Baseline P4 system (should be easy to beat):
System:
P4 @ 2.8GHz (unknown core revision, but old)
2GB DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9200 (AGP)
ATX mobo
80GB IDE Maxtor-shit HDD
ATX tower - shitty construction with room for only one 3.5" HDD (the previous owner had lost the clips/shims)

Power (+HDD):
idle: ~90W
max: ~200W
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-power-consumption,1750-9.html

power cost per year (idle):
90W * 24hrs * 7days * 52weeks = 786,240 watt-hours = 786.24 KWh
786.24 KWh * $0.11/KWh ~= $86.49 per year to run
This doesn't count time spent actually working.

AMD E-350 Build_001:
Parts:
MOBO: ASUS E35M1-I
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131698 175.00

RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR3 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134784 9.00

CASE: Lian-Li PC-Q08B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112265 110.00

PSU: 250W ATX PSU that I have laying around 0.00

total (+hdd): 354.00

Power (+HDD):
idle: ~30W
max: ~40W
cost/year: ~$28.83
saving: ~$60
payoff: 5.8 years

Notes:
+ plenty of space for dropping in more hard-drives or expansion cards
+ sturdy case will stand up to any abuse through the years (crammed into a closet with shit piled on it)
+ it'll drive some OK graphics in case my primary box dies and I need something, anything, to use
+ beats the Atom for both power efficiency and performance
+ fanless. Less noise. Less dust. (worried about the temps though)
+ built-in amenities like Wi-Fi and SATA 6.0
+ no useless bullshit like serial or printer ports.
+ all standard parts = no wild contortions to get things to run.
- $100+ for a case? dammit, there goes the budget! (not too bad, gives lots of space...)
- ~30W total system power. Unsavory. Can't we go lower? (come on, $30 a year for power? go get a damned job, hippie)
- even a 250W PSU is over-kill. I'm no expert, but wouldn't this hit the energy efficiency?

AMD E-350 Build_002:
Parts:
MOBO: ZOTAC ZBOX nano all-in-one (bare-bone)
http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-amd-e-350-apu-barebone-zbox-ad10-u.html 276.00

RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR3 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134784 9.00

HDD: 40GB 2.5" HDD I have laying around for the OS 0.00

HDDENC: Rosewill RX35-AT-SC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182180 25.00

total (+hdd): 370.00

Power (+HDD):
idle: ~30W
max: ~40W
cost/year: ~$28.83
saving: ~$60
payoff: 5.8 years

Notes:
+ sleek little box will fit anywhere. very portable too for when changing apartments
+ built-in amenities. Love the eSATA, Wi-Fi, and USB 3.0. Bluetooth? don't use it, but OK
+ mounting points on the case- screw it to the underside of my desk maybe?
+ SDHC card reader- throw the OS on there maybe...
+ internal slot for 2.5" HDD. Make it all one package, or just save from putting the OS on the big drive
+ beats Atom for both power and performance
+ drives OK graphics- could double as a back-up box in case the big-rig dies
- display port or HDMI-shit only. What if all I've got is some ancient VGA monitor?
- entirely non-standard. If shit breaks then the whole thing is dead
- on the expensive side
- requires an external HDD enclosure for that big drive (the internal slot is 2.5" only)
- ~30W total system power. Unsavory. Can't we go lower? (come on, $30 a year for power? go get a damned job, hippie)

PIC RELATED TO: >>19887248
Intel Atom D510 Build:
Parts:
MOBO: ZOTAC NM10-B-E
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500048 110.00

RAM: G.SKILL 1GB DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231170 13.00

CASE: Lian-Li PC-Q08B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112265 110.00

PSU: 250W ATX PSU that I have laying around 0.00

total (+hdd): 293.00

Power (+HDD):
idle: ~35W
max: ~40W
cost/year: ~$33.63
saving: ~$47.37
payoff: 6.2 years

Notes:
+ cheaper than just about anything else. I could throw that extra money at another 1.5TB HDD...
+ Supports VGA for that old monitor...
+ fanless. (worried about temps though)
+ plenty of space in the case for upgrades/addons
+ mobo supports PCIE x16-- RAID card or ION addons...
+ mobo supports PCIE x1 -- ethernet card addon in case the mobo ethernet burns out in a thunderstorm
+ good amenities: eSATA, and Wi-Fi
+ standard parts
+ PS/2 keyboard port. Put that ancient keyboard to use.
- bad newegg reviews: broken RAID support, flaky Wi-Fi module
- shitty old RAM standard. Come on Intel, do try to keep up.
- no SATA 6.0Gb/s support
- mediocre CPU performance. Hyper-threading notwithstanding, the AMD e350 still beats it.
- modest video performance. This ain't an HTPC, but even the ARM boards support higher resolution. Come on, Intel, at least try!

