_xxx_ said:
I'm looking for a low-power, silent machine for media/dl/home server purposes. I'm tired of having my big heater on 24/7 and would like a little box to replace it, so I'd use the big one for gaming only.
What HW should I look for? I need no muscle, just a run-of-the-mill PC, preferably SFF.
EDIT:
Or would a Mac mini be worth a try?
The Mac Mini and even a SFF should probably be ruled out if you intend to use it for "real" storage. I am not talking about speed here, something the Mac Mini certainly lacks, but simply capacity. I would recommend you find a decent enclosure that will make it simple to add drives. This is important because it is very costly to replace drives with larger ones instead of simply being able to add more for expansion purposes. The more the better, especially considering many mainboards today offer physical connection well beyond four drives.
I was tempted to recommend a NAS (network attached storage) device, but these are also often limited in how far they can be upgraded capacity wise. They are ideal except for this factor.
If a big box puts you off, consider the fact that you could hide it and it doesn't need a monitor if you are running Linux or BSD. All you would need to do is use a monitor to set it up, make sure it has network access where it would be permanently placed and then let it run headless from there. You would then use SSH to access and administer the server through the network. You can also use tools like WebMin, an Internet browser based interface. Samba for Linux ensures compatibility with your Windows network and will also let you explore other network protocols which may offer specific benefits. However, it may be problematic to have your Windows clients cooperate (because that's how Windows is).
Buying a full sized or mid sized tower will take away a lot of pain as components will be ATX and easy to come by.
I would recommend looking into a AMD Socket 939 solution. This offers Cool n' Quiet which dramatically reduces power draw when CPU utilization is low. You would not need an expensive CPU at all, but it would be a good idea to buy into the 939 platform for future options. 512MB should be fine and because a Linux server would be running without a GUI it would not consume many resources.
If this sounds interesting we can go into more details.
