Most bang for the buck in a small server platform?

[Carson Dyle]

I'm putting together a small headless mini-ITX file server. The case used will probably be the Fractal Design Node 304, which has six 3.5" drive bays. Video performance is of zero concern. Having at least four SATA ports is important, although six would be better.

Intel's Atom CPUs might be sufficient for this, but most inexpensive NM10 chipset motherboards have just two SATA ports, and boards with more ports are considerably more expensive.

I could go Intel socket 1155 with a Pentium or Core i3, but that's the most expensive of the low-end routes.

Or an AMD solution, either a Zacate/Hudson M1 board, or one using a lower end socketed CPU.

Thoughts?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Unless you shell out the extra for the ICH9 Atoms boards. Then Atom is out for you.

E-350 seems to have between 3 and 4 sata ports. That cost 95$ for the cheapest.

LGA1155 boards have been 4 and 6 ports. And prices starts at 50$. A G540 is also 50$ and offers 3-4x higher performance.

 

[itsmydamnation]

is it just to be a NAS or an actual server? my "home server" is a 8350 with 24gb ram running ESXi with 10 odd guests. if its just a NAS Zacate solutions have upto 8 SATA 3 ports which can run raid 0,1,5,10.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Unless you shell out the extra for the ICH9 Atoms boards. Then Atom is out for you.

E-350 seems to have between 3 and 4 sata ports. That cost 95$ for the cheapest.

LGA1155 boards have been 4 and 6 ports. And prices starts at 50$. A G540 is also 50$ and offers 3-4x higher performance.

How would an AMD A4-3400 (a little under $50) compare to a G540?

The server will also occasionally be used for transcoding audio files from FLAC to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis.

 

[Zap]

The server will also occasionally be used for transcoding audio files from FLAC to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis.

How fast do you need it to transcode and how often is "occasionally?" If performance is no concern, how about this ASUS C60M1-I motherboard for $80 shipped? I have the E-350 version of the exact same board (maybe discontinued) and it works fine. Honestly I would have rather paid the $60 less for the C-60 version. These boards have gigabit Ethernet and six SATA 6GB/s ports, and are passively cooled.