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Mini-ITX motherboard suggestions
I am looking at building two Mini-ITX systems, both with different requirements. I'd like to get the same hardware for both to make 'support' easier - one will be replacing an older Pentium 4 Prescott Shuttle in my parents' house. I'm looking specifically at Mini-ITX because I would like a box with low power usage that is as quiet as possible, as at least one will be in a living room. Note that the two boxes will not be located in the same place and will not (as yet) be talking to each other, so I'm not looking to combine them into one system.
On to the requirements ... Box #1:
Box #2:
The SSH and VPN requirements have me thinking that it might be worth getting a board with PadLock hardware-accelerated encryption. I will be picking up 1GB of memory for each system since it is so cheap. Storage will probably be a hard drive at this point - it looks like some of the Western Digital Scorpio drives are quiet. The servers will either be on 24/7 or be on during the daytime and shut down at night, then brought up again in the morning with Wake-on-LAN. I haven't decided that part yet. Does anyone have any motherboard suggestions that will meet my requirements? Thanks Last edited by twisted_steel; 29th June 2008 at 04:55 PM. |
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Some suggestions can be found at http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=325
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If you wanted a Jetway/Newegg solution, you could have for box #1-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856107019 and for box #2- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856107016 Neither come with memory or hard drive, but are pretty cheap nonetheless. I can't speak to their OBSD compatibility as I haven't used the hardware personally.
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New (May/June) kid on the bloc
Intel with Atom processor http://www.intel.com/products/mother...GCLF/index.htm Available at usual mini-itx shops in Germany and the Netherlands for 75/79 Euro
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Remember, on a forum with users from all over the globe.. don't post links to stores only available in the US. Last edited by BSDfan666; 30th June 2008 at 02:06 AM. |
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Thanks for the replies everyone.
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I came across a Pico-ITX motherboard and case combo today that retails for $300 USD. It is the VIA ARTiGO and includes the VIA EPIA PX10000G motherboard It's a little pricey, but power draw is minimal - one review of the motherboard noted 14W idle and 16W at full load. I think it's going to take me a while to go through all of this. Keep the suggestions coming |
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I think I've settled on my parts list. I'm going to build Box #2 first and if all goes well, I will use the same hardware for Box #1.
Motherboard: VIA EPIA LN10000EG (1GHz fanless) Memory: 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz Hard Drive: 160GB 2.5" SATA laptop drive Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc Slim 8x DVD Burner * Case: Morex 3688B - Black 60W or 80W ** * I think the install will be easier if I just buy a drive and use that. Plus, as the burner was about the same price as a reader, I should be able to also burn backups to DVD right from there. However, if it's easy enough to do a network install and upgrade, omitting this part would save me about $45 USD. ** I haven't decided whether I need a 60W or 80W power supply yet, but I may just get the 80W to be on the safe side. I did see that someone has a parts list for a similar server where they used a 80W power supply. However, their system does have a desktop drive. Link to their setup: click. I settled on this case from a price perspective and I haven't seen anything suggesting that the fan is loud. |
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Hello,
I would suggest http://www.mini-itx.com and/or http://www.mini-box.com, which I think both do international shipping. I would also suggest that if you are not in an immediate hurry to hold off for a couple of months. By the end of the year the new mini-itx 2.0 motherboards are supposed to hit the stores. Among other updates they are supposed to include the ability to have up to a minimum of 2GB of RAM. See more on this standard from VIA. As far as motherboards for mini-itx, VIA and Jetway seem to be the two big manufacturers and VIA is the dominant CPU manufacturer. Gigabyte has released two mini-itx boards, but they are a little hard to try and find. Also, AMD has their Geode line that is meant for mini-itx applications - but VIA is much more advanced than anyone in this application. If you want the native encryption, VIA is the only one currently including that with the CPU. You can easily do a network install - or probably even easier, an install from USB media. If you go with an optical drive, I would say go with the 80W power supply just to be safe, even though the 60W should be enough. You might also want to consider the Pico-PSU. Morex is a good case manufacturer for mini-itx cases. The 3688 is nice, but if you going with the fanless CPU, why not a fanless case? I myself like the T-3300 and the T-3310. I don't know what your storage requirements are, but if they are too high, you might consider using CF as a storage medium. We have a thread on that subject here - CF as a *BSD hard drive?. We also have a thread on small systems here - Soekris experiences.
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Thanks JMJ_coder. I completely missed the T-3300 and T-3310 in the list of cases. According to the Logic Supply site, the LN motherboard will fit in the T-3300 but not the T-3310. I guess it may have something to do with the size of the heatsink. Like you said, it definitely makes sense to go with a fanless case if I have a fanless motherboard. As all of the cases I've been looking at come with power supplies, I may stick with them for the moment, though the Pico looks very nice.
I have been leaning towards the hard drive rather than a CF for space more than anything. I'll have to think about this some more. The CF would use less power and would probably be cheaper than the HDD, but it does have limited storage space. The USB install sounds promising. I have a 1 GB stick lying around here somewhere. I'll have to look around and see what this involves. I did see that the above cases do not have room for CD/DVD-ROM drives, but I think as long as I can do another type of install, it should be fine. I would only really need the CD/DVD drive once during the install - I can always back up my data from the network and burn it on one of my other computers. As far as the timeline for ordering my system, I'd like to get it done pretty soon rather than wait for the new lineup. Then again I guess there's always something better coming out, so I might as well bite the bullet and just get my system now |
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Hello,
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This technology will be (as opposed to a traditional hard drive) - absolutely quiet, extremely portable, low-power, quicker seek times. Quote:
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Good luck.
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And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) |
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After much research on this, I've found something quite interesting-
http://herologic.com/oscommerce/cata...products_id=58 $319 (presumably a pre-shipping price.) It seems one of the founders of this company actually used to work for Soekris.
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Slightly off topic given that the OP is wanting to look for desktop alternatives, but for a dedicated-purpose system, Alix2C3 motherboards are running ~$137US & with very simple cases running less than ~$20US. Given that these motherboards have three network interfaces, a redundant CARP fail-over configuration between two systems could be realized for roughly $400US.
http://www.mini-box.com/Alix-2B-Boar...8&category=754 For followers of misc@ & undeadly, Alix boards hail from PC Engines in Switzerland, & has gotten quite a bit of attention from Marc Balmer. This may be a worthy (& cheaper...) contender to Soekris. FWIW. Last edited by ocicat; 14th July 2008 at 06:35 AM. |
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The ALIX, Soekris, and similar boards are extremely tempting, but I think they are outside of my requirements. I may revisit them down the road once I get a house and make a proper network. It looks like they would work very well as firewalls/routers/vpn, but would need another server on the network for file storage, etc. I don't have any other servers here at the moment - just a laptop and desktop.
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Hello,
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And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) |
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Time to save up some more money
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I have this mobo as my firewall / webserver at the house..
I know this board is more available in Europe..everywhere in the US it is out of stock.. It is same chipset CN 700 as listed in the NewEgg links give earlier.. but if a new one is coming out.. I would wait.. rk
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alix, hardware, mini-itx, soekris, via epia |
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