>>19887211
>>19887248
Why are you discounting the E350M1 from Asrock? They're $100 and do everything you want.

Also, you might want some more power if you want to do all the tasks you want...

Hosting minecraft is a buttload of RAM.

Also, if you want real backup, i suggest RAID1. I would also forgo on board wifi, and just get a cheap dongle.

>>19887136

Bumping for OP. Looks like you have a lot of research here bro and I respect that

>>19887342
>Also, if you want real backup, i suggest RAID1

Only if you're using two hard drives. 3 or more drives and I'd recommend either RAID 5 or RAID 6.

>>19887321
>case: $110
wtf.gif

>>19887367
Need 4 drives to do raid 5, 5 to do raid 6.

The write speed on em' is a little slow, but raid 5 is great raw space/usable space ratio for raid.

i was figuring OP would buy 2 drives at first.

>>19887136
OP, if you want/need a Minecraft server you pretty much HAVE TO go with x86 and with a fair bit of power & RAM behind it, I'm not sure how even a dual core Atom would do.

Also, I think most ARM embedded boards only have 100Mbps Ethernet, this is only about 12.5MB/s total transfer rate for your home server, it may or may not be enough for you, depending if you frequently transfer large files through your network.

An Atom/AMD build would be able to get true 1Gbps Ethernet, providing maximum transfer rates of ~125MB/s. Of course you probably won't transfer that fast due to various bottlenecks, but even if you get 50-60MB/s, you're still getting much better performance than what you could form an embedded board.

I personally will make a NAS out of a Raspberry Pi, when they come out, should be enough for my needs. It's only $35 too, so it's not like I spent a significant sum if I decide it's not enough for me.

So the real questions are:

1. Is 1GB of RAM sufficient to run a webserver, FTP server, smb, ssh, and rtorrent?
2. If "yes" to number 1, then is there enough RAM left over to run a Minecraft server too?
3. Is a dual-core ARM chip (dual Cortex A9's) powerful enough to run everything from #1?
4. If an ARM box isn't powerful enough yet, then can any parts for the Atom and AMD e350 builds be had for cheaper and still provide the required functionality? (i.e. the case)

>>19887645
1. You should be fine with much less
2. I'm having serious doubts regarding this
3. That shit will run on anything as long as you don't throw crazy load at it.
4. You can skip the case entirely if you want, it's not like it actually performs an essential function, especially if you just chuck the thing in a closet and forget about it.

>>19887728
on #4, yes that's precisely why the ((TrimSlice Barebone && Panda Board) + external 3.5" HDD) is so attractive: it's relatively cheap.

OP here.

I'm leaning heavily toward a TrimSlice H based on:
1. ultra-low power
2. has a built-in 2.5" bay
3. has giga-bit ethernet

Two last things on that then:
1. I worry about hard drive speeds over USB 2.0. But this shouldn't be the bottleneck given the already low IO speeds for HDD's
2. The Minecraft server probably wasn't going to be used anyway, but it's an example of the kind of miscellaneous jobs such a 24/7 server might be given...

>>19887944
>Losing upgradability
>Paying more
>not having SATA

For using this as a NAS, you're losing out brohime. USB 2.0 is gonna be a botttttlllleeeeennneckkkkkkk

I'd just get the e350m1 from asrock. 100 bucks, power, ability to upgrade RAM, sata. Not just that, but many of these only cost $20 a year or so to run. I hate to say it, but are you REALLY that poor, especially for something so useful.

Also, you can undervolt your CPU and all that kinda fun stuff.

>>19887944
hard drive speeds over USB are not fun, when compared to SATA and such. The max on 2.0 is 60 MB/s, and I've yet to see that on ANY hard drive over USB.

mind you, you can stream off it. but with gigabit network, your basically cutting your speeds in half.

>ctrl-f
>raspberry
>1 result
Doing the same thing OP (actually replacing an existing home server with something that draws less power), but going to wait a few months.

faggot, you ever heard of intel nm10?
miniitx boards? a miniitx build with a dualcore n525 uses max 20W peak with 2hdds

>>19888035
USB 2.0 = ~60MB/s
HDD transfer rates are inside that envelope. Especially a Caviar Green.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0

Also, I'd be losing out on all that cool and sexy ARM/Tegra2 action. x86 is an inefficient architecture in comparison. But it's not like I'd actually be playing around with this thing, to buy something just because the tech appeals to one's ideology would bring me down to the macfag level.

