What would you do with a weak/low powered system?

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onething

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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I have an Asus E45M1-M Pro laying around collecting dust. It's basically an mATX board with a soldered-on dual-core APU (E450). More specs here: http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/E45M1M_PRO/specifications/

I regret purchasing it and now it's too late return it. So, I'm stuck with using it for something.
HTPC might be a good idea, but I would need it to be ridiculously simple to use for non-computer savvy people. Not sure where I would start with that.

Anyway, what would you do if you suddenly got one of these boards for free?
 
Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,298
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HTPC might be a good idea as long as you aren't trying to encode video or something like that. The iGPU should be plenty for 1080p streaming, or stab in a passively-cooled HD6450. Install W7 to use the included Windows Media Center (WMC) or a more lightweight OS like Ubuntu coupled with XBMC/Koda and you should be in business.

...add 4GB RAM, a small SSD for the OS, a storage drive.... that's assuming you want or need a HTPC, otherwise it would make a tolerable browser/light duty PC.
 
C

Compman55

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2010
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1. HTPC
2. Pack a bunch of high capacity HDD's in, and use as a low power storage server.
3. Finish as low budget build.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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I've got an E-350 mini-ITX rig, that needs some company. Want to buy it, then you could have a pair? :p
 
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kommisar

Member
May 21, 2012
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That looks like the basis for a decent file server and print server. Low power, decent amount of sata ports, lots of slots (of both flavors) for additional sata controller cards. Put it in a case with lots of hard drive bays, attach lots of harddrives and Load FreeNas on it.
 
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onething

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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Charlie98 said:
...add 4GB RAM, a small SSD for the OS, a storage drive.... that's assuming you want or need a HTPC, otherwise it would make a tolerable browser/light duty PC.
Click to expand...
Say I were to use the lightweight XBMC/linus-type OS, would an SSD even make a significant difference? I always figured you'd only want to use an SSD with windows, just because Windows is far more bloated.

kommisar said:
That looks like the basis for a decent file server and print server. Low power, decent amount of sata ports, lots of slots (of both flavors) for additional sata controller cards. Put it in a case with lots of hard drive bays, attach lots of harddrives and Load FreeNas on it.
Click to expand...
I looked at the FreeNAS solution; The huge RAM requirements for ZFS baffled me. Wasn't this supposed to be a lightweight solution? Considering the OS can be run off of a USB flash drive.

Also, I currently use Snapraid as my backup solution. Being filesystem friendly has made it extremely convenient as everything is currently in NTFS format. Changing to another would prove to be challenging, considering my drives are all occupied. Perhaps I'm better off with a Windows Home Server-type solution?
 
Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,298
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onething said:
Say I were to use the lightweight XBMC/linus-type OS, would an SSD even make a significant difference? I always figured you'd only want to use an SSD with windows, just because Windows is far more bloated.
Click to expand...

An SSD will show better response time with any OS... more importantly, better response with applications and programs. How much that is worth to you is a question for you. If you don't anticipate large storage needs, a 120 or 240GB SSD in lieu of a spinning hard drive is all you need.

FWIW, I don't build a box anymore without an SSD.
 
Virgorising

Virgorising

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2013
4,470
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VirtualLarry said:
I've got an E-350 mini-ITX rig, that needs some company. Want to buy it, then you could have a pair? :p
Click to expand...

:biggrin:

And, if they mate, who knows....they could produce a Haswell baby! Might be an Intel gene somewhere in there, and the Intel gene is dominant.
 
Last edited:
ch33zw1z

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
39,471
20,154
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onething said:
I looked at the FreeNAS solution; The huge RAM requirements for ZFS baffled me. Wasn't this supposed to be a lightweight solution? Considering the OS can be run off of a USB flash drive.
Click to expand...

FreeNAS has ZFS, but also NFS. ZFS was intended for enterprise systems, not a SOHO NAS.

bottom line, don't use ZFS if the hardware resources aren't there. IIRC, ZFS required 1 GB of RAM for each 1 TB of storage.
 
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