Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
You don't *need* much power, but old PC components tend to consume more watts than the latest stuff when running idle. 2 idle cores takes about the same power as one idle core, but the sales volume is in dual core so they are sometimes the cheapest component you can buy.
My main requirement for this sort of machine is that it is silent. I have a single core 3000+ AMD chip on a 6150 chipset motherboard. These days I would use the more efficient 8200 chipset so that those big fans can turn even slower. VIA chipsets consume less power, but then they are old and so you have to add a gigabit ethernet card which defeats the power saving and cost advantage (I do sometimes move virtual machines, video files etc around so gigabit is essential for me).
A bit of grunt in the CPU is nice though. I can use a secure web connection to my disk box at home and tell MythTV to record some program off freeview (I have a cheap PCI TV card in there) and it also handles email for my domain. That would all work on a slower CPU, but having no lag on the interface is good.
I suppose what I am saying is that it is easy for a NAS box to get mission creep, so expansion & performance can end up mattering.