egetunks

My friend want's a very cheap home server with low energy, i found this:

intel D945GCLF mini-ITX motherboard with atom 230 processor
GeiL 1 GB DDR2-667
case: ???
Western digital greenpower 500GB 16MB cache 7200RPM
a DVD-RW drive
windows home server
don't know what power supply i should get I don't think i need a powerfull one caus it's gonna need a bit energy. I found 350W power supplies under €30 but i don't know if i can trust those, cause it are brands where i never heard about.

My friend does want a home server that doesnt use more then 100W it's gonna be on 24/7, it must be stable. It doesn't have to be fast, just as cheap as possible, It must cost under €200, under €150 if possible.

Please correct me if i did forget something. please help me with this build.

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Dragoon

Well, I have exactly the same motherboard, and I also use it as a home server, a file server to be more precise, but I have a NAS HDD instead.

Its specs are:
D945GCLF with Atom 230 @ 1.6GHz (I might underclock/undervolt it if possible)
1GB Samsung DDR2-5300 clocked at 533MHz @ 4/4/4/12
80GB SATAII 5400RPM Seagate Momentus
Laptop Slot in Sony DVD-RW Drive
90W AC-DC Adapter plugged to a 90w DC-DC picoPSU.
(Check my Project log in my sig (NineBreaker), you can see a photo of the PSU I'm using)

That build looks nice, but you should get a 2" 1/2 HDD for OS and keep the 500GB 3" 1/2 for storage, if that's its purpose. You could also get a Pico PSU like I did. You get alot less mess with cables.

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egetunks

thanks for the tip. My friend said that he's not sure of that motherboards energy consumption, are there any other motherboards that support atom 230/270 and need less power? And about the picopsu, is it stable?
and my friend said he needs more space then i think a WD GP 1TB is good.
And why another HDD for OS? will that be faster or more stable?
And I still didnt find a case.

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Dragoon

The atom motherboard consumes at most 40w, including a 2.5" HDD and a 1GB RAM (22w for the chipset and 4w for the CPU).

The pico PSU is amazingly stable, I used everest to monitor the voltages, and the +12 was sitting straight at 12.00v, the +5v was always around 4.96v~5.00v, the 3.3v always at 3.32v.

Having 2 HDDs (one for OS and another for storage) is always better. Imagine you want to reformat, backing up 1TB is not an easy task. That's one of the reasons. And in theory the OS HDD is more subject to failure than the storage, since the heads are almost in constant movement due to swap and such, and the storage HDD's heads will only move when transferring files, thus less prone for head failure. That's just my theory

Well, I couldn't find a decent case myself (I was not in the mood to burn €140 on a mini ITX case), that's why I am making my own (More expensive, but at least it's how I like it to be ). Try looking on the most known stores in Belgium, you might find something.

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Photo Equip:
Body: Canon EOS XS/1000D | Bag: LowePro Fastpack 250
Canon lenses: EF-S 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 IS | EF-S 60mm ƒ/2.8 Marco USM | EF 70-200mm ƒ/4L IS USM | EF-S 10-22mm ƒ/3.5-4.5 USM | EF 24-105mm ƒ/4L IS USM [Queued]
Sigma lenses: 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM [0/360€]

Project ИιהєBязλκεя Updated May,31 2009

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egetunks

Thanks for the information, i appreciate it.
I'll tell my friend about the low energy the motherboard uses.
I've heard that i can mount mITX mobos in ATX case, is this true?
Thanks for helping.

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DuckieHo

You really should run at least two HDs for WHS for duplication.

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To answer most of your questions: (1) a fridge cannot cool a PC (2) 64-bit OS for over 3.4GB (3) If a PCIe card fits, it should work (4) Resolution, not screen size (5) If you have a question, it is not news (6) Report, not respond to Spam (7) Single-Rail/Non-Modular PSUs are not always better than Multi-Rail/Modular (8) Sequential does not matter as much as random for OS drives

egetunks

Sorry i didn't get that. WHS?
Sorry I'm still a noob T_T.
4 months long (July 2008)i'm searching and learning information about hardware, and it's very interesting, never tought i would learn that much about hardware, but I still have to learn a lot.

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Dragoon

DuckieHo is most likely refering to WHS as Windows Home Server.

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Photo Equip:
Body: Canon EOS XS/1000D | Bag: LowePro Fastpack 250
Canon lenses: EF-S 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 IS | EF-S 60mm ƒ/2.8 Marco USM | EF 70-200mm ƒ/4L IS USM | EF-S 10-22mm ƒ/3.5-4.5 USM | EF 24-105mm ƒ/4L IS USM [Queued]
Sigma lenses: 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM [0/360€]

Project ИιהєBязλκεя Updated May,31 2009

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egetunks

Oh thanks for the info, didn't see that.
Can someone please answer this question:
Does mITX fit in ATX or µATX cases?

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DuckieHo

Yes. mITX uses just the 4 upper-left screw points of ATX/µATX form factor specs.

__________________
To answer most of your questions: (1) a fridge cannot cool a PC (2) 64-bit OS for over 3.4GB (3) If a PCIe card fits, it should work (4) Resolution, not screen size (5) If you have a question, it is not news (6) Report, not respond to Spam (7) Single-Rail/Non-Modular PSUs are not always better than Multi-Rail/Modular (8) Sequential does not matter as much as random for OS drives