trying to be green..
 

I'm on the road about 150+ days per year and I leave my desktop machine at home on just so I can access my NAS storage on my machine and retrieve files (via gotomypc.com) that I might have forgotten (1TB server, about half full). I don't know how much power running the computer uses (monitor is obviously turned off), but I'm sure there has to be a better solution.

The kinds of things I have on my machine include:

- financial files (quicken)
- various utilities
- backups of my laptop files, etc

I was thinking about using something like Xdrive, but the biggest storage I can see is 50GB, not quite enough to put everything up there, plus I would have to sync when I'm back home and that could take a LONG TIME, plus I'm just not sure how smart it is to trust my financial files to a 3rd parties security (hmm, this may be a moot point as I use quicken online backup, so I'm trusting them..).


Anyway, does anyone have a suggestion of an solution that will allow me to upload about 200 GB of files, keep them easily sync'd, have access from anwhere I am, and allow me to turn off my home machine (thus decrease global warming... :) ) when I'm not home?

Will that really work? You'd just be moving the problem elsewhere because whoever stores your data will have machines running too.

You could consider building your own new machine that doesn't need cooling and uses the lowest power CPU you can get.

You are better off raising the AC temp a few degrees than worrying about 150W of power your data uses.

While it is true that the other person's machine would have to be running as well, my theory is that it would be running whether or not my data was on it (i.e. for other customers), whereas my machine is running for me and me only.

This article shows how to put your computer on standby and yet be able to access its hard drives (it wakes up on lan without the need for the 'magic packet'). Go down to the topic "How to use S3 standby states when you need your computer to be ALWAYS ON"

Yeah, but the more customers that switch to hosted storage, the more equipment they'll need to host. And these data centers run a heck of a lot more equipment than you do at home (lighting, massive HVAC systems, hazardous fire suppressants etc...). Sure, your one PC won't make a big difference, but when 1000 people think like that you keep a company in business that has a much larger impact on the environment than you.

hmm, this looks promising, I may have to try it... Thanks!

No worries. I haven't tried his technique but it seems like the author knows what he's talking about. Do try accessing your HDD from home before going on a trip to make sure the S3 works.

Good find. I'll have to try it. It looks like it'll definitely work for PCs on the "home" side of the firewall. I'm not sure if it'll work with GoToMyPC or LogMeIn since they rely on an app running on the host PC.

It might be I can at least set it to sleep and wake at certain hours.

Nope, doesn't work with gotomypc. As soon as my home computer "goes to sleep", it disappears from gotomypc.com. :(

Oh well, it seemed promising anyway.

I've taken a few hits on here for the number of servers I run at home... I wasn't willing to give up the control and functionality (or give my data to someone else), but I wanted to also reduce my energy consumption.

I replaced all but 1 "server" with apple Mac Minis. The core2 models have plenty of horse power and the power supplies draw a max of 85 watts. I have one tower left running as my raid5 NAS box with most of the hard disks in an external esata enclosure. On most of the minis, since they are "servers" I dont actually let them sleep, but I do let the hard drives spin down. When they go into low power mode they draw about 25 watts according to a meter i borrowed.

I also added storm windows to my house, started being more conscious about lights being left on, recycling, the A/C, etc.. and its made a huge difference in our power bill.

shame it didn't work.. Alternatively you may try to install the gotomypc on a very light pc (i.e. single-core) and from there 'wake up' the file server and grab your files from there. As I said in my earlier post I didn't try the method shown in the article however I would think there'd be another way of sending the 'magic packet' to wake up the pc.

Try that: http://www.remotewakeup.com/en/index.php

It may work (make sure to add a rule to your firewall/router to forward packets on port 9 to your pc & ensure your pc is configure to wake-on-lan).

Using your own PC in your home is much more energy efficient than servers and SAN/NAS in a hosted data centre. I can tell you from my current data centre experience that the blade/standalone servers and storage options take more power today than they did 3 years ago.

An option could be Mozy. It is a backup services with inexpensive rates and the client is pretty fast. You can selectively "restore" files, which essentially means you use a web interface to tell mozy what you want to restore and it will provide you with a zip of the requested files within minutes. It works quite well.

If you really want to be green, install on of these at home. ^

Or a couple of these ^ ^