Help required speccing up a file server.

[zootfloot]

I have decided to build my own file server/NAS type system, i have found the case im going to use and have a 200w brick psu.

The part i need the help with is speccing up the motherboard, i have a few certain requirements from it which are as follows...

1) Must be an integrated mobo/cpu such as atom

2) Must have at least 2 SataII ports

3) Must have built in Gigabit Networking capability

Everything else i am easy with, max budget is £75 and so far i have been going round in circles, most of the boards seem to be very similar, what i dont want to do is buy the one board that is an absolute duffer.

As i said above its only for an always on file server so performance isnt really a massive requirement.

Any thoughts?

 

[zootfloot]

out of interest zootfloot, what case have you chosen??

I have one of these http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/ecs-ez-buddie/ its was an ecs ez buddie, but the motherboard had a fault on it when i got my hands on it.

It quite a funky little case but i wanted to do something different with it so im thinking along the lines of painting the full lot white, fitting a hard drive cage and will also see if its possible to keep the functionality of the ez watcher panel.

The motherboard is a non standard size anyways, and im not sure if a Matx board would have fi in, so i decided upon a M-ITX board, its only going to be a file storage system so not big power requirements.

I hope to do a build thread when i get all the parts together.

 

[zootfloot]

Boy ! That case wins the award for ugliness - Get the paint out asap !

Yep its certainly not the nicest case, but to be fairer to it those images do make it look slightly worse than it actually is.

I use http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3343#sp in my server

Thats the board i was eyeing up earlier today, looks to be a good spec especially as i have seen it priced at less than £65.

I am thinking that white is the way forward though, get rid of some of the covers and maybe do the buttons/trims in some kind of matte grey

Ideas on a postcard people.