[rescue] Digest Why not to use an Atom as a Server

[Mauricio Tavares]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Mark Benson <md.benson at gmail.com> wrote:
> For what it's worth, I have a Proliant Microserver AND a Atom D410MO based
> machine and they are both really cool.
>
> The Atom box is solid state and uses about 12-18W of power. It's only a single
> core 2-thread CPU but it works and shifts bits surprisingly well.
> Performance-per-Watt it cannot be beat.
>
> The Microserver is just a great bit of engineering. It has real HP Proliant
> build quality, a reasonable CPU, good RAM capacity and plenty of room for
> disks. Mine has a Radeon 5830 (fanless) and a second NIC in the PCIe slots and
> makes a very usable light duty workstation as well as server.
>
> For most 'server' applications really no low power CPU is ever going to
> perform miracles. If low power is your aim then inevitably heavy CPU power
> isn't. Low noise, upgrade capacity (HDDs, RAM, etc.) and other things are
> likely to be a much bigger priority than most, perhaps?
>
      It really boils down to your application and how much time you
are willing to put on it. I remember reading (need to find link) about
someone who went from a solaris box to a laptop to an arm box to host
the websites of his customers. It did require some compromises and
more elbow grease, but he said he was using solar panels to power the
thing and charge batteries for the sunless times of the day. In
effect, his setup would not need any power from the grid.

> --
> Mark Benson
>
> http://markbenson.org/blog
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