Energy-hogging Linux, what to do?

[mark at buttery.org (Mark J. Dulcey)]

Nicholas Bodley wrote:
> 
> Wondering: Are the critical factors cooling, and HD platter bearing 
> life? Anything else? Seems that my suggestion to use a laptop 24/7 was 
> not a good idea; I'll readily accept that it was probably bad advice. I 
> try to arrange fans to cool off hot spots.

Yes, those tend to be the most critical ones. (And don't forget fan 
bearing life! Power supply fans frequently die; fortunately, they're not 
hard to replace.) Though hard disk bearings seem to last quite a while, 
especially if the drive runs continuously; starting and stopping the 
drive frequently is likely to actually be worse. (The typical desktop 
pattern of on 8-10 hours and off for the rest of the day is less of a 
problem.)

Some laptops, especially older ones, run cool enough that heat isn't a 
problem, even in extended use. Those are the ones that are likely to 
make decent candidates for light-duty server use. The original hard disk 
is probably near the end of its days, but you'll need a bigger one anyway.

> I'd love to have my HD spin down after some extended period of 
> inactivity! Maybe that can be configured; I don't know. Afaik, the 
> commands to HDs do include spin down while power is applied.

On a typical server, you'll never get that extended period of 
inactivity. If nothing else, you'll have spam attempts coming in often 
enough to activate your email server; even if the spam is discarded, 
you'll get an entry in your email log, and that means disk activity.