Multi-purpose Cupboard PC spec

[Steve B]

Hey folks,

I'm planning on building a machine that I can put in the cupboard and use as my router, file server, printer server box.

I have two hardware options available:
1) A 939 4200+ X2 with associated board and 1GB RAM
2) Dual PIII 1GHz with associated board and 256MB (for now) RAM

I'd be looking to upgrade the Dual PIII to at least 1GB RAM before the end of the project, so that should not be an issue.

The drives I have are all SATA, so I'd be looking to get a SATA PCI card to run the drives in option 2.
I can use the onboard ones for option 1.

I'm pretty sure option 2 would be capable of everything I require it to do, but just wanted some opinions from others.

Also, I'd be looking to purchase some SATA ports (I'll need 8 altogether) so I'm not sure which card(s) to get.

My budget for the card is around £100.

If I was to go with option 2, that would give me the option of selling the X2, motherboard and RAM to offset the cost of the SATA card.

Any thoughts?

[arthurleung]

I'll have to say the X2 will have a (much) lower power usage than your Dual P3 when you take into account of the CnQ (or manual underclocking/undervolting). And you will also get USB2 support. Not to mention you will be able to use relatively cheap ram compared to the P3.

If you do go for option 2, SATA cards are quite cheap. SCAN have a line of OEM cards which is quite cheap and does the job fine. I doubt you are looking for some hardware RAID solution (which you don't have the budget for anyway).

I would however suggest you to get a high efficiency power supply, which will cut down noise from the server and also save you some money in long term.
In my past experience using a better power supply cut my power usage by 20% and save me 210kWh a year which is about £21 (or more). And you get ROI within 2 years.

On the other hand you could go for Option 3, i.e. buying an Atom-based desktop and sell the other two systems. It will save even more power and probably give you ROI within 2-3 years.

Try to make use of very old computers is becoming less favorable as the energy cost is always higher (as long as you don't slap in stupidly power hungry GPU in there)

[Steve B]

Ok,
So you think Option 1 is the best to go for, and just sell the PIII board?
What kind of price are we talking for an efficient PSU? I'll be using on-board graphics so wont need any silly connectors, just sata ones

[Pob255]

Is that dual as in two p3 cpu's on a single mother board? or the Pentium D? (although I thought the Pentium D came in with the P4 not P3

I'd deffinately stick with the AMD X2
And a high effecency PSU (although don't go silly on the wattage as you'll not need it)
ALso depending on cupboard, check ventalation, don't want to turn it into a hotbox and roast the hard drives.

[Webby]

PSU wise I would look at these listed in price order,

Silverstone Strider ST35F, 350W Scan Link £28
Corsair CX400W, 400W Scan Link £38
Enermax Pro82+, 385W Scan Link £41

The 88% efficiency of the Enermax probably makes it worth the extra pounds over the Corsair but if you looking for cheap then the Silverstone could be just the thing and still have >80% efficiency.

[Steve B]

Thanks Webby, I'll take a look at that enermax one

[Steve B]

Oh noes! I've just taken a look at the mATX board and it only has 2 SATA ports

What do you reckon: either upgrade the board to a full ATX one to get the extra ports, or purchase a sata card with 4 ports?

[Webby]

If your going to upgrade the board to full atx remember that the are a limited number with onboard graphics the are plenty of uATX boards out there with 6 SATA though but finding one that runs S939 may be more troublesome.

[Steve B]

it'll only require a graphics card to set up, which i have.

Would i be able to use an ATX board without a graphics card?

[Jay]

why not sell it all and go the Atom route?

[Steve B]

i had considered that, but that would still leave me in need of getting more SATA ports.

[Steve B]

Update on this:
I've ordered a new shadow card, after I lost the one I originally had, so I'm having to wait for that to arrive.

I'll be using software raid within debian, but the board only has 4 ports, and i'd like to purchase another 2 1tb drives on monday.

What should I be purchasing alongside the drives that will allow me to have the extra ports, without having to spend that much extra?

Cheers!

[Funkstar]

Something like this should do the trick:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=676568

Seems expensive for all it is though, I would have thought you would be able to pick something up cheaper on eBay or somewhere similar. How about an Amazon seller?

EDIT: Yup, from £0.99 plus shipping - http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=...ller&scoring=p

Or, I have a 5 (or is it 6?) port XFX REVO you can have if you want to risk it

[Steve B]

It'll be software based raid so my only problem is if the card fails. Else I could just hang off the 4 1TB drives off the 4 SATA ports on the board already, and use the smaller SATA hard drive attached to the added port as the file system drive.

[Funkstar]

The REVO can just act as a SATA controller, you don't have to use its really dodgy RAID functions.

But then it can play up with some newer drives for some reason.

I would just get a generic SATA controller, or a Highpoint RAID card if you can get one cheap and skip the RAID functions, they can all be used as controllers as well. MDADM should be able to come with pretty much anything configuration of drives and controlelrs as far as i know.

[Jay]

Have you looked at the general running costs of this? I can no longer run my home server due to the cost of Electricity these days 2.5TB on that as well!