18 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
So, it would be pretty easy (and cheap) to build an intel atom mud server. You figure $60 for the cpu/mb, $30 for the psu/case, $20 for the ram, and then buy two hard drives and put them in a mirror raid…but how would it perform?

Do you think an intel atom could server a decent sized mud and a website/forum to accompany it? I've never used one in a server environment, so I don't know how it would fare. Just had the idea.
18 Nov, 2009, kiasyn wrote in the 2nd comment:
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yes.
18 Nov, 2009, Erok wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Considering your cell phone could probably run a MUD…
18 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 4th comment:
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kiasyn said:
yes.


That.
18 Nov, 2009, Lobotomy wrote in the 5th comment:
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Runter said:
kiasyn said:
yes.


That.

+1
18 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 6th comment:
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Everyone knows you need high end, cutting edge modern hardware to run a mud.
18 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 7th comment:
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It'd work fine.

Of course, for the same money you could probably get a nice used P4 system. I picked one up from my local University surplus for $50 (P4 2.66GHz, 2G RAM, 40g drive, built-in network/sound/video… very quiet).

But…. the atom would fit in a nice tiny case and be silent and much sexier. :)
18 Nov, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 8th comment:
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18 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 9th comment:
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quixadhal said:
It'd work fine.

Of course, for the same money you could probably get a nice used P4 system. I picked one up from my local University surplus for $50 (P4 2.66GHz, 2G RAM, 40g drive, built-in network/sound/video… very quiet).

But…. the atom would fit in a nice tiny case and be silent and much sexier. :)


It will also cost you as much as ten times more per month in electric costs to run a p4 over an atom.
18 Nov, 2009, Dean wrote in the 10th comment:
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I don't know what the electrical companies are like over there but surely the difference would be barely noticeable?
18 Nov, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 11th comment:
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Dean said:
I don't know what the electrical companies are like over there but surely the difference would be barely noticeable?


Yes unless you live in California.
The cost for running a high wattage server is about 80% less than the energy cost of a teenage daughter. ;-)
18 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 12th comment:
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If you got a low cpu load on your server that should save quite a bit of energy as well. Wouldn't it be neater to run a mud on a notebook though?
18 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 13th comment:
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Dean said:
I don't know what the electrical companies are like over there but surely the difference would be barely noticeable?


A 500 watt PCs power cost per month is measured:

((500 x 24 x 30)/1000) x Cost Per Kilowatt Hour.

First part is 360, so 360 times whatever you pay.

Residential average from this website says US citizens in Aug 2008 paid an average of 12.05 cents per kilowatt hour.

Thats $43.38 per month.

As opposed to an atom nettop which uses less than 30watts…total cost is $2.60 per month…

Now, most p4s won't use 500 watts, so adjust occasionally. Was just making an example. Servers run 24/7, so they consume alot of power.
18 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Yeah. The cost may seem trivial at first glance but keep in mind the idea was to build something cheap. If the energy cost over a year is as much as the server itself then fail on that front.
18 Nov, 2009, Fizban wrote in the 15th comment:
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Scandum said:
If you got a low cpu load on your server that should save quite a bit of energy as well. Wouldn't it be neater to run a mud on a notebook though?


I do it all the time, but my laptop's not exactly slow, much faster than an atom anyway,
18 Nov, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Fizban said:
Scandum said:
If you got a low cpu load on your server that should save quite a bit of energy as well. Wouldn't it be neater to run a mud on a notebook though?


I do it all the time, but my laptop's not exactly slow, much faster than an atom anyway,


I was always afraid of using laptops for any extended period of time.
Do laptops still have heat problems or am I still living in the 90's? :-/
18 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Tyche said:
I was always afraid of using laptops for any extended period of time.
Do laptops still have heat problems or am I still living in the 90's? :-/

Heat problems are much better than they were even a few years ago, but they're still an issue AFAIK. (My laptop gets hot enough that it's sometimes uncomfortable to put it on my lap.) Heat problems are also more of an issue on "desktop replacement" laptops; things that are meant to be portable email machines tend to be a lot better with that.
I also am somewhat superstitious about their ability to withstand as much use as desktops; every laptop I've ever had has eventually started degrading (esp. w.r.t. battery life).

Scandum said:
Wouldn't it be neater to run a mud on a notebook though?

Why? For reduced power consumption or just for the novelty?
18 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 18th comment:
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I have a high end gaming laptop and I have no heat issues. That is to say, my parts run hotter than desktops—but within intended spec.
18 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 19th comment:
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Brinson said:
Dean said:
I don't know what the electrical companies are like over there but surely the difference would be barely noticeable?


A 500 watt PCs power cost per month is measured:

((500 x 24 x 30)/1000) x Cost Per Kilowatt Hour.

First part is 360, so 360 times whatever you pay.

Residential average from this website says US citizens in Aug 2008 paid an average of 12.05 cents per kilowatt hour.

Thats $43.38 per month.

As opposed to an atom nettop which uses less than 30watts…total cost is $2.60 per month…

Now, most p4s won't use 500 watts, so adjust occasionally. Was just making an example. Servers run 24/7, so they consume alot of power.


True enough. My gaming PC (AMD Athalon X3 720BE, 750W power supply + 19" flat panel display) uses about 195 watts when typing stuff into a web browser on the desktop, with two VM's running, according to my UPS's display anyways. My file server is considerably older (P3 900MHz) and probably uses 100W, and my firewall is even older still (P2 266MHz).

We pay tiered costs here, one price up to a certain usage, then the rate jumps up for the next tier… so I'm not sure how much it actually works out to, and am too lazy to dig around for a bill.

This reminds me of the incandescent vs. compact florescent light bulb issue. There's no doubt that CFL bulbs save energy. However, I can buy a 6 pack of 60W light bulbs for $1, whereas finding CFL's for less than $2 each is almost impossible. So, does the power savings from using 15W vs. 60W offset the cost of replacing the bulbs? Especialy since they do NOT last 12 times longer, at least not in my experience. In my case, I chose to replace the lights that we tend to leave on most of the day (kitchen), but swap the rest of them with whatever is on sale when they need a new bulb.

By the same logic, I'd be happy to replace my firewall with an atom-powered server if I had a spare chunk of change AND OpenBSD works on that architecture. One presumes you'd also want to use a solid state drive (or flash drive), since hard drive motors tend to suck a bit of juice too.
18 Nov, 2009, Mudder wrote in the 20th comment:
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Agreed. I only have a laptop and while it sometimes gets hot enough for me to remove it from my lap (I also suspect it has something to do with my lap preventing proper air flow) I use it heavily and rarely restart it. Probably once every 4 or 5 days. I also run my mud project from it, though it's not open, so no one is connecting.
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