Intel Atom: Eco-Friendly Home Server Platform

I want to take a couple of minutes and talk about how compelling the Intel Atom platform is for home servers. There has been lots of buzz around the Atom for the past few months since it’s a very low-cost, uber-power-efficient processor. The Atom can be likened to a vintage Volkswagen Beetle: low-cost and low-power and it will still get you to 65MPH on the freeway, but you wouldn’t really want to use it for anything other than to “get from point A to point B”.

Similarly, the Atom meets the basic computing requirements of average users but not much more. This means you can check email, browse the web, use Office but can’t utilize advanced HD video, 3D games, and so forth.

An exceptional use for the Atom platform is a home server due to fantastic performance per watt. It uses around 2 watts of power under load, whereas a common processor such as the Core 2 Duo uses 60W+. As energy costs go up, the total cost of ownership of a server is skyrocketing. So while the intial cost of a server or desktop suitable for running as a server may be low ($500 on a budget), at 24/7 the energy cost will be $100-$400/yr. In contrast, a 24/7 Atom-based server would cost approximately $10-20/yr. Substantial savings.

There are some great uses for Atom home servers:

1. BitTorrent. Dedicated 24/7 upload and download without worrying about utility bills.
2. Home automation. You can leave a home-automation management server running 24/7/365 for probably under $7/yr in energy.
3. Centralized storage. You can make your own NAS - most efficient in conjunction with the above services.
4. Music server. Always-on access to locally-stored and Internet music.

Using the Atom platform for a home media server is possible, but only with streaming lower quality video. HD quality isn’t going to work.

TranquilPC offers an Atom-based D945GCLF motherboard for about $100US. Throw RAM, flash-based storage, power supply, and a case on top of that and you’re looking at about $200-$300 total. TranquilPC and other vendors are starting to offer pre-built systems as well, but generally run $500 and up.

Anyone have other ideas for the Atom platform? Inexpensive solar-powered server or desktop, maybe?

Atom 300 series as a server

Now I know I'm not the first person to attempt using an Intel Atom based solution as a server

, but I know there will be many out there who may be considering doing the same so I thought I would share my experiences with you.

Now you may ask why I would use an Atom instead of a more powerful platform that would be available for around the same price? Well, basically it comes down to the fact the power usage of the Atom is really low and a the intention of a server is for it to be running 24/7. Energy prices in the UK are cheaper than they used to be, but are still high enough to keep you mindful of which appliances and lights are left on. I've played around with spare P3 parts and this functioned well as a server, but I was always mindful of the power it was using.

What do I use the server for? The main use is as a file server for myself and two members of the family, this could have been achieved with a NAS but I wanted the additional flexibility. I have Orb running so that I can access my music collection from my mobile phone - this isn't great but this is down to limitations of the Orb mobile software

and the 3G network in my town. I don't want to leave my main PC, which uses anything up to 500W, downloading a torrent all day - I now do this on the server.

What else have I had it doing? You may be surprised to hear that I've actually used it for transcoding divX to DVD a few times - on occasions where the speed of the process isn't the be all and end all it works great. I've often left a batch of 5 or 6 video files converting while I've been at work, safe in the knowledge that it's barely using any more electricity than if it was idling or serving a few files. In terms of speed, I've monitored it a couple of times and it appears to transcode slightly less than real-time - so a 90 minute movie should take around 95-100 minutes to transcode. (This is with TMPGEnc DVD Authoring software).

What OS do I use? I use Windows Home Server, a simple XP setup with shares would have been fine but I like some of the extras that Home Server offers - such as the ability to access all of the shared files remotly, and backup PCs automatically. Windows Home Server is essentially Windows Server 2003 with a few tweaks to make it more friendly to the mass market. Most of the configuration is done remotely via "connector software" but if you remote desktop to it, you'll find a lot the elements of Server 2003 are available to you. You could essentially use it as a web server as well if you wished.

Full hardware details...
Intel DC945GCLF2 with integrated (Dual Core) Atom 330, Intel Graphics, Realtek HD Audio, Gigabit LAN
2GB DDR2 RAM (To be honest I think this may be overkill for what I use it for, but RAM is so cheap these days)
Western Digital 250GB IDE Hard Drive (Pulled from an old external MyBook drive).

Bad points of the setup...
I can't fault the performance of the system but in my case the hard drive needs to be looked at, hence the reason why I don't have more storage than 250GB. I have no RAID or secondary backup, and the drive itself consumes a lot of power and generates more heat than anything else in the system. Until SSDs of a large size become available and more affordable then this will just have to be the way. I backup all my really important stuff online anyway but I'll be looking into redundant backup options in the near future.

In summary, if you're considering using an Atom as the basis of your server then go for it! It works much better than I imagined it would, CPU usage is always in single figures when doing normal server tasks.

If you would like any more information, or would like me to test how it performs doing other tasks then please let me know I will be happy to try it out.

Hope this was interesting/useful to you.