Alastair Biggs wrote:
>
> I'm in the planning stages of a new project at home,the aim is
> essentially to setup a small headless server which will be hosting my
> cooking website / blog which will be telling the world about my
> cookery disasters.
>
> The server needs to be small, efficent and quiet and needs to be
> tucked away somewhere or wall mounted so I was thinking I would go
> with Mini-ITX.
Hi Alastair,
Thought about a Mac Mini? I don't use one but I know plenty who do and a
good, used one will set you back around the same as a new mini-itx
machine, and will run Linux quietly and unobtrusively too.
>
> The server will be running Debian and I will be configuing all the
> server administration by looking into the machine remotley.
I used to do all of that via the CLI but these days I allow myself the
luxury of xfce4 running on vnc. Lightweight!
>
> Has anyone had any experience of dealing with Mini-ITX components?
> what components need seriously consideration when building a small
> rig? I had a quick browse on ebay last night and am tempted into a
> mini-ITX varient of the new intel Atom boards.
I am old school - Epia 600 and 800MHz machines. The new boards look nice
and should have more oomph than mine, although from your description of
what you intend to do with yours I doubt you will need it. I previously
ran a mail server, samba for file and print, gnump3d, egroupware (+
mysql) and Wordpress on a 500MHz machine with 1GB RAM without any problem.
Currently I have one of these [1] with 512Mb RAM running lighttpd, samba
and gnump3d. The case is a Chyang Fun cube style case which is great for
space but fails on the quiet front on account of the PSU making a bit of
a racket - I would look for something with an external laptop style
power brick and internal power board if I were you. Mini-itx cases tend
to be a bit pricey compared to atx and micro-atx; if you do decide to
buy new avoid mini-itc.com and try this lot [2] or [3]. I have dealt
with mini-itx and they are both expensive and useless with returns -
think small claims court there! itx-warehouse are quick and reasonably
cheap.
I wouldn't bother with an optical drive unless you intend to use it for
backup - I tend to hitch one up for the install (borrowed from another
machine) and then use the bay for an additional hard drive.
Sean
[1]
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=301
[2]
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/
[3]
http://linitx.com/
