Need advice for purchasing low power home linux server
 

Hello everyone. I am planning to purchase a "Mini PC" to use as an always on personal home server for things like Apache, Postfix, Samba, Bind, and as a router/switch via IPTables NAT. I'd run the server on VMWare Server, so I'd need hardware that can support VMWare as well.

What I'm looking for is:

- Complete system, except not including a hard drive, CD ROM, or floppy drive. I also already have a good new PC (ATX?) 450 W power supply, but I think it's too big to fit into a mini PC.

- Dual Core CPU, 2 GB RAM

- Able to fit a 3.5" SATA drive

- On-board video, and it's ok if the video sucks, and in fact I'd prefer if it sucked since all it will ever display is a Linux login prompt and a blinking cursor in plain text mode, so I'd feel guilty if it had good video.

- As many Ethernet ports on-board as possible, at least 2.

- Lowest possible power consumption. Noise and physical size don't matter so much.

- No software installed. I'll do it myself. (I'll just temporarily plug in an old 52X CD ROM into the machine during the install).

I've done some searching of Google and this forum, and found quite a few options, but so far the winner is the SLIMPRO SP635B from www.cappuccinopc.com . Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Thanks.

If low power consumption is the overriding concern the the VIA Epia systems might fit your requirements. I've always wanted to build one but they are as expensive as any desktop computer. You should spend some considerable amount of time reading about them. They seem a bit tricky to select cards and power supplies and other components. Still, the VIA Lukes dual core 1 GHz processor would probably make a nice network security appliance.

http://e-itx.com/via-epia-px10000g.h...FSQdagodqxm5uA

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/

P.S. They have Linux drivers and their own Linux distribution.

Check www.logicsupply.com. They have complete computers based on the mini-ITX form factor with VIA processor. Some of them accomodate up to 2 PCI cards. I am considering buying one myself. Price is not as high as from mini-itx.com.

They come with 80 GB 2.5" HDD.

jlinkels

Thanks
 

Thanks, jlinkels and stress_junkie, I'll check out those links. If anybody else has any suggestions, feel free to post a link, even if it doesn't fit my requirements 100%.