OT: Lowest-power small server solutions - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

1 Nov 2005

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Subject: Re: OT:  Lowest-power small server solutions
   From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
   Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:02:46 -0800
     To: cctalk at classiccmp.org

On 11/1/2005 at 9:52 PM Pete Turnbull wrote:

 However, many of the Sun/SGI/HP type of machine
might run more quietly
since they don't need big fans for CPU and PSU.  They also don't need a
framebuffer as Jules said, *and* no keyboard.  But they will tend to be
slow, and you'll have fun trying to doing all the IP masquerading
firewally stuff on anything but Linux or BSD, which is going to be more
trouble than it's worth on most of the above. 
Hmmm, the Compaq Deskpro was built at a time when Compaq seemed to care
about quality.  The PSU fan isn't one of those 4" screamers, but a slower
4.5" very quiet model.  The expansion card backplane is plugged into the
motherboard and pulls out from the chassis for easy card servicing.  There
are air intake holes at the bottom rear of the machine so that the airflow
first passes over the motherboard and actually makes some sort of sense and
keeps the floppy drive and CD pretty clean.  No annoying little cheap fan
on the CPU heatsink either.

Maybe I can't do MUCH better than that.

Are 5.25" IDE drives any more reliable than the 3.5" models?  I've got a
few old Quantum units--the largest is about 8 GB, but I'm using a 3.5"
Maxtor in the box right now.

Cheers,
Chuck 
I have a Dell 466 pizza box thans near dead silent (no cpu fan and PS fan is slow speed).
Only problem is it's 486DX/66.

The other cead silent one is a Modular Systems box (486/50) with a 700mb 2.5" 
drive inside.  What 1.2A at 12V gets you is 10Bt, SVGA, Parallel, Serial all
in a box 5"x3"x11". Add one monitor, PS2 mouse, PS2 Keyboard and go.  Even

knows how to netboot.

Also a AT&T Globalist 620 pizza box.  Only p100 but quiet.

Allison