reptilematt

I'm trying to move away from NAS and external hard drives. I was thinking about setting up a small Mini ITX file server.

This is what I'm looking at:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EADS 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
WINTEC AMPX 2GB (2 x 1GB)
ZOTAC IONITX-D-E Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6 GHz
APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX


It will unfortunately be over a wireless N connection.

I currently have all my music feeding from an external USB hard drive. If I transferred music to a wireless ITX server, would I get around the same seek speeds in Winamp?

I may use Server 2008 or Windows 7 -- not sure yet.

metallicamaster3

Under WLAN access from other computers in my house (since my computers are all Ethernet connected), Winamp functions just as if it was locally available. Wireless-G 802.11g (54Mbps) works splendid, Wireless-N will be no problem whatsoever.

On my LAN, my home server has all my network's storage, and when mapped as such to client machines speeds are nearly identical (Except for file transfers, SATA is 3Gbps, Gb LAN is 1Gbps, but even 1Gbps is nice and speedy).

If I may suggest, to use a Linux distro (such as Ubuntu x64 Server Edition). Most people are scared to go to Linux but it's really not bad whatsoever. Everyone's afraid of the command line! :\. Once you learn the basics you won't be able to stop yourself! That server of yours could handle DHCP, DNS, File Serving (via SMB), HTTP... you name it.

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reptilematt

Awesome. So then I should be able to host all my music on this wireless server to all my desktops and be able to use Winamp library as if it were an external drive (like I currently have setup). I like it!

DuckieHo

The ZOTAC IONITX-D-E is $169... yet you won't be utilizing its main feature... ION.

Just get a Atom 330 mobo + 802.11n card for under $110.

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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

reptilematt

If you can find me a cheaper solution with a good wireless card, dual-core processor, and a good looking case for less than $140 I'll consider. Newegg has a combo deal with the case I mentioned above for around $180. To me it doesn't make sense buying a cheaper VGA/Mobo/CPU without wireless; then having to buy the case separate for $40 and on top of that a $15 NIC. So for maybe $10-20 more I get a good graphics card with HDMI

I'm wondering if a 1.5 GB would be overkill. I want to keep power consumption on a minimum, but maybe a RAID setup would be better for backing up data.

DuckieHo

Didn't know it was a combo deal....

If you want to save power... get a single 2GB DIMM.

If you want RAID and to save power... get two 2.5" hard drives.

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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

metallicamaster3

If all this machine is going to do is file serving, then simply find a cheap case (or reuse an old one), buy any cheap motherboard with at least two or four SATA ports, some cheap RAM, a cheap CPU (or old RAM/CPU like a Pentium 4 and DDR400) and throw it together like that.

I'm sure you could build a machine as such for <$100, and you might even be able to do so via local part searches or even spare parts you might already have.

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the_beast

Is size really that important?

If not you could do much worse than this combo:

E3200 & mATX mobo $97 ($77 after MIR).

Similar idle power consumption to ION, but a vastly superior cpu, plus many more expansion options for the future. Add a cheap mATX case, psu & RAM to get a decent, fast home server with lots of expansion options that will last you for years to come.

Small is cool, but for a server expansion is usually key in the long run.