My Netbook As a New Server
Rather than burning my HP 2133, I thought it would be interesting to see if I can convert this as a server. Considering the fact that it does have 1.2 Ghz processor, far faster than the processors I used to work on ten plus years ago.
The weapon of my choice here is to use Ubuntu 8.04 Server for obvious reasons. After few failures, I realized that the server image is somewhat different from the USB key I used to install the desktop version. Therefore, rather than waste any more time, I used Sabrent USB 2.0 cable to SATA & IDE cable. I took out a DVD writer from my old desktop and used it to install the server. I can’t tell you how convenient this adapter is. It’s a must for every geek.
After installing Ubuntu server, I configured everything, closed the lid, and took it out for a test drive. Turns out, with 120GB of HDD, it serves beautifully as a Samba server. There’s no difference in performance, since the bottleneck really is the network. It serves as a great Apache server too. It’s a great little web server and even runs MySQL alongside without any problem.
I’m very pleased with the performance of the netbook as a server. I think these netbooks can be converted into inexpensive home server or even small business server using Linux. No, I wouldn’t use it to serve up anything that requires serious resource, but who knows?
Comments
3 Responses to “My Netbook As a New Server”
Very interested in using a netbook as a home server (my consulting practice’s website and FTP server). I have contacted Acer, HP, Dell, etc. and none of them recommend using their netbook as a home server. Why? The Atom processor and 1GB of memory is a far cry from my current server using a dated P3 with 512MB and 30BG hard drive. With OS (XP), Apache, and Filezilla FTP Server, resources are only using 20GB on hard drive.
It’s really interesting that you’d contact any manufacturer to ask them. Did you really expect them to tell you that you should use a netbook as a server?
I have a server (IBM Netfinity) with dual P3s, RAID 5 (SCSI HDDs) and 2GB of ECC RAM. For the uses I mentioned in the article, I have not found any differences in performance.
Thanks for the reply. I was not suprised that the manufacturers were negative. That is why I found your post so helpful. With the simplicity of my web-services, an Atom powered netbook with a 32Gig solid state hard drive should be more powerful than my existing setup while reducing operating costs and heat.