So instead, I just really find the power saving compelling. I can easily afford ~$30 a year for electricity, but:
1. an ARM box would pay off several years sooner than an x86 build
2. that low power means I could literally shove it under the bed or something without fear of overheating it.

On a different note, if you're inclined to masturbate over sexy new tech coming out- google Nvidia's "Project Denver" It's similar to what AMD's doing with the e350, but it'll be a custom CPU (probably an ARM variant). This bodes very darkly for Intel/x86.

>>19888268
go fuck yourself
why would you use usb2 for a nas?
why would you even use usb for a nas?
why not use sata?
get an itx board with an integrated processor and stop making shitty threads

>>19888035
Actually, it's more like 25W with 1HDD and a system fan. ~30W with two HDD's and a sys fan.

At any rate, and ARM board still beats the shit out of that for power while only lagging about 10% behind in performance.

By the way, OP DID consider an Atom nm10 build. See >>19887321

>>19888268
>arm/tegra2
enjoy your shitty waste of space, money and time
enjoy your lack of proper software/support
enjoy cancer

>>19888298
USB 2.0 can be considered for a NAS if:
1. the server box doesn't have SATA on it (i.e. a Panda Board or for plugging a 3.5" drive into a Trim Slice)
2. the transfer rates of the HDD are slower than the speeds supported by USB 2.0
3. the network transfer speeds are slower than USB 2.0 so it doesn't matter anyway (i.e. a slow uplink over mediocre DSL)

The only downside to using USB 2.0 for a NAS is if you're somewhat OCD (which I am) and you dislike having a bunch of little boxes dangling like the arms of an octopus from the server box.

>>19887321
>>19887248
>>19887211
will these even last around 6 years?

>>19888325
Actually, that TrimSlice H isn minuscule so it doesn't waste space. It's not a waste of time because I am quite familiar with Arch Linux (indeed, any distro of Linux). It might be a waste of money given that it's about 10% slower than an equivalent x86 machine (so about $30 of wasted money).

lack of support doesn't matter at all: when was the last time you got support from Microsoft or Apple about anything? Aren't you capable of using your own machines and solving your own problems? Lack of software???? Wow, someone doesn't seem to have heard of this little thing we have for Linux called "shit tons of free software". Let alone the fact that all of the software that I plan to run on this box is either available in source code or available pre-compiled for the ARM architecture or both.

cancer? bitch, please. ARM has been around for over twenty years and it has a 90% marketshare in the mobile space. Furthermore, it's growing quickly and it... oh. So it's just like cancer... the kind that all your x86 base are about to belong to given that x86 can't compare for power efficiency.

Also: U Mad.

Yeah I need a low power home server build too, but ARM is unacceptable, until Win8 ARM comes along. I don't know whether many of the programs I require would have ARM builds or not, and I am not very tech savvy at compiling from source even on an x86. I'd need a detailed guide on how to set it up if I went with an ARM box. I want to get something that will let me stream animu over 3g/4g, set up ftp, ssh, rdp, all the bells and whistles.

I also want to get a cheap Windows 98 box to throw all my old DOS games and shit on. There are no Windows 98 drivers for any of the shit I run on now and I didn't even notice until recently. I could try virtual machine but afaik graphical games don't fare so well in Virtualbox...

>>19888482
this

>>19888619
http://archlinuxarm.org/

Say hello to Arch Linux on ARM. Pretty much everything is pre-built for you. You don't have to compile anything. Any instructions you might need to set up, say, ssh or an ftp server can be found on the Arch wiki:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

(of course, if you can't follow instructions then you just need to stop using technology in the first place).

>>19888619

You are building a windows server? Good luck running a minecraft server(or the OS itself) without a buttload of RAM.

>>19888717
>>19888482
Given the light workload and the fact that HDD's tend to last about six to ten years... yes.

>>19887848
((TrimSlice Barebone || Panda Board) + external 3.5" HDD)

>fix'd

bump for some actual content

>server on arch
wtf? I'm sorry but arch isn't stable enough for a server, ignoring the security issues

>>19890897
not stable enough for a server?? I don't think that's true. Anyway, this ain't some fucking billion dollar data center- it's a home nas that happens to host some other hobby shit.

Not stable enough? please. lrn2configure.

bump

>>19887589

Pogoplug v2 Pink has gigabit ethernet. I'm running one of these, hacked to use vanilla Debian instead of their shitware.

Java doesn't run for shit on them. Cortex has Java-native instructions, but I haven't seen an out of box JVM that's smart enough to use them yet,

In four years, nobody is going to run a home server on anything but ARM.

