Cheap/energy efficient computer as a home server

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I just wish there were more cases with that form factor, that many drivebays (even internal only) and a much cheaper price!

I've had the same wishes. The HP MediaSmart server is the IDEAL Windows Home Server. Tiny, quiet, low-power, and tool-less install of four SATA hard drives. I hate to admit it, because I am NOT a big fan of HP. But they didn't everything right with their WHS product.

If anybody finds an equivalent case at a "reasonable" price, please let me know.

If you can live with only one (or MAYBE two) hard drives, the MSI Wind barebones ($140 from Newegg) makes a great Windows Home Server. It has an Atom processor, draws 30 Watts (measured) with a hard drive installed, and has Gigabit LAN, VGA graphics, and sound built in (not that you use graphics or sound on a Windows Home Server).

It onlly takes a few minutes to add memory and plop in a DVD drive and hard drive and it's ready to install WHS. Theoretically, you could pull the DVD drive and mount a hard drive in that 5 1/4-inch bay after finishing the WHS install. But it'll likely complicate restoring the server if you need to re-install WHS.

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: Knavish

Originally posted by: mxnerd
picoPSU 120w kit, only $54.95! http://www.mini-box.com/picoPS...-kit?sc=8&category=981

An embedded mini ITX computer we use at work has a picoPSU -- it seems rock solid.

Not to mention the bricks are more efficient than a normal psu.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I just wish there were more cases with that form factor, that many drivebays (even internal only) and a much cheaper price!

I've had the same wishes. The HP MediaSmart server is the IDEAL Windows Home Server. Tiny, quiet, low-power, and tool-less install of four SATA hard drives. I hate to admit it, because I am NOT a big fan of HP. But they didn't everything right with their WHS product.

If anybody finds an equivalent case at a "reasonable" price, please let me know.

If you can live with only one (or MAYBE two) hard drives, the MSI Wind barebones ($140 from Newegg) makes a great Windows Home Server. It has an Atom processor, draws 30 Watts (measured) with a hard drive installed, and has Gigabit LAN, VGA graphics, and sound built in (not that you use graphics or sound on a Windows Home Server).

It onlly takes a few minutes to add memory and plop in a DVD drive and hard drive and it's ready to install WHS. Theoretically, you could pull the DVD drive and mount a hard drive in that 5 1/4-inch bay after finishing the WHS install. But it'll likely complicate restoring the server if you need to re-install WHS.

It'll boot fine off of USB devices if you have 2 internal SATA drives. I used a USB key to install WHS on mine. I assume I can boot off of it if I need to recover just as I would from a DVD...or I could just plug in a USB dvd drive. Been running with 2 500GB green drives for several months with no problems.

Not sure if it's a bad idea, but I keep eyeing that mini PCI-EE slot in there and thinking about slapping a 128GB SSD in there if I can find a cheap one to use as my system drive, so I can easily upgrade sata drives whenever I want. Probably a pipe dream though because by the time I need that much storage, new WHS version will probably be out and I'll need 64 bit hardware anyways, so will probably go with a full upgrade. Not to mention I have NO idea how SSD performance/reliability will be with so much read/write.