking at least five years.

[DanW]

anyone else hada look into the ASUS 500g Premium, at £50 it can do some neat stuff

http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12& ... odelmenu=1

[dougz]

mojo said:

It may use 10W, but you can get pretty low with a DC PSU and cheap underclocked Sempron or PIII system. If you can live with a bigger box, the cost savings and extra performance/flexibility will more than make up for an extra few watts used.

How much will using 10W instead of, say, 25W save you? How long would the server have to run to make it cheaper than a Sempron system? I'm thinking at least five years.

Personally, I'm not particularly interested in the wattage, other than the relationship to quiet cooling.

I would not expect to be able to buy a used name-brand PIII box (e.g., Dell or HP) and underclock it. Don't you need to have a mid-quality or better enthusiast mobo to be able to underclock & undervolt?

A mini-ATX case with a micro-ATX mobo & underclocked/undervolted Celeron/Sempron with a couple of PCI slots and drive bays, powered by a picoPSU would be ideal.

A side benefit is that Via C3/C7s can be a bit problemmatic under Linux, due to driver issues.

[dougz]

DanW said:

anyone else hada look into the ASUS 500g Premium, at £50 it can do some neat stuff

Interesting idea. Thank you. I'm going to have to do some research. Only USD$96 at newegg.com. Appears to be a great match for my requirements.

Reviewers at newegg.com are very negative about the Asus firmware. Fortunately, open source firmware is available.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... TC-Froogle

It turns out that it is possible to take advantage of the non-routing server functions of the WL-500G Premium, using open source firmware. Here is a google translation of an article on that subject:
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en ... 26hs%3DuGD

Schroder article has an overview of hacking this type of box:
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.c ... hp/3676506

Note: different models of the WL-500 have different amounts of RAM. The Premium has 32MB, which would be highly desirable. There are cheaper boxes, with less RAM, if your requirements are simpler.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Index:FAQ
http://openwrt.org/
http://wiki.openwrt.org/

Note: It is possible to install non-routing server functions:

With the latest DD-WRT v23 SP2, it is possible to install Optware packages (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Unslung/Packages) from NSLU2-Linux (http://www.nslu2-linux.org) project. This port of Optware is tailored for DD-WRT and extends the router to full feature linux if enough storage (jffs, SD/MMC Card (http://kiel.kool.dk/), USB) is provided for packages.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware

[DanW]

...

Yeah I've had a long look into the functions of that box, and it's bigger brother the 700g Premium. I'll probably just stick with a 500g. However I'm very likely to want to play with it loads before settling down with it downloading in the background. I don't think a box like that can be kept standard for very long... hmmm


I think that's my next present to me, instead of buying the ex a present for her birthday, I'm sure she doesn't deserve it anyway lol.

[MoJo]

I would not expect to be able to buy a used name-brand PIII box (e.g., Dell or HP) and underclock it. Don't you need to have a mid-quality or better enthusiast mobo to be able to underclock & undervolt?

You would be surprised. Some can do it. The other option is to simply change the CPU.

I bought a Fujitsu Futro on eBay for £70. It came with a PIII 1.3GHz, 256MB RAM and a 256MB compact flash card with IDE adaptor. I upgraded it to 512MB RAM using some I had spare, and pilfered an old PIII 650 from work.

It ran pretty quiet with the original 1.3GHz CPU, but with the 650MHz CPU and an old socket A cooler it runs fanless. The CPU does not have a fan, and the PSU does have one but it is temperature controlled and it never, ever spins. An absolutely trivial mod, and I have a silent low-power pfsense router that has been running stable for 267 days now

The mod cost nothing, but even if you had to buy the CPU and HSF they can be had very cheaply on eBay. Many computer shops have things like that that they will sell you for next to nothing too.

[dougz]

You would be surprised. Some can do it. The other option is to simply change the CPU.

Novel approach to underclocking!

My current home Linux distro test computer is an AOpen Slot 1 mobo with a PIII running 500 MHz. Actually a socketed CPU in a slot adapter. The CPU has a 70mm (?) fan and the power supply fan that makes altogether too much noise. Clock speed setting is automatic, unfortunately. Acceptable for testing, but not for an always-on server.

With 20-20 hindsight, I wish I had bought one of those Socket A mobo/AMD Geode CPU deals that were available a while ago. Socket A heatsink could probably passively cool that and the performance was fine for my needs. Current mini-itx Geodes have 40mm fan.

Regional computer shows are dying in my area. Last time I saw a cute little HP Brio with Celeron approximately 500 MHz for USD$25. Very quiet, no need to underclock. My buying decision was about 30 seconds too late, as someone bought it. Sigh...

[MoJo]

Japanese computers are the best for quiet operation. They moved to a half-width SFF case standard ages ago, and have been making efforts to keep noise down.

[dougz]

Japanese computers are the best for quiet operation. They moved to a half-width SFF case standard ages ago, and have been making efforts to keep noise down.

Yes, the Japanese do seem to appreciate small devices with elegant engineering.

OTOH, there really appears to be widespread acceptance, except from Intel, of AMD's DTX proposed standard. I susbscribe to Google news alerts on the topic and the Taiwanese press continues to be very positive, with lots of good companies actively working on product. There was a recent article that suggested that there might even be Intel processor DTX boards from non-Intel sources.

