Basic PC with lots of drive bays

[WhoIsThat]

I would love to get a basic, low power consumption PC with lots of 3.5" drive bays for hard drives and run MS Home Server on it. However, I can't seem to find anyone selling such a PC.

Ideally, though not realistically, it would run Atom and has a quiet setup with 6 internal 3.5 bays for SATA drives. How come such a setup doesn't exist? Anything I can find reach the price range where I could get a fast desktop PC already.

Any suggestions (other than built my own) that others have as far as where I can find one like that? Just want an energy efficient file server that does backup and occasionally serve files... Thanks!

 

[CalvinHobbes]

One option would be an external NAS device or drive enclosure. If you really want it to be low power 6 hard drives seems to be excessive. How much total storage do you need and will you be using RAID of any kind?

 

[Blain]

An Atom MB running 6 or more drives isn't realistic, as you've pointed out.
8 internal HD bays should be enough for you.

 

[mpilchfamily]

You would be better off building your own rather then finding an OEM. Then you can be sure to get teh low power components you want and put it all in a large enough case to support your drive needs. Only problem will be finding the motherboard you want with enough sata ports on it. But that can always be fixed with a couple of SATA controler cards.

 

[WhoIsThat]

Here is an interesting article on this topic:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...Efficient,1997-14.html

 

[Winterpool]

HP's Media Smart server has a very appealing case, though it will only hold four drives. I'm surprised there aren't more OEMs out there jumping on the potential home backup / file server market and building similar devices. I suppose the average home user contents himself with a simple external hard drive.

It will cost money. It's tough for enthusiasts to spend several hundred dollars when it's not going to processing power, but you get what you pay for, and in the case of the Media Smart or some of the better home NAS appliances (eg Thecus), you're paying for aspects that are relevant to storage servers (easy-access drive bays, less obtrusive form factor) Having more processing power is literally a waste in this role.

Because the Atom is closely wedded to Intel 945 chipsets and high-mobility platforms (ie netbooks), its considerable potential in the HTPC (Ion!) and home server sectors has gone mostly unrealised.