On Sun, 30 Sep 2007, Timothy Murphy wrote:
ed@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I have been running for four years a VIA C3 800Mhz computer, with 512MB of
RAM, and a pair of 80GB IDE drives. It pulls 45 watts from the wall when
idle - and 55 when 'crunching' away.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I've been a little surprised, looking at a few setups, how little energy
one can save. My incredibly ancient PIII with 2 SCSI disks and one IDE
disk, seems to use just over 80 watts in normal usage. I was sort of
expecting I'd be able to get this down to 20-30 watts, but the really
low power systems I've looked at all seem deficient in one way or
another.
Well don't give up so fast. For example, Western Digital offers the
Carvier GP line of drives that idle at 4 watts. And you could to use 2.5
inch drives from laptops, the Scorpio from Western Digital idles at 2
watts.
I would consider spinning down the drives, only if I had laptop drives.
They are small and light - so much less wear and tear.
Another option is Flash, for the '/' partition. Then laptop drives for the
data. 4GB Compact flash media is about $50. You could make the 20 watts.
ed