Looks like a new non-proprietary SFF standard that has an emphasis on low cost and higher volume. Small, low-power, and (hopefully) cheap. Mini-ITX has always been low-volume, pricey, and often with poor Via driver support (at least for Linux).

[MoJo]

Very promising indeed, dougz. The old ATX standard, and even Mini-ITX are both not really suited to current trends in small, quiet, low power computing.

One thing that makes you wonder is the average laptop. 40W charger, which can run the mainboard, CPU, HDD, optical drive, keyboard/mouse/USB/etc and of course the screen, AND charge the battery at the same time.

[dougz]

One thing that makes you wonder is the average laptop. 40W charger, which can run the mainboard, CPU, HDD, optical drive, keyboard/mouse/USB/etc and of course the screen, AND charge the battery at the same time.

Just so. Very encouraging. The Mac Mini is a great example of what can be done. The Shuttle X100 & X200 are also nice, but pricey.

However, with Intel Core 2 Duo processors providing low-power performance for SFF products, plus the new Centrino platform (Santa Rosa) lowering power consumption of processors to 25W in the MoDT (mobile on desktop) market, the SFF market should not be monopolized by any particular company, the sources pointed out.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070514PD205.html

[dougz]

Be careful what you wish for; you might just get something "sorta like it."

"Gigabyte to ship mini-DTX motherboard in July"
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32039/135/

"Gigabyte unveils Mini-DTX server board"
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12468

Intended use is "home server." AMD AM2 (Athlon/Sempron), gigabit ethernet, USB x 6, PCI and PCI Express x1, two DIMM, SATA and rear panel eSATA.

Unfortunately, particularly for Linux users, the board is based on the SiS 761 GX/966 chipset, not anyone's choice for a home theater video chip. Possible driver issues; check before purchase.

***

OK, what would Intel do to counter this?

"Intel Takes on Mini ITX" May/June
http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Takes+on ... le7276.htm

Soldered-on BGA Celeron 215 (27 W) 1.33 GHz on a 533 MHz front-side bus. It also has 512KB of L2 cache. SiS662 northbridge features integrated SiS Mirage 1 graphics (big whoop!), one PCI, one DIMM, 10/100 ethernet. What appears to be 40mm fan. PATA, not SATA. Possible Linux driver issues; check before purchase.

***.

Both boards are better than Via mini-ITX (IMHO), but use really cheesy chipsets. I had hoped for at least low-end Intel, AMD, or nVidia chipsets for either compact workstation or HTPC. Having only 1 PCI and no WIFI option limits HTPC use.

The Gigabyte looks like the better bet, particularly for a home server. Likely can be cooled more qietly than the Intel. Prefer SATA to PATA in small box.

No 10 watt server, but definitely a small, low wattage, quiet server with either board. Price? TBD...

[nightmorph]

--

[MoJo]

"Gigabyte unveils Mini-DTX server board"
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12468

Intended use is "home server." AMD AM2 (Athlon/Sempron), gigabit ethernet, USB x 6, PCI and PCI Express x1, two DIMM, SATA and rear panel eSATA.

Ah! Finally a board with six SATA ports in a small form factor! I looks like Gigabyte have clocked on to what we really want.

[dougz]

One thing to keep in mind about the DTX and mini-ITX boards mentioned above -- they were announced at WinHEC as platforms for "Windows Home Server," not as workstation boards.

That Intel mini-ITX board is complete crap. Actually, I think even the VIA boards have it outclassed, especially since on paper at least, you can get the same (or better) performance using less power and no active cooling. (Also, a soldered-on CPU? Heck no!)

Agreed, I'm not impressed. To be fair, Intel seems to have directly targeted (imitated) Via's mini-ITX products, right down to the legacy ports, PATA, CPU fan, and soldered-on CPU. The Via CPUs have less cache (Intel's 512 vs 128 or 64) and much more primitive/efficient architecures (Intel Yonah vs. Cyrix/Via). On balance, I'd prefer the Intel to a Via, particularly because of the miserable Via Linux driver support & high prices.

The Gigabyte mini-DTX board looks promising -- though if rumors are to be believed, it might not be the best idea for Linux users like myself. Still, I hope it's a big step in the right direction....as long as everyone else doesn't decide that's the Holy Grail and every other company makes one just like it. I'd rather see this board kick off some fierce competition. Diversity == win for the consumer.

Also, this is the first announced DTX board. Gigabyte is a pretty good company and hopefully will follow this board with some SFF desktop/office type of mobos with better video. Also, Asus, MSI, and other companies have products coming.

Ah! Finally a board with six SATA ports in a small form factor! I looks like Gigabyte have clocked on to what we really want.

Agreed. If the non-3D video driver support (ethernet, disk, etc.) is good for Linux (TBD, I don't know), it might be a good home server board. Doubt that a low end board like this will be too good for underclocking/undervolting, but with a low end Sempron, picoPSU, low end disk, and temp-controlled fan it should be pretty quiet. After all, I've run production M$ Exchange on less capable CPUs, let alone my trivial home server needs. It would probably be hard to get a Sempron "breathing hard" in a home server app.

It would be a fun project to build a box based on the Gigabyte to do what the Bubba server in the top post does (file, download, web, print, backup, etc.) Wouldn't be silent, but it could be very energy efficient, quiet, cheaper, and more flexible.

[dougz]

Another article on Gigabyte DTX. Additional info & pictures.
http://www.dailytech.com/Gigabyte+Annou ... e7286c.htm