Fattening up a Thin Client: silent cheap home server
Do you have a server at home running 24/7? Having permanent access to your home network can be very useful at times, as is sharing media and printers, or managing your downloads. My last server was actually a downgrade from my previous box in computing terms. It was no powerhouse, but being a fanless Epia with minimal power consumption and very low noise was a huge upgrade for me. I just connected the printer, some external USB drives, installed Debian and it has been sitting in a corner for ages, working flawlessly.
A while ago I was looking for a similar noiseless solution for my brother in law and a friend, and the itch started all over again. I decided it was a good moment to upgrade my system. The low power consumption and being fanless were a must, but I also wanted it to have integrated gigabit ethernet. So I though using a Thin Client would be a good solution. These are normally fanless and have very little power needs, and some even have decent processors and Gigabit Ethernet. After looking for a while, I settled for a Fujitsu-Siemens Futro S400 that I found dirt cheap in Ebay.
It has GbE, and an AMD Geode NX 1500 processor that is actually an embedded Athlon clocked at 1GHz that runs on 6W: not bad, given it was introduced on 2004. The S400 boots from a 256MB CF and even has a spare IDE connector on-board. It lacks an internal power connector though, so I had to resort to using external media. One could get the 5V/12V from the motherboard, especially since the PCI port is not being used at the moment, but the system already gets hot enough as it is. I don’t want to add another heat source for now. However, unlike last time, I wanted to keep the OS on the compact flash. Sometimes the external media might not be available to boot, and besides… CF are fast for these things. I just swapped it for an 8GB/x133 I had laying around, and that’s much more than I need.
Installing on flash memory, however, requires certain considerations to prevent the installed OS from degrading due to a CF failure. These devices usually have a limited number of write cycles, so the set up must minimize the write-operations as much as possible. Once it is done, you can use most thin clients exactly as any other computer.
Basically:
- Create a minimal installation on local machine
- Customize it to your needs and add any other required packages
- Make it possible for the root FS to run being mounted read-only
- Dump the installation to the CF and make it bootable
- Profit!
It’s not rocket science, but I’ll be writing something about it for those who could find it useful. Check out the home server tag if you are interested, and good luck!
UPDATE: Here is a photo of the AC adapter, in case you want to Google it
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Have you try the IDE hard disk? How size?
As a matter of fact, I have :-)
Just last week I tried an internal 250GB 2.5″ HD and it works perfectly. I just had to buy this adapter, took out the cables from the molex connector and hooked them to the white 2-pin connector located by the PCI slot. It gives you the needed 5V. I just had to chop off a little bit of the pins on the cable, and being hollow I didn’t even have to weld them to the motherboard.
You’ll probably have to update the BIOS to the latest release (I’ve got the Q revision). I you want a 3.5″ HDD you’ll also have to get 12V from the power supply somehow. Another friend has done that with his S400, although the disk didn’t fit in the casing and he left it on the surface.
hi,
i have a question about the power supply connector. it looks like a 4-pin connector. is it possible to tell me how it is wired?