File Server Build Hardware and Softwares Suggestions

I'm thinking of starting a project depending on the amount of money I get from my income tax returns. Basically I'm thinking of building a File Server with several special characteristics. However, I need advice on what hardware and software to use to pull this off.

Key Features:

-Power efficient
-Low cost
-Quiet
-Redundancy (RAID 1)
-On-the-fly encryption (ie: TrueCrypt)
-IP filtering (ie: filter ads before they reach my other computers)
-Firewall
-Remote Desktop/VNC (will not be using any mouse, monitor and keyboard)
-No optical drive/floppy
-Automatic Proxy switching

Hardware:

Case:

Something that is compact, quiet and has good air flow in the hard drive area. Preferably with no slot for Optical Drive with room for at least 4 HDDs either 2.5" or 3.5".

CPU:

Thinking of either Intel Atom or energy efficient AMD Athlon for CPU depending on how much CPU power I need the features I want.

Going with AMD Athlon II

Hard-disks:

I was thinking of three high-capacity drives. Two of them in RAID1 for important files and another one for less important ones (most likely will use a drive from my sig rig for this purpose). Fast drives or slower and more reliable drives? 2.5" or 3.5" drives? (noise and efficiency)

Going with 3.5" Drives

Motherboard:

Something to complement the CPU that preferably has most of these features: On board video, two gigabit ethernet ports, wireless-n support and RAID.

Going with an AM2+ MITX board with single Gigabit Ethernet and hardware RAID

Add-on Cards:

To fill out missing features from motherboards. (ex: for RAID, Ethernet ports, or Wireless-n support)

Memory/PSU:

Suggestion of the capacity needed for such a system.

Going with single stick of 2GB DDR2 RAM and might use 450W Antec backup PSU I have



Software (Open-source, Free):

Operating System:

Was thinking a relatively striped down distribution of Linux preferably with a GUI such as XFCE, Gnome, or Fluxbox.

FileSystem:

Filesystem for each drive/partition (Ex:EXT4 for Linux OS and FAT32 for file storage). Journaled or not.

Others:

Firewall, Antivirus, VNC/Remote desktop, Defragmenting software (not sure if needed for Linux partitions), IP filtering, proxy and on-the-fly encryption.


No need to answer everything, I just need suggestions to make this build as cheap as possible while running smoothly. Any help would be truly appreciated. Thanks
Edited by Shadow_UGZ - 3/4/10 at 9:54am

Yeah it may be a little more than a File Server . I did a bit of research for the hardware yesterday and I've decided to go with AMD Athlon II (most likely X2 2.8GHz) because an Atom will severely bottleneck due to the encryption. The Athlon II also has SSE4 (speeds up encryption) and it is much cheaper than any equivalent Intel for what I need it to do.

As for RAID1, I've check around and most AM2+ motherboards seems to support hardware RAID so I'll most likely be going for hardware RAID. I want it to have Wireless-N and Dual Gigabit ethernet since my netbook and main rig will be connected to it. So basically it also acts as a network hub .

I'm now looking into motherboards and NIC cards. I've read around that Linux has better drivers for nVidia GPUs, so I'm wondering if it matters what kind of chipset/onboard gpu I should look at that have the best Linux support. I'm not going to use it with a display so I don't really think it does. As for NICs, do high quality NICs really make a difference or can I just go with a cheap Rosewill NIC?

Thanks

Edit: Didn't see you post there DuckieHo . Thanks for the response, I'll check into the stuff you suggested. I would rep you but it seems you are a mod now.

Also you say my network will bottleneck the hard drives. I though this wasn't the case with gigabit ethernet?
Edited by Shadow_UGZ - 3/4/10 at 9:38am

So if I understand this correctly if I were to use software RAID I don't need to get a board that has onboard RAID? Is RAID5 supported with software?

Would I be better off connecting the server in between the modem and the router? If it simplifies things I might just do that or stick the wireless card in my main rig instead. I would prefer if it didn't interfere with my roommates internet access (ie: ip filtering I want to implement)

I was also thinking maybe I should go for a 10/100Mb/s ethernet instead to connect between router or modem to save costs. It's not like I'm gonna get 100Mb/s internet anytime soon

Thanks the_beast, that was a very informative post . +rep
Edited by Shadow_UGZ - 3/4/10 at 11:14am