Comments on: Eco responsible power friendly small home server (part 2)

By: Matthias Pfützner's Weblog » Small power efficient home NAS server, revisited

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:42:00 +0000

[...] weeks ago, my small home-server died (I assume, of heat, but am not sure, as it had been running more than a year without glitches, [...]

By: pfuetz

pfuetz — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:34 +0000

I also wanted to answer to your question on forums.sun.com, so I’m glad you found my page…

Yes, OpenSolaris (and the older Solaris Express Community Editions) do qork strait out of the box on ATOM, no need any longer to tweak anything. I don’t know exactly about Solaris 10 (as that was, what you were asking for in forums.sun.com). But: For a small home-server I would prefer to use OpenSolaris, as it simply has more up-to-date drivers.

The only uncertainty I have right now is the NEW ATOM CPUs (D510, D410), as they do have a NEW Northbridge (called M10). I have no idea up to now, if that will be working, but my assumption is: Yes, if not on day one, then at least some weeks later…

OpenSolaris treats the ATOM CPU just like any other x86/x64 CPU, so it’s as easy as:

Use the .usb image from http://genuix.org, put that on an USB Stick, and have the ATOM System boot from the USB stick. Then doubleclick on the install-icon, and bob’s your uncle…

Still: Depending on the type of MOTHERBOARD you are going to buy, there might be some small changes as to Network Card or graphics card. But: Up to now we always managed to get OpenSolaris running on nearly every x86 type setup…

So, if you still have questions, feel free to email me…

Matthias

By: Ron Watkins

Ron Watkins — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:42:51 +0000

Matthias, im impressed that you managed to get Solaris working on an Intel Atom. Is the comments in this post sufficient to get it working or is somthing more involved needed? Is there a doc somewhere with all the install/config notes for Atom put in one place? I would like to give the Atom a try if I think that I have all the right notes on how to do it. Im interested in a small home server 24/7 with NIC and raid protected HD to share luns/fs to other PCs, monitor the house and environment. Low power is important to me, since it may run on batteries powered from a solar power if I can get it low enough…

By: Matthias Pfützner's Weblog » Eco responsible power friendly small home server

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:50:02 +0000

[...] P.S.: Added a new entry w.r.t. this server at: http://blogs.pfuetzner.de/matthias/?p=268 [...]

By: Matthias Pfützner

Matthias Pfützner — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:22:02 +0000

Thanks, Jürgen,

when I started this idea, I only wanted to use two disks, that’s why I did choose the mirror option… Now, with the 4 disks, I might also do the RAIDZ2, but still, mirror seems a bit safer…

Enjoy your Home-NAS!

Matthias

By: JuergenL

JuergenL — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:19:23 +0000

Hi Matthias,

well done!

I build an OpenSolaris NAS (2009.06) as well some weeks ago.
I copied the concept of Adam Retter, (http://www.adamretter.org.uk/blog/entries/diy-nas-software_and_hardware.xml), but use Samsung Spinpoint F1 disks and run "only" raidz1 on them.
And it was much cheaper than Adams bought.

My NAS consumes around 50 to 55W with low load, didn’t have high load until now. Transfer rate is 65MB/sec local (measured with dd), not bad.
This solution is in fact missing ECC memory. Hope it will not fail with mem errors.

Cheers,
Juergen