Home-made Solar Power Server?

[requiemnoise]

Anybody looked into building a solar power server? The price of flash drives are coming down. There are various low powered embedded motherboard kits and I am digging the Intel's ATOM processors. I was thinking about building a cheap home made server that runs totally off the sun. Anybody looked into it?

thanks

 

[Michael Daly]

I've been looking at this for some time. I currently don't live in a place where I can set up a PV panel.

The PV panel, batteries and inverter/controller bits are straightforward. My challenge is to get the MB/CPU and other bits sorted out.

I like the ultra-low-power MB and CPU combinations that are available using mobile components. However, the prices are too high for my tastes. The Atom and Via look good. I'd like them to be a bit higher performance - next gen. For example, the dual core Atom and the new Via are coming out "soon." I find that the Atom MB power demands on some of these combinations are not quite as low-power as the CPUs themselves.

I do wish that the MBs could use simpler PSUs - requiring an ATX connector PSU is a pain. If they only required a simple power connect (like a few nano-ITX MBs) then I could rig a simple voltage regulator to the solar battery output instead of converting to 120V and powering an ATX PSU.

It seems the "ideal" MB/CPU for this is always just around the corner.

 

[Nenu]

Current flash drives dont use less power than hard drives.
Its worth looking/waiting for newer flash models with decreased power consumption if that becomes an issue.

 

[requiemnoise]

Current flash drives dont use less power than hard drives.
Its worth looking/waiting for newer flash models with decreased power consumption if that becomes an issue.

You sure about this? HDD can eat 5w idle to 25w at max. Sdhc is 0.5w idle to 5w max.

I like the ultra-low-power MB and CPU combinations that are available using mobile components. However, the prices are too high for my tastes. The Atom and Via look good. I'd like them to be a bit higher performance - next gen. For example, the dual core Atom and the new Via are coming out "soon." I find that the Atom MB power demands on some of these combinations are not quite as low-power as the CPUs themselves.

I do wish that the MBs could use simpler PSUs - requiring an ATX connector PSU is a pain. If they only required a simple power connect (like a few nano-ITX MBs) then I could rig a simple voltage regulator to the solar battery output instead of converting to 120V and powering an ATX PSU.

It seems the "ideal" MB/CPU for this is always just around the corner.

Isn't dual-core Atom already out or is it just HT? Via and Nvidia will have better performance, but newer Atom is going to be released soon. Why don't you use PicoPSU?

 

[longblock454]

The PV panel, batteries and inverter/controller bits are straightforward. My challenge is to get the MB/CPU and other bits sorted out.

Stay away from inverters if possible, there is no reason to bump to 120V on many systems.

Check these out:

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/.f

Even the most power efficient 120V ATX power supplies are about 85%, the above are 96%.

These wouldn't necessarily work for disk arrays, but great for Routers simple web servers etc.

 

[Michael Daly]

Isn't dual-core Atom already out or is it just HT?

Not out yet but it should be out in Sept. if the rumours are true. Apparently the shortage of Atom processors has pushed the release back from mid-summer.

Via and Nvidia will have better performance, but newer Atom is going to be released soon.

Which does provide the performance I want will be determined if and when I ever get to do this. One problem is that some processors have great low-power performance and a poor MB power consumption (relatively speaking) while others are slightly poorer performance but the overall package of CPU+MB is power stingy. Performance has to be weighed against power consumption.

 

[Nenu]

You sure about this? HDD can eat 5w idle to 25w at max. Sdhc is 0.5w idle to 5w max....

Peak figures for a hard drive are for a very short period of time and only need considering if your battery/capacitive storage device cannot cope with the high peak.
In use, average power consumption can be very low (depending on the drive used).

A low capacity SSD can be lower power than a hard drive but if you plan on running higher capacity SSD's / arrays, these use a lot more power.
As the SSD will be your sole storage medium, I imagine you will require a sizable SSD / array.

Wikipedia mentions similar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Advantages

For low-capacity flash SSDs, low power consumption and heat production when in active use, although high-end SSDs and DRAM-based SSDs may have significantly higher power requirements. (Flash)

I read a good report comparing hard drive and SSD power consumption which was in favour of the hard drive but I cant locate it.

 

[Michael Daly]

Even the most power efficient 120V ATX power supplies are about 85%, the above are 96%.

These are an option. My ideal server is several MBs with one acting as a file server and the others just crunching. All would boot off their own USB drive or flash memory card (not SSD) and then share a single big drive via GB Ethernet. So, if each MB is, say, 25W and there's 10 MBs, the total will be 250W + one big drive (about 10W). Many current small MBs don't support GB Ethernet yet, supplying 100MB only - I hope that changes soon.

Hence, I'd prefer to get one or two PSUs that can supply all the MBs in parallel. That would require some fiddling with the run-of-the-mill ATX PSUs to make it work - mostly with the "power is stable" signal and such.

Many small pico PSUs can get pricey fast. Certainly they are the solution for a single MB and driving them directly from battery is ideal.

 

[longblock454]

These are an option. My ideal server is several MBs with one acting as a file server and the others just crunching. All would boot off their own USB drive or flash memory card (not SSD) and then share a single big drive via GB Ethernet. So, if each MB is, say, 25W and there's 10 MBs, the total will be 250W + one big drive (about 10W). Many current small MBs don't support GB Ethernet yet, supplying 100MB only - I hope that changes soon.

Hence, I'd prefer to get one or two PSUs that can supply all the MBs in parallel. That would require some fiddling with the run-of-the-mill ATX PSUs to make it work - mostly with the "power is stable" signal and such.

Many small pico PSUs can get pricey fast. Certainly they are the solution for a single MB and driving them directly from battery is ideal.

This model might be an option, 250watts:

http://www.mini-box.com/M4-ATX?sc=8&category=13

And they do have this mini with dual gigE:

http://www.mini-box.com/Jetway-Versa-J7F4K1G5D?sc=8&category=99

What apps/programs etc do you require?