Hints on kernel config for a dula pII/450 system anyone?

[Matthew Dillon]

:...
:> be upgraded beyond 128 MB RAM, and I needed more RAM
:> because the Squid proxy caused paging sometimes.  Other
:> than that, the Pentium-75 was perfect and even ran fanless
:> (with a huge self-made heatsink) at ~ 30 °C.
:
:I've been curious to figure out what the CPU power/electrical power 'sweet
:spot' is for a home server; the C3 CPUs sound not bad.

    For a machine that is always on, but mostly idle, you could calculate
    how much you pay in electricity.

    My machine room at home has about 6 computers in it and eats around 
    1000 watts.  So, 1000 x 24 hours = 24 kWh/day.  At $0.25/kWh that's
    about $6/day == $180/month == $2190 a year.  However, the cost is
    mitigated considerably by my solar system which can supply around
    16 kWh/day on sunny summer days, so I don't actually pay that much.

    A good chunk of the power in my case comes from the three RAID arrays
    (one in my home server, one in pkgbox.dragonflybsd.org, and one in
    the LAN backup machine).

    For a single home server which is mostly idle and only packs one hard
    drive (or maybe two), lets take a guess and say 150 watts average power
    use.  150W x 24h = 3.6 kWh/day.  At $0.25/kWh that would be around
    $27/month.  If your home otherwise does not use lots of electricity
    and you aren't in the highest cost tier the cost is probably more
    around $0.12/kWh, which would be $13/month.

    A geode (6W) or via (15W) box would cost maybe $1-2/month to operate.
    The question is whether it is worth the pain of not being able to do
    things fast when you need to to save ~$10/month.
 
					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at xxxxxxxxxxxxx>