System to run W2k 24/7

[az]

I think I'm going to buy myself a Terratec Noxon for christmas, to play back my mp3s on the living room stereo.

I don't want to have to run the loud and electricity-wasting main PC all day, so I thought of offloading my mp3s to a dedicated box which would run win2k or xp (since I have absolutely no experience with linux).

This box would need to fulfill these requirements:

- cheap (used old gear off ebay?)
- stable enough to run 24/7
- quiet
- use as little electricity as possible
- maintenance-free

Any suggestions?

AZ

[Wombat]

Either go with used gear, or get an Athlon mobile.

Even if you go used, you're probably going to want to change the PSU to a quiet model.

[Taz]

If it's just for serving MP3's then you don't need anything too high spec. A low end PIII will to do the trick which can be used with an integrated motherboard such as an i810. Add 256Mb PC133, NIC, a hard disk and a case and your done. mATX would be a good idea if space is limited. A VIA C3 mini-ITX system is another possibility, it would use less power and be quieter but you'd probably have to buy the mobo/CPU new.

[agallag]

Try to find a fairly recent Dell Optiplex on ebay. They're pretty reliable, and dead silent. GX150 or newer preferrably, since they have the newer low profile cases, and they're much quieter. You should be able to find one for a couple hundred bucks all in.

[Guru]

Re: System to run W2k 24/7

Originally posted by az
I think I'm going to buy myself a Terratec Noxon for christmas, to play back my mp3s on the living room stereo.

Have a look @ this http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPa...91&Langue_ID=2

[Dr Mordrid]

See my sig.

This system's up 24/7 for months at a time unless I'm changing out some hardware, the CPU, resetting for S/W updates or we have a power outage.

It's been rock solid, though the number of drives I have and the other hardware means more fans & noise....but I do use the low-db ones with good results.

This boxes previous setup used an MSI 745 Ultra mainboard (SiS 745 w/AthlonXP 2600/266) and it ran similarly for well over a year.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wulfman]

get yourself an epia. 600mhz should suffice easily - and the whole thing will only need about 25W if you use a 5400 rpm harddisk.

mfg
wulfman

[UtwigMU]

I'm thinking in following paradigm:

Big case (big 14-bay tower or a server case/cube) fileserver with budget motherboard, slow CPU, 512MB-1GB of RAM. RAID5 controller from Promise or even 3Ware, for this 64-bit PCI slots are preffered, but not required.

4 huge 200GB drives for 600GB arrray (drives are getting bigger and cheaper, so mortals now can have TB of space)

Duties:
- Fileserver
Store all your ripped DVDs, DivX and Audio (MP3 or lossless APE) on it. Also software CD isos, ebooks, etc...
- P2P box - on 24/7 downloading stuff
- You can administer it remotely - recommend WindowsXP
- Optional: Web, FTP and Teamspeak server, you can also serve personal WAP portal to access yor schedule, reminders and bus schedules, etc...

You can stash this loud box in hall or somewhere in utility or storage room where it doesn't bother you. Since drives are getting bigger and cheaper per GB, few TB will be possible cheaply in few years, which should be enough for your entire audio and DVD collection.


Then you have SFF passively cooled PCs or appliances in every room to play audio and/or video on Hi/Fi or home theater system (TV or projector).

[GNEP]

I do something similar to Utwig's suggestion - basically cheapo ECS K7SOM+ which has a Duron 1200 soldered onto it (!). Attach PSU and as many large HDDs as you can afford (needn't be quick so just go for the lowest €/Mb you can find) and bingo cheap storage centre for the network (which also does webserver duties and crunches slowly for CPDN). Quiet and sits screwed to the side of a wooden box. Would be even easier if it had a wireless network attachment on board - this is just the mobo with no other cards attached so easy to fit almost anywhere. Use TightVNC to do stuff on the machine from other machines if needed (eg start off large downloads etc).

Then another PC is attached to the TV/stereo, another in my housemate's bedroom etc etc. Best to go for "thin client" type silent machines for accessing content then.

[Wulfman]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Big case (big 14-bay tower or a server case/cube) fileserver with budget motherboard, slow CPU, 512MB-1GB of RAM. RAID5 controller from Promise or even 3Ware, for this 64-bit PCI slots are preffered, but not required.

4 huge 200GB drives for 600GB arrray (drives are getting bigger and cheaper, so mortals now can have TB of space)

-cheap (used old gear off ebay?)
- use as little electricity as possible

?

mfg
wulfman

[KeiFront]

Like wulfman suggested, get an epia it's cheap, small, silent, doesn't consume a lot of electricity, and fast enough for playing mp3's.

[UtwigMU]

Well, one has to decide wether one wants a client, a server or general purpouse box.

An Epia or similar SFF with 250GB drive could serve MP3s well, but a stashed server and ultra thin clients (like one az mentioned or upcomming AMD internet appliance) is also a viable approach, especially if you also want other content such as video and software isos available.

One needn't go all out and get high end server gear (my scenario):
- Chieftec big tower 75 Euros
- PSU 100-150 Euros - 480 to 550W for latter expansion
- Abit BE6II RAID (have) or 30-60 Euros for new or used
- Pentium III CPU 20 Euros or use PII I have, 50 for new bottom of the line CPU
- 512MB of RAM (have)
- videocard (have or 5 Euros for cheap 2nd hand PCI or AGP)
- Intel or 3COM NIC 35 Euros
- one 200GB drive for a start (150 Euros) (you can latter buy aditional drives, use onboard RAID for RAID1, 0 or 10 - have all data archived on removable media if you go with RAID0 - and then get a controller latter)
- 80GB boot drive, DVD burner 160 Euros

TOTAL: about 520 to 680 Euros

[az]

That's still about 5 times as much as I would want to spend, and about 10 times as much as my girlfriend would like me to spend

Some good suggestions there, though epias seem to go ~100 EUR on eBay at the least... maybe I'll just have a look at the flea markets for cheap oldies.

Guru: The ShowCenter doesn't have a display, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to turn on my TV to listen to mp3s, for various reasons.

AZ

[Wulfman]

be careful when looking for older epias: the first series doesn't support hdd beyond the 136GB (?) limit. I'm just going to dump mine for this reason.

mfg
wulfman

[az]

How much do you want for it, and how much would shipping be? I don't need a humongous harddrive

AZ