On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:20:05AM +0100, James Elsey wrote:

Hi Chris,

You could always have a look at "Wake-on-LAN", if your garage PC is only used for backups you could leave it switched off and wake it up over LAN when you need to do a backup, either manually or via some scheduled scripts.

Yes, I am looking at that too, I'm just looking for the easiest approach (apart from the very easy approach of doing nothing and leaving it on all the time!).

Its worth a read if your bored! ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN

Thanks for the link, I'd been looking at the Ubuntu thread on it so this is another source of information.

There is then of course the question of whether turning the machine on and off two or three times a day will wear it out more quickly than leaving it permanently running.

J

-----Original Message----- From: main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Chris G Sent: 17 August 2009 11:10 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Suspend/hibernate on a desktop system, easy?, possible?

Is it possible to get a normal desktop system to suspend or hibernate when there is no activity? I'd like to get my garage backup system to use less power when it's not doing anything (which is most of the time).

If specific hardware is good/easy for doing this then I'm quite happy to build a new system as I'm thinking of creating a new system for test and upgrade purposes so I could use my exisiting garage system for that.

-- Chris Green

---

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On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 02:07:26PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:

James Elsey wrote:

...

Hi Chris,

You could always have a look at "Wake-on-LAN", if your garage PC is only used for backups you could leave it switched off and wake it up over LAN when you need to do a backup, either manually or via some scheduled scripts.

Yes that seems the sensible way to go, assuming it is just a backup file server then a cold boot should happen in seconds, so a backup script running from the client end that wakes the box up, runs the backups and then shuts it down would seem ideal. You don't need to retain machine state between power cycles so why bother with suspend/resume at all ?

Yes, I suppose suspend/resume is doing stuff that I don't need isn't it.

If you want to run everything from the backup server itself then some BIOS's support scheduled wakeups although good luck finding anything with specific mention of it when choosing a machine.

It doesn't even have to be run from the backup server end of things, if I schedule backups at specific times I can get the backup server to power itself up from (say) 02:00 to 04:00 and schedule the backups in that window.

All it needs is a time clock to power it up at 02:00, the BIOS set up to start up on power arriving and a cron job to shut the system down at 04:00, then the time clock removes power some time after.

In fact that would seem the easiest way to do it if the BIOS allows me to start up on power up.

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 02:29:57PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:

Chris G wrote:

...

All it needs is a time clock to power it up at 02:00, the BIOS set up to start up on power arriving and a cron job to shut the system down at 04:00, then the time clock removes power some time after.

Then one day the server boots up, decides to do a scan of the disks, takes its time, and power is cut half way through a backup. Or something.

The time clock could, say, turn on at 02:00 and turn off at 01:00. The backup system then has up to 23 hours to do whatever it needs to do before it closes itself down.

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 06:27:23PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:

Chris G wrote:

...

The time clock could, say, turn on at 02:00 and turn off at 01:00. The backup system then has up to 23 hours to do whatever it needs to do before it closes itself down.

How is this better than using WoL to wake the server before the backup and having the script shut it down at the end ? It seems a bit cumbersome to me (assuming WoL is supported which there is a good chance it is on modern hardware and integrated NICs)

No, if I can make WoL work then it's the best solution I agree.

Or are you worried about the (almost insignificant) standby power of the ATX design ?

I think not, though the horrible radio interference the power supply can produce even when 'off' is another matter (though I don't really care if the garage system is noisy).