Re: [tlug] low power home server

[Romeo Theriault <romeo.theriault@example.com>]

I'm wondering if you can recommend a low power device for a home server.

What I need is:
- router, firewall: basically gateway between my home PCs / laptops and my ISP
- raid storage: for all my backups collected with rsync from other
remote servers
- file server, nfs or smb: for movies, mp3s, etc
- cron jobs: run rsync to collect backups, and bittorrent

While they make cheesy webpage for it and it's probably not ideal for a router I use this Artigo a2000 as a home NAS.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/artigo/a2000/index.jsp

I have mine running a custom built version of Debian Live off a usb stick so both of it's internal disks are used exclusively for storing data. Instead of having the two drives in it configured in a raid 1, I decided to just have the first drive, rsnapshoted, to the second drive every 4 hours. This way I can hold x number of days of changes on the second drive. I then share out the second drive as read-only so I can pull out any files I may need earlier versions of very easily. 

Though I really like the artigo, I've since thought of getting a soekris [1] based router that I could use as a router/firewall but also run two usb drives off of it, essentially replacing the artigo. Though tempting the soekris devices still are only 100mbit routers and I'm not willing to chip out that kind of money for a 100mbit device.

I'll be interested to see what you eventually settle on.

[1] http://www.soekris.com/ 

-- 
Romeo Theriault