[Nottingham] [Talk] This *THURS* 20/07/06: Linuxing snippets

[Graeme Fowler]

On 21/07/2006 00:47, Martin wrote:
<snip>
> And the comms-rack hacked to take an EPIA board, two HDDs, and a huge
> PSU... OK, so I've been doing a little metalwork hacking to squeeze a
> few parts into a small comms rack to make a silent-ish always-on
> firewall and server. The idea started as a no-moving-parts totally quiet
> system. However, costs very quickly dictated a conventional PSU-with-fan
> and utilising a scavenged HDD. The blisters from hard work with a
> hacksaw, and the time required, has given one very important
> observation. That is, a bog standard PC case is a much more cost
> effective (and painless) idea!

Funny you should mention that... in order to get the continuous heat 
level down in my spare room (which I'm now graphing at 
http://server.graemef.net/temps/sensor1.html, sensor1 is inside the 
room, sensor2 is hanging out the window at the moment) I've been looking 
at various SFF systems this week.

I'm currently torn between the prospect of a micro-ATX board in a 
half-length 1U chassis which I can bolt to the ceiling in the pantry 
downstairs, or a full-fledged industrial wall-mountable mini-ITX based 
system which comes in a proper IP66 rated case (which, incidentally, 
costs quite a bit more!). I'm not too well versed in processor 
performance these days as I spend most of my time with dual Xeon or 
similar systems, so I have no idea how well the chip-on-board VIA EPIA 
systems hold up. This bunch http://www.icp-epia.co.uk seem to have a 
good spread of stuff, but I'm getting a bit lost (in Toyland) as to what 
I actually want!

Anyone using any mini- size systems want to offer a confused bloke some 
help?

Graeme