[vox] Sheevaplug

[Bill Broadley]

On 11/15/2010 01:54 PM, Michael Wenk wrote:
> I'm looking at replacing my NSLU2, as its starting to behave unreliably.
> I'm looking at replacing it with a Sheevaplug.  Or should I look at the
> Guruplug ?  Anyone have any advice here ?  I'd prefer to stick with
> something linux based and configurable for my home NAS.

I'm pondering similar.  I have 2 desktops on 24/7 (with 3 users in the
household) and bought them with an eye towards quiet and low power (for
the performance).  I'm however pondering a NAS/small server, and in my
looking around I found:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/11/diy_zero_energy_home_server/

It's basically a story about how a guy move 600 watts of server he had
running at his house to a solar powered Sheevaplug.  Amusingly his blog
with some of the related info is of course running on said plug.  It
definitely took some tweaks.  It's a bit far from the mainstream though,
can't use the current ubuntu and there's not a normal Java.  He managed
to tweak a different JVM to work though.

Seems like the Debian NAS project migrating from NSLU2 support Sheevaplug:
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Debian-for-NSLU2-and-SheevaPlug/

I was pondering building a NAS myself with a mini-itx atom, and the
LIAN LI PC-Q08 case.

It's not perfect, but it's the smallest I've seen for 6 drives and
should easily handle the heat load of an atom board.  Speaking of which,
I'd suggest against the atom 330 (DDR2, dual die, no onboard memory
controller, gpu, pci-e or memory controller).  While the Atom (single
core CPU) runs pretty cool the north bridge often takes dramatically
more power than the CPU.

Instead I'd recommend:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121442

It's a single die, DDR3, onboard GPU, GPU, and PCI-e controller so the
entire package is faster and lower power.  It's pretty high on the
price/performance ratio costing a grand total of $85 for CPU, GPU, and
motherboard.

If you want to go a bit more further up market (and spend a few
additional $100) I'd check out this article:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Home_Server_Build_Guide

I don't think that much CPU can be justified for just serving out files,
but if you want to do a few more intensive things this might be justified.

So basically arm:
* Cheap (starting at $99)
* No FPU
* Less mainstream linux (for things like the current SUN JVM).  Not sure
  about fedora, suse, rhel, ubuntu, but debian does support arm.
* USB connected storage or SD card.
* Very power efficient.
* fast enough to stream video to network (no transcoding)
* 32 bit only

Atom:
* Less cheap (starting at $200 ish without disks)
* FPU
* Standard desktop linux (redhat, suse, ubuntu, debian, etc), and
  standard java,
* more power than atom
* Usually limited to 2 sata (without expansion card)
* not good for driving a HDTV without being careful
* Fine for streaming video from disk to network
* Fine for driving HDMI with the right GPU/drivers
* Potentially some transcoding duty, depends on resolution
* 64 bit

Celeron/core i3:
* More expensive than atom (starting at $300 ish)
* Faster than atom
* More power than atom
* Easy to directly handle 6 SATA
* Easily handles driving a HD display (for media center like use)
* Better than the atom for transcoding.
* Can more easily drive HDMI for media center like duty.
* 64 bit

So a random case, atom, 4gb ram runs around $300 (before you add
storage), the lian li adds another $20-$30 ish of a more normal mini-itx
or micro atx case.  Be warned that the atom is low power enough that
some larger power supplies will misbehave with such a low load.