[olug] Power Cost comparison on firewall boxes

[Aric]

The FoxConn has a PCI slot needed for the additional NIC.

If you are running an IDS, VPN, Squid, etc, I'd recommend a $100ish dell
poweredge 1850 off ebay.
The power cost might be a bit higher but with that you get dual server grade
gigabit NICs, 10 or 15k SCSI drives in hardware raid 1, ECC ram, redundant
PSUs, 4GB or so of ram and maybe a DRAC.

IMO paying more money for a system designed to be used as a low end user
terminal for a firewall to save $35 a year in electricity probably isn't
worth it.

-----Original Message-----
From: olug-bounces at olug.org [mailto:olug-bounces at olug.org] On Behalf Of Dave
Thacker
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 12:00 AM
To: Omaha Linux User Group
Subject: [olug] Power Cost comparison on firewall boxes

Checking power cost between the two alternatives below. 
 
 -OPPD commercial rates are 6.54 cents per kwH 
-8760 hours per year.
 -Server is always on (firewall)
 

Dual Xeon 1u server    (Rackable Systems) $120
Killawatt says .093 Kwh   draw.     
8760 * .093 * .0654 = $53.28 annual power cost

Looking at Atom based Supermicro 1u barebones $250 plus components
Comments say about .031 Kwh draw
8760 * .031 * .0654 = $17.76 annual power cost

Power savings $35.52 a year 
Cost Difference $200 (barebones would need ram and a SATA drive)
6 year payback

So buying a 1u barebones isnt practical.

I need an atom based desktop unit that would support a second NIC by card. 
Preferably Gigabit.  Anybody got a recommendation?

Here's an MSI I'm considering 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167041

Here's a FoxConn I'm considering 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119048

Thanks for looking! 
Dave


DT
_______________________________________________
OLUG mailing list
OLUG at olug.org
https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug