[nycbug-talk] green monster server

[Charles Sprickman]

Hi all,

I was given a pretty nice 3U box that I'd like to use for a home media 
tank and for some ZFS experimentation (hoping the two go well hand in 
hand).  It's great:

Dual 2.4GHz Xeon processors
2GB RAM
3Ware 7508 Escalade card (8 ATA ports)
8 250GB ATA drives
Backplane for said drives/card

The problem is that at idle the thing draws over 300 watts.

I'm looking for some input on how to make it less power hungry.  I'm 
assuming the power supplies are really overkill, but unplugging any one of 
them results in a screeching alarm that can't be disabled.  I'm thinking 
of putting a single standard PS in there, hopefully something that's 
relatively efficient (pointers welcome - most power supplies are lucky to 
be 70% efficient).

I can do without dual processors.  Getting rid of one should leave me with 
enough to serve files on a FE network.

Too many fans, at least 10.  I'll remove some until I see the temp getting 
too warm for the drives.

As I can afford it, I'll retire drives and put in larger units to bring 
the drive count down (see ZFS above - hopefully it's magical enough to 
allow this type of tinkering and migration).

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Charles

___
Charles Sprickman
NetEng/SysAdmin
Bway.net - New York's Best Internet - www.bway.net
spork at bway.net - 212.655.9344