<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Jim Olding <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:olding@smashtech.net">olding@smashtech.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">> Anyway the question is would a net-top be powerful enough to setup as<br>
> a file and media server. I had plans on setting up Apache as well,<br>
> but I hadn't around to it yet. I used sockso, but I might setup a<br>
> more powerful media server in the future when/if I setup an<br>
> entertainment PC next to the tv.<br>
><br>
<br>
</div>Absolutely, it will do the job just fine as long as you're just<br>
serving the files over a network share. Transcoding however would kill<br>
it.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Those small, power sippin' little boxes really look appealing as<br>
> compared to what I did have, which was a full mini-tower scrapped<br>
> together with the remains of past desktops. I would put ubuntu server<br>
> on it, I wouldn't need X. How powerful are those little atom chips?<br>
><br>
<br>
</div>I actually did a writeup of my switchover to using an Atom system as<br>
my fileserver, and the power savings it yielded.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://smashtech.net/2009/03/12/going-green-in-the-home-datacenter/" target="_blank">http://smashtech.net/2009/03/12/going-green-in-the-home-datacenter/</a><br>
<br>
I've since added another 1TB software RAID5 array to it, and its been<br>
running great.<br>
<div><div></div> </div></blockquote><div>Interesting piece. Everyone should <br>have access to a Kill-A-Watt. The first<br>thing they'll do is replace every bulb<br>in the house with a CFL. <br><br>Power used per unit of capacity has<br>
clearly been going down for decades.<br>Image the cost of running a disk farm<br>of 1GB drives to equal the capacity of<br>one 1TB unit, which probably uses the<br>same or less power as each 1GB drive.<br>True, there are bandwidth and redundancy<br>
issues.<br><br>CPUs have much small linewidths today,<br>and on a per instruction basis use a lot<br>less power today. And of course a lot of<br>function are built in today, as well as in<br>chipset. Few thing too much about how<br>
many slots they have in their motherboard<br>today, unless it's for more memory.<br><br>All arguments to upgrade one's hardware<br>every 3 to 5 years.<br><br> -- Bob<br><br></div></div>