is that an atom in your server?

I got a big power bill the other day.

You probably did too (gotta love that carbon tax), but mine was just for my office. And I hadn't been using the air conditioner a whole lot.

Conclusion: the "server" I'm running 24x7 is using too much power.

It's a Dell Vostro 200 (i.e. a retired desktop workhorse) with a Core 2 Duo CPU and dual 3.5" hard drives. It runs Linux and hosts SSH, NTP, DHCP, DNS, TFTP, SMTP, IMAP, VoIP (Asterisk), CVS, iptables and rsync. Not a lot, in other words, but it does need to run all day every day.

Anyway, now that I have a dedicated NAS for storage (a surprisingly impressive Netgear ReadyNAS NV+), I thought I'd try replacing my power-hungry Vostro 200 with an Atom-based SSD server.

Atom processors are usually found in netbooks, and what they lack in processing power they make up for in super-low power consumption. They're also CHEAP.

Here's what I bought:

Antec ISK 310-150 Mini-ITX Case
ASUS AT5NM10T-I Mini-ITX Motherboard
Corsair 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM x 2
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD
Intel PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Happily, it has plenty of spare processing power for my purposes. I daresay many servers (and even more desktops) could be deployed with Atom processors without the sky falling.

Go Green. Go Atom.