Greetings,

I've been building some office servers recently. They are simple software RAID-5 boxes that run Samba to let a small office of Windows computers access their files. I typically just buy the cheapest tower case available. However, I'd like to find a case that is more specific to my needs. The goal would be to have something that looks like a smaller electronic device, rather than a modified desktop computer. Here are my requirements:

10/100 ethernet
space for 2 to 3 3.5" hard disks
USB port (connects to a UPS to shut down gracefully if the power goes out)
no floppy, cd-rom, etc. required
no monitor, keyboard, or interface of any sort required
quieter is nice, but no an absolute requirement

I've seen a lot of external hard drive enclosures on the market recently that allow you to access an existing internal 3.5" hard drive via USB or FireWire. What would be ideal for me would be something like an aluminum case large enough for two drives, and some sort of tiny motherboard or embedded Linux controller. Then I could hand my customer a "black box" that they just plug into their network, just like a hub or wireless router. It could even be configured via an Apache-served Web page like many of these devices are.

Can anyone point me to companies that manufacture anything like this?

Best regards,

Steve

Building a box with the shuttle form factor rather than (micro)ATX should suit your needs. most of the time they are sold as a barebones setup. Another REALLY small option is the mac mini. Its about the size of a CD drive, but you would loose the RAID capability, but it is about as tiny as it gets and only 499. Hope I helped.