Small, Cheap download box?

pointy shadow

pointy shadow

pointy shadow

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Hi there,

I am looking for a small cheap box that I can leave on overnight downloading stuff.

As the box will be left on overnight I would like as low as possible wattage PSU.
It must have onboard video so I could use a KVM switch and it also must be able to run XP.
The box itself doesnt need a fast CPU as it will only be used for downloading and not anything else.

With the above in mind could someone advise me what I should be looking at as I am not to familiar with the concept of small PCs.
Is there an all in one solution where I could just add a hard drive to it?

Thanks :)
 
Its got a 2.5" laptop drive in it, you can buy 500GB 2.5" drives now so I presume you could replace it with that. Its got USB ports as well so you could just use USB external hard drives.
 
500gb is a bit of a downfall im afraid as I would probably end up using it for storage/streaming too.

Whilst the exteral USB drive idea is a good one it wouldnt work as I would want to stream over my network and the speeds of USB are not good for streaming at all.

Would I be looking at a small PC and building it myself or is there an all in one solution?
 
Buy an intel atom mini-itx board, a cheap itx case, and whack in a 1TB hdd. Should cost you... £180 or so?
 
maybe just a cheap system build like this will do you

2d83xhg.jpg


you could lower the costs by changing the hdd, case, ram and so on.
 
Hey, I'm looking to do the same thing, I've been researching for a while.

So far the Shuttle K55 and the MSI Wind nettop are level pegging, both being Atom systems and having space for a couple HDDs internally they should be ideal. Add a couple 1TB WD Green Power HDDs and an OS and it'll happly do it's thing all day long at less then 40W.

Just need to wait for them to become available :(

I've just done a bit of digging and a Intel D945GCLF mobo and Morex 668B case can be had for around £100, add some RAM and HDDs and you're golden.
 
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pointy shadow said:
500gb is a bit of a downfall im afraid as I would probably end up using it for storage/streaming too.

Whilst the exteral USB drive idea is a good one it wouldnt work as I would want to stream over my network and the speeds of USB are not good for streaming at all.

Would I be looking at a small PC and building it myself or is there an all in one solution?
Click to expand...

400Mb/s just isnt enough for some people!
 
This you want to be looking at something like this:
Chenbro Mini-ITX Home Server/NAS Chassis - ES34069
VIA 5000 mini-itx board
gigabit network card

and you'll be sorted.
OK the 5000 isn't fast, but 533mhz should be enough for you to download and share. (reason I suggest the 5000 is you can pick them up very very cheap) Or if you want something a little faster you can , but you'll quickly start paying more and that case aint cheap... though it is damn nice! (I've got a commell LV-667DC and a T2600 (Core duo 2.13Ghz) with a 320GB 3.5" drive all running on 35 Watts
 
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Col_M said:
Hey, I'm looking to do the same thing, I've been researching for a while.

So far the Shuttle K55 and the MSI Wind nettop are level pegging, both being Atom systems and having space for a couple HDDs internally they should be ideal. Add a couple 1TB WD Green Power HDDs and an OS and it'll happly do it's thing all day long at less then 40W.
Click to expand...


40w sounds like the type of system I am looking for.

No point in leaving a 300w box on all the time as the prices of electricity nowadays is getting beyond a joke.

Any idea when these systems (40w ones) are out and how much they will cost?

Thanks for all your replies so far :)

Edit - Guardsman - just seen your post. That looks the business.
 
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I've got an Atom-based system on its way to me in the post; my picoPSU-120 came this morning, but I can't do much until the next shipment comes (ordered from another website). I'm in basically the same situation as you, and after searching around for a few months this seems like the best option. Basically I'll be firing a few 500gb hard drives in along with it and hooking it up to my LAN for backup, streaming and sharing, and I want it to run 24/7 so it's essential it uses as little power as possible.

For reference, I got my idea from this forum thread. I'm thinking of making my own case as well, since I can't find one cheap/small enough that caters for my needs, but I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to go about it... I'll make a worklog if I do get around to it :D
 
MicroITX and NanoITX might be worth a look at, C7's and Atoms are good for this kinda thing (<15-30W>) as they use little power ... have a read on the Fit-PC Slim (or non-slim) = 2-5W. Failing that I would recommend a 1TB drive, get onboard GFX/sound. I would recommend 512MB-1GB and whatever CPU you can get cheap. Remember in the future you might want this computer to serve all your media to computers around the house, a game server or perhaps for encoding videos.

Maybe look 2nd hand at RAM/CPUs?! Make sure you sort AMD Cool'n'Quiet or Speedstep (by Intel) so you can have the CPU downclock itself to save them turning cows into coal and using it as power.

You could unplug the CD/DVD drive after you sort your O/S.

Install Linux or XP/2000, you might wanna partition about <8GB for XP, lets say and have the rest as the D:/ drive, inside that drive put 2x folders, COMPLETE and in INCOMPLETE.

Drive space is something only you can answer, but I would rather less drives for noise sake.

Install uTorrent (if that's what it's for), set up RSS to download your TV Shows automatically to something like D:/COMPLETE/TVSHOWS/tvshow.avi

Enable and port fordward Remote Desktop on XP Pro (not home) so you can access the PCs desktop from another Windows machine.

Install VNC too for the same thing as above if you don't have XP Pro.

By remoting you can store the computer somewhere alone and you wont need a KVM thingy.

Install uTorrent WebUI too.

Setup file sharing and maybe FTP.
 
pointy shadow said:
40w sounds like the type of system I am looking for.

No point in leaving a 300w box on all the time as the prices of electricity nowadays is getting beyond a joke.

Any idea when these systems (40w ones) are out and how much they will cost?

Thanks for all your replies so far :)

Edit - Guardsman - just seen your post. That looks the business.
Click to expand...
When they'll come out is anyone's guess :( going by the price of the K45 the K55 could be around £100 at a guess.

I don't think I'll be waiting for them to be honest, I've found a nice cheap case that isn't too big but will hold the 3x3.5" HDDs I want, it's the Foxconn DH-839 if you're interested. I'm not too worried how it'd look as it's probably going to get tucked out the way but it doesn't look too bad really.

In a week or two I'll probably get the case above, the Intel D945GCLF, a couple WD GP drives (500Gb system and 1Tb pool), a stick of ram and crack on.
 
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Does the Foxconn DH-839 really hold 3x3.5" drives? I just went to the Foxconn website and it lists as: 1*5.25 external, 1*3.5 externa,l 1*3.5 internal
If it did or there was a Mini-ITX one that did at less of the cost of the chenbro then I'd be very interested.
 
Tony Williams said:
Remember a 300W PSU wont use 300W it'll probably use 60W-120W idle.

It draws as it needs.
Click to expand...

It depends on the efficiency of the power supply. Power supplies are not linearly efficient over the entire power range. Most power supplies have low efficiency at the edges of there power range. If you use a 300W PSU to power a 65W device and at 65W the power supply is only 60% efficient, then the power supply will draw 108W. The wasted power will be dissipated in heat.

So what you need to do is find a power supply that matches well the range of powers you are going to use and one that has the highest efficieny over that range.
 
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