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I've repeatedly been dissappointed by server hardware for multiple reasons.

1. The hardware is nonstandard. OS's are more geared towards standard hardware. Having to boot with a custom or proprietary floppy or CD to be able to read a hard drive isn't fun.
2. The hardware isn't available for very long, making replacement a support headache. [I.E. by the time you need it, it's not available or very expensive.]
3. Server hardware is expensive, and usually comes with features you never use
4. Proprietary drivers for special hardware often suck more than the open-source counterparts that are first made for desktop hardware

As such, I stick with desktop motherboards + processors.
My favorite way to choose hardware is to download the Linux kernel source from kernel.org (because I'm going to make custom kernel anyway, lets face it) and look through the driver list to see what hardware is supported. This has repeatedly worked out well compared to simply looking at catalogs and the thinking of "oh don't worry -- it'll work."

For rackmount cases I like Circotech http://www.circotech.com/

If you really need small hardware, though, another favorite is the OpenBrick http://www.openbrick.org/. This is a favorite for firewalls or intrusion detection devices with a flash card as a hard disk. [I haven't used one as a real server with a laptop hard drive yet.]

Greetings:
http://openbrick.org/ is a community of folks doing this kind of stuff. I have purchased a couple of boxes from a US distributor (http://www.hacom.net/ and have been really happy. They have 3 ethernet ports, so they make great firewalls. We use CF cards for storage because we don't need the storage, but you can put little laptop harddrives in them, so you could make a file/print box if you wanted to. They'll boot off of a USB CD, so installation is a breeze. I run Debian, but have installed openbsd for kicks, also. They're cool enough that they don't need an internal fan, so they're quiet too.
I have nothing but nice things to say about them. The US distributor only takes paypal, but he has always delivered without problems. He even called back to see if I liked it.

The OpenBrick costs EUR 300 to 400, while you can get a Soekris for US $135 to $240 depending on the model. The Soekris boards have RAM included (AFAIK, OpenBrick and VIA boards don't), and the optional cases are cheap, so they're not as expensive as they seem.

The WRAP and RouterBoard are the only things I've seen which are comparable to Soekrises in terms of features and price.

Seems someone has not been doing their homework properly. Can't be an accurate matrix with products missing :( For those who are curious curious. OpenBrick Website

Something like that ?

This is an application of open brick, a really cool Linux based appliance. I think that the tiny market (Japanese in France) is not such an issue - more that this has the potential of leading to the commoditification of Linux and open source - not on the desktop, but as cheap single use hardware apps.

The so-called Mini-ITX servers, which have possibly already been mentioned on Slashdot, are one way to go if this is what you're looking for.

They're like a regular PC, but in a much smaller box (perhaps the size of two 5.25" CD-ROM drives