Re: Low cost, energy efficient home pc server?

["Ben Eisenbraun" <user=82@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 07:40:02PM -0400, Robert La Ferla wrote: 
> I'm looking for recommendations for a small energy efficient PC to be used 
> as a home NFS server: 

Given your requirements, I'd just build one from parts on Newegg. 

> - Should run Linux 

That part is pretty easy these days. 

> - 2-3 PCI slots 
> - SATA is a plus (especially if it can handle 4 external SATA drives, 
> non-RAID is ok) 
> - energy efficient 
> - should be SFF (small-form factor) or mini-tower 
> - VGA out 

I'd go with a micro-ATX motherboard.  You can find them with 4 SATA and 
onboard VGA and a couple PCI slots.  If you want eSATA, add in cards are 
fairly cheap, and some of the motherboards will come with an onboard port. 

For the case, I'd go with an ATX mini-tower, so you can fit a standard ATX 
PSU and 4 hard drives.  The micro-ATX cases tend to cost significantly 
more. 

To meet the energy efficient bit, I'd add an 80+ efficient power supply and 
an AMD 45w CPU. 

Some example products: 

BIOSTAR MCP6P-M2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 / nForce 430 Micro ATX AMD 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138111

AMD Athlon X2 4050e 2.1GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W 65nm Dual-Core 
Processor - Retail 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103257

Antec Earthwatts EA380 380W ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371005

Thermaltake WingRS VG1000BNS Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133048

OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227178

> - < $500 

The system outlined above without hard drives is $249 before shipping, and 
there's a $20 rebate, so the shipping is probably a wash. 

You could probably build it a little cheaper with careful parts selection, 
and you can make it more energy efficient by doing a lot of research and 
buying very carefully.  E.g. you could spend 4x as much on the PSU and get 
something that is closer to 85% efficient. 

That said I think the system outlined above is a pretty good compromise on 
all those fronts. 

-b 

-- 
character is fate.                                     <heraclitus> 

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