Building a low power file/backup server

I have been contemplating building a low power file/backup server for home, which would essentially be utilized to back up my desktop, laptop, phone, tablet and remote LAMP server on a daily basis (backing up phone and tablet isn’t a priority).

I have a few options in mind for this:

1. Upgrade the desktop and use the 5 year old Core2Duo, Motherboard and RAM to build the server. This would be the most powerful option and will also have the oldest parts and also consume the maximum power, so chances of failure are there somewhat more.

2. Buy a Dual Core Atom; use the existing DDR2 RAM (if possible) with it. This wouldn’t be as powerful as the first option, but the hardware would be new and it will consume relatively less power. Add to that if I am able to get a server class atom board, reliability quotient should go up as well.

3. Buy a NAS with at least 2 or 4 bays, which can do the above. This should technically consume the least power, should be quite stable for at least the local backups (not sure if it can backup remote server) but would also be least powerful with limited scalability and processing power.

I would go for #3 I have a WD Mybook live which isn't quite what you are looking for (since you want multiple bays) but when I bought it, it was about $50 more than a 2tb and I just leave it running 24/7 because it can auto-spin down and it just works. I have a shortcut to my drive and I know it's just there and I will be able to access everything there.

My old Buffalo didn't spin down and seems to max out at 6mb/s (bad when wired OK when on wifi) so I turned it off at the end of the day but it has (or had?) an active dev community which might be able to help you get a LAMP server installed.

You could also use something like the HP Proliant Microserver. I built a ZFS fileserver using this for cheaper than a 4-bay NAS. Just put the OS on a flashdrive and you have 4 hot-swappable drive bays at your disposal. See below for the link.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-658553-001-ProLiant-Server-System/dp/B005KKJPCO

Awdark Actually I already have an external 1TB Seagate, but I am looking to use that as a weekly or fortnight backup device and build something I can backup to on a regular basis.

Grausch thanks, will call up HP and see what price they quote. Though I have a feeling, this will likely end up costing me at least 4 times more than a home built solution in India.

Option A, or else get a newer cheaper low power i3. Build it barebones with onboard graphics if possible (or else the lower power passive cooled card). If you want the most customizability with your lamp server, raid mdadm, and setting up samba etc exactly how you want it there really isn't a better way than with a full linux install with a decent cpu (the minimal power savings with an atom is hardly worth it imho). Especially if you're running 4+ hard drives anyway as a file server.

My home file server is a core 2 duo e6400, passive cooled nvidia card, a raid card, and 12 "green" drives and I only pull 175w or so with no monitor powered. It runs just about everything server related I can throw at it (in a home scenario) has all my backups on the giant raid6.