Home LAN server: old PC hardware vs. refurb. server

[David Portwood (BB)]

Using a server class machine should not be an issue, modern power supplies only draw what is needed on demand. From experience I can tell you that a dell poweredge 1950 ship with redundant 750watt PSU's; however at idle it barely draws 45watts. 
 My suggestion to you is to make sure whatever you decide to put in place has the latest bios and firmware, and that power settings in the bios are on a "maximum savings level". 
Good luck.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Willenbuecher <h2351fp2 at cms.hu-berlin.de>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 10:52:17 
To: ubuntu-server<ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com>
Cc: ubuntu-user<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: Home LAN server: old PC hardware vs. refurb. server

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Serge van Ginderachter wrote:

> 
> 
> On 5 March 2010 23:21, M. Milanuk <memilanuk at gmail.com> wrote:
>       In the past (6-8yrs ago) I had pretty good luck with some Dell
>       refurbished workstations... so I started wondering if maybe their
>       refurbished low-end servers might be a better idea than a
>       run-of-the-mill desktop PC pressed into server duty.  Given that the
>       load is extremely *low* (primarily backup file storage server for 2-4
>       people) in this situation, I'm more just interested in the hardware
>       lasting a good long while without having replace parts and/or the
>       computer for the forseeable future.
>
>       Any experience or comments on the matter?
> 
> 
> For a home server, you might want to take the power consumption into consideration, especially if you plan to keep that box running all
> day long.


for a couple of small office environments i bought and installed cheap 
atom desktops and equipped them with a tb drive for storage. running 
ubuntu_lts-server the result is a small and economic backup- and even 
intranetmachine which consumes less than 50 w. maybe you should consider 
that as an option.

best
michael

   ---------------------------------------
    Michael Willenbuecher
    Systemadministration
    Helmholtz-Zentrum fuer Kulturtechnik
    Unter den Linden 6 / Raum 3027
    Humboldt-Universitaet / 10099 Berlin
    +49(0)30-2093-2715 oder 2745

    http://www.kulturtechnik.hu-berlin.de
    http://www.sammlungen.hu-berlin.de
   ---------------------------------------