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Eee Box vs Eee PC for headless server at home

M

MDesigner

Platinum Member
I'm trying to decide between an Eee Box and an Eee PC. What I'd mostly use it for: home LAMP server, also a SSH proxy. Maybe once in a while putzing around with some software (it would be running Ubuntu Desktop, not Server). So if I were to get the Eee PC, it would be running with the lid closed almost all the time.

An Eee Box is a bit cheaper, of course it has no built-in display.. so I'd probably use a KVM to switch between it and my Mac Pro.

Any advice on deciding between these two?
 
Heat might be an issue when getting an Eee PC for a system that is always on, of course you could always get a notebook cooler for that thing to sit on.

It might not even get that much heat if u get an SSD option on the netbook.

I'd totally get a EeeBox if it had 2 netcards and set it up as a small firewall system.
 
Originally posted by: aarondeep
Heat might be an issue when getting an Eee PC for a system that is always on, of course you could always get a notebook cooler for that thing to sit on.

It might not even get that much heat if u get an SSD option on the netbook.

I'd totally get a EeeBox if it had 2 netcards and set it up as a small firewall system.
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you can build a dual-core atom box for under $300 easily (with htpc case/psu), last i checked. id do that and add a second nic. i was considering this at one point but im more interested now in a quad-core box for VMs if i can manage it

you can use a kvm to look at the system, or just use VNC. over the lan, VNC is pretty usable (as long as you dont want to watch any media).
 
MSI has a Wind atom barebones at newegg for $140 that includes case, power, motherboard, CPU. If you have RAM and a HD this would be even cheaper.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
MSI has a Wind atom barebones at newegg for $140 that includes case, power, motherboard, CPU. If you have RAM and a HD this would be even cheaper.
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I have 2 of these here. Highly recommended. One is my fulltime WHS box with 2 sata drives, the other a testbed for whatever I'm messing around with for work at the time that might require a physical machine. Both have the cheapest 2GB sticks I could find in them. Hard to beat that for the price. I did get one system DOA from newegg though. But both that I have now have been running 24/7 for a couple of months, no problems.

They also have a CF slot on mobo (dumb design requires you to remove mobo from case to insert card though) and a mini pci-e slot, pretty nice for such a cheap barebones, especially if you want to build a quiet system. I had ubuntu running off of a 4GB CF card for a while just to try it out. You could also get a cheap mini pci-e SSD for your OS as well.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
How quiet are they? I've been thinking of using one for a music / media server and for netflix & hulu streaming.
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Almost silent. The single system fan is barely noticable. HD noise is the loudest component of them.
Be aware that another design flaw is the 3.5" drive cage is directly above the fanless cpu and NB cooler, which gets pretty hot. Some advise placing your system drive in an adapter in the 5.25" cage if you only have 1 drive. I'm living dangerously with 2 green drives, one in each. 😉

If you're talking about using it for hulu/netflix streaming using something like playon, it works perfectly. My WHS box streams those via playon and even does tversity transcoding to my 360 in addition to normal WHS roles, plus some torrents. Playing "HD" hulu content directly on the box is pretty dissatisfying, I tried that on my ubuntu system with boxee.
 
I was just looking at an EEE box as well for this exact same reason, then I found this thread. Is it easy to install XP pro on so I can remote desktop to it? I also want to make it into an svn server, using dyndns.com to get a dns to point to a dynamic IP. Screw it on the wall right next to the router and I'm all set. God I am so geekily excited about this. Anyone see any potential hiccups in the plan? It seems quite simple to me.
 
The answer is, no, it's not exactly EASY to install XP pro on the thing, but it is certainly possible, there are just a lot of wacky steps involved. But it can certainly be done from a thumb drive, mine is humming away on the wall right now. What a lovely little box this thing.
 
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