Intel's gonna regret selling off Freescale, lol.

>>19891388
Arch used to overwrite the config file when doing upgrade.
For servers, this is a fatal mistake to make.
And this is the reason why one of Arch developers get hacked before.

>>19893066
this

personally looking forward to seeing standardised ARM hardware for windows 8. I know they have some awesome SoC shit on the way. A tiny as fuck ARM server running windows home server (windows 8 edition) would suit me perfectly.

(inb4 windows is teh suck)

Heres my suggestion for a low power HTPC

>>19887589
>An Atom/AMD build would be able to get true 1Gbps Ethernet, providing maximum transfer rates of ~125MB/s. Of course you probably won't transfer that fast due to various bottlenecks, but even if you get 50-60MB/s, you're still getting much better performance than what you could form an embedded board.
I've had firsthand experience with the Intel D945GCLF(2) and the D510MO boards. The onboard realtek is total shit, it can push maybe 30MB/s with a good tailwind.

>>19888268
>USB 2.0 = ~60MB/s
LOLno. Try 30MB/s tops.

>HDD transfer rates are inside that envelope.
Maybe 10 years ago.

>Especially a Caviar Green.
You smokin something?
>/dev/sdb:
>Model=WDC WD15EARS-00Z5B1(...)
>Timing buffered disk reads: 302 MB in 3.01 seconds = 100.39 MB/sec
And a DD of 16GB:
>17179869184 bytes (17 GB) copied, 165.482 s, 104 MB/s

OP: My advice is to avoid the Atom (and anything lower than it like ARM) unless you're a total poorfag. I dunno how well the E350 performs.

>>19887645
1. Yes
2. No. 1GB itself is not enough to run a Minecraft server. Source: Hosted a minecraft server on a college connection for about 4-5 friends. The RAM usage easily went above 1GB with just one or two people connecting. It was expand ridiculously when people wandered into new chunks.
3. Yes.
4. >Getting a case
>whyyyyyyyy

Minecraft needs some intense shit to host. At least (note, AT LEAST) 4GB of ram or an good Intel Core 2 duo (with that you'll be running with pretty high load, at least with 3-4 people).

ARM boxes or e350's just won't cut it. If you're going to have a lot of people on it and want to provide good service, get 8-16GB of RAM and an i5 or i7.

http://canihostaminecraftserver.com/

>>19893137
I'm curious to see what comes down the pike, because right now everything I know about on ARM boots using U-Boot or eCOS-Redboot, and Windows 8 is specified to boot from UEFI.

Does anybody know, are there existing ARM boards that are already running UEFI bios?

>>19893152
This fucking sucks. I have a quad core xeon 2.4Ghz and 24 gigs of ram, but my upload is only 2mbs so I can only host SIX people?

>>19893206
Minecraft is pretty bandwidth intensive. I had to carefully monitor my college bandwidth quota of like 20gb/mo when it was 5-6 people.

>>19893232
OK, the next step is, recommend some VPS?

>>19893247
There is no decent affordable standard VPS that will run Minecraft decently.

The biggest problems VPSes generally have are low RAM, high disk I/O latency and somewhat higher network lag. These are the two primary things that kill Minecraft.

>>19893265
At first I was thinking that the game's still in beta, but then I realized how much state it has to keep track of. Damn, no easy out.

>>19893288
It's not even all that much state. It's overhead from the combination of shitty programming and Java.

But the main problem with VPSes are that I'm not aware of any reliable (not lowendbox just-started-host promotion crap) VPS with 1GB of RAM for under $20. At $20, you can get cheapass dedicated servers from various companies like OVH that will eat your $20 VPS raw.

And 1GB is pretty much the bare minimum for good performance with actual players connected, doubly so if the server's being used for anything else too.

>>19893337
Java networking doesn't need to be slow, but yeah, most of the time it is. The game does have to keep tons of state though, the whole environment is deformable.

One time I tried to build a tower as high as I could. I got pretty damn high before it wouldn't let me build any higher, and that's not even considering how far down I could have dug.

>>19893391
The height goes up to 128, which is true and pretty big, but the game only stores two bytes of data for most squares; the block type and one byte of data. There's generally 3*3*3*3 (81) chunks of 16x128x16 squares loaded which results in about... 6 megabytes of data. The exact number of chunks loaded varies based on server software, player count and player locations.

Extended blocks like chests & furnaces are stored separately, but aren't all that big either; an item is 4 bytes of data which makes a double chest about 500 or so.

Everything put together, you get maybe a 100MB. That's peanuts compared to the 300MB+ that it'll gobble up when just loaded with players logged in & no chunks loaded.