The Centrino laptop I have as my server seems like overkill so I am looking at some alternatives. At first I was going to use a Raspberry Pi but someone on these forums pointed out there are better solutions. This lead me to the pcDuino 3 Nano and the Odroid-C1

First, my server will handle a printer, a file repository, simple backups of the most vital files (Pictures, documents, etc), and coordinate my webcam surveillance feeds (I think zoneminder?) . The problem is I am a PC guy and have little more than basic information about linux or ARM architecture. The only ARM device I own, aside from cell phones, is a Pogoplug that I have managed to kill by trying to put linux on it.

I am cruising Google trying to glean as much information as I can but the level of ignorance on my part is staggering. This leads me to you wonderful people.

To make things easier, the specs:

pcDuino 3 Nano
1 gig of RAM
1GHz Cortex A7 Duel Core CPU
4GB flash memory + micro SD card slot
3 USB ports and 1 SATA, among others

Odroid-C1
1 gig of RAM
1.5Ghz Cortex A5 quad core CPU
micro SD card slot
4 USB ports among others

From my untrained eye, I think the pcDuino is the better choice due to the SATA port but the Odroid does have a quad core CPU. Will linux take advantage of those extra cores? Also, since these are ARM CPUs I understand they won’t run normal linux distributions. Will I have problems with SAMBA, CUPS and RSYNC? My research says no but I’d like to confirm before I spend the money.

As always thank you in advance.

Since you use it for server profile the quad core ODROID-C1 is best.

So linux will take advantage of the extra cores? I know it took Windows a while to utilize the extra power.

EDIT: It looks like it will use the extra cores. So this makes me lean towards the Odroid. Is there any reason I should NOT go with the Odroid? Some programs not run on it? It sometimes explodes? Its blue?