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I decided on a Shuttle KPC. It was $209 for the complete system (Intel Celeron 430 1.8Ghz cpu, 80gb sata drive, 512mb ram, gigabit ethernet, 1 pci slot) INCLUDING shipping! It comes with Foresight Linux. I'll probably run FreeNAS on it with a SATA 4 port card. Or swap it with another server... If it works out, at this price it may be worth getting 1 or 2 more for dedicated servers. http://us.shuttle.com/kpc/index.htm Any experience with Foresight Linux? The system does not have a CD/ DVD so I will need to use USB to install anything like another distro. On Aug 4, 2008, at 10:15 PM, Matthew Gillen wrote: > Robert La Ferla wrote: >> I'm looking for recommendations for a small energy efficient PC to >> be used as a home NFS server: >> - Should run Linux >> - 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 >> - < $500 > > I have two SFF boxes, one Shuttle and one ASUS. They're both great > in terms of noise and power (both have Athlon64s with frequency > scaling). Running linux is almost never an issue unless you're > buying the absolute latest and greatest, in which case you > occasionally have to wait a bit for the nforce drivers to catch up. > But if you're going for cheap, you're buying slightly older stuff > anyway. I got each for ~$200, sans CPU, memory, HD, etc. I like > exactly the right stuff in my computers ;-) > > The 2-3 PCI slots might be tough to find on a SFF. The good news is > nowadays all them have built in gigabit ethernet, so there's one > less slot you need for that... I guess the question is: what do > envision needing PCI slots for? In the old days, they were > essential for expansion, now most peripherals are USB or firewire > anyway... > > Some of the newer shuttle and ASUS boxes say they support eSATA, but > it's not clear to me whether you can multiplex a single eSATA jack > on the back of the computer into multiple external drives, a la > USB. I'm guessing you can't. Depending on what you want your PCI > slots for, you could use one (the only one?) for an eSATA card like > this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3646095&CatId=1455 > > You could also use firewire ports in conjunction with external drive > enclosures. > > HTH, > Matt
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