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"Server" computer suggestions

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Pentium100:

--- Quote from: flyawave on September 03, 2010, 10:25:18 PM ---the tone from the fan is very different. don't knock it till you try it :P

--- End quote ---

That may be, but as I have a lot of computers that make some noise, a single small (12cm) fan cannot be heard more than 20cm away. On the other hand, I use one big fan to cool my room (25.4cm, 2100RPM, 57dBA, 1376m^3/h), that is, suck colder air from outside, when it's hot and a smaller fan to cool myself when it's even hotter (17cm, 2800RPM, 51dBA, 344m^3/h). Those fans mostly look like big computer fans.

But yea, tone can be different, the 17cm fan makes high pitched noise and can be heard from further away than the 25cm fan even though the bigger fan is more noisy according to specs.

Xiong Chiamiov:
What are you planning on using this computer for?

If it's not a media center, then you can save quite a bit on processor speed, and don't need a video card.  A GUI isn't even needed at all, but you may want one, depending on how comfortable you are with the commandline.

Look for slower-rpm harddrives.  I use Western Digital Greens myself.  You should plan to use some sort of redundant RAID, so make sure that you have space for more drives than you need for storage.

I used to have a log somewhere from when kureshii recommended a bunch of stuff when I built mine, but I don't know where it's gotten to...

kureshii:
It’s simple common sense, but it bears repeating: If you don’t want too much heat in a case, don’t put too much heat into it ;) Get a modest processor and chipset, and you’ll only have the hard drives to worry about. An Intel Pentium/Celeron dual-core or Core i3 build if you’re feeling rich, otherwise a simple Athlon II X2 system should readily suffice.

Go with low power hard drives: Spinpoint F3s, Barracuda LPs, Caviar Greens. You can easily google reviews of them, but I generally buy based on warranty period. Seconded on having some sort of RAID if you’re using that many drives; it will give you at least some peace of mind if one drive should suddenly fail. Hardware RAID costs serious money, so if you just want a simple setup, I think software RAID should easily suffice. Excepting the netbook processors, any modern dual-core should easily have enough muscle to manage at least that much, if you’re not building an enterprise-class server that has to service thousands of users or more.

V1110 looks like a good case for the server. If you don’t have too many hard drives they’ll easily all fit within the lower compartment, though you might want to put some of them in the upper compartment to avoid concentrating heat. The Gentle Typhoons are a good pick; one of few fans that are silent and yet have good static pressure. But the V1110 should be able to suppress noise from normal fans with the cover closed, so don’t worry too much about that.

For adding drives to the optical bays, you could use Lian Li’s own hard drive bays if you don’t mind spending quite a bit. For something cheaper, Cooler Master’s 4-in-3 bay module is a good choice as well. For budget solutions, just go for a simple hard drive to optical bay adapter, or DIY ;)

As for having your personal desktop start up before you reach home, I find it is often easier to just put it into standby, then wake it again when you want to use it. It consumes minimal power in that state (a few watts), and is ready to use within seconds of waking.

There are motherboards with dual gigabit ports, though I don’t really see the need for them in a simple home server (unless you have cash to burn). A PCIe x1 gigabit wired network card is cheap and readily available almost everywhere.

bork:
Take a look at the Antec 300 case.  Its a relative low cost chassis with a large amount of drive space room.  No fancy drive mounting hardware, have to mount the drives into their slots by screws.  The large fans make minimal noise in ether low or high speed. 

flyawave:
+1 for spinpoint F3 not super quiet, but quite quiet

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