On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:14 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: > On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote: > > There are a few "notebook drive" enclosures on the market that work off > > the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside. You have to be > > careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the > > enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB > > drives that do work. > > > > Then some of the "tiny-PC" boxes previously mentioned can drive several > > of these drives, providing a "server" that can run at very low power, > > albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box > > might also have its own internal drive). You may want to test one or > > two external enclosure/drive/"tiny-pc" combinations, as you are dealing > > with fairly close tolerances here. > > > > I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit > > more power most have an axillary power input to "get it over the hump", > > which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output > > providing the power to all the units at once. You might want to look at > > the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more > > power than they provide. > > > > md > > As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware > vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge > designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are > generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router > that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh > close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may > have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat. > > -Alex > > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
I believe this item, "http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/" that measures power consumption might have been discussed on the list before but the same folks now offer a more sophisticated model: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7acf/ I do endorse the ThinkGeek people. I've bought a number of useful items from them and never had a problem... -Alex P.S. These items are especially useful for sizing UPSs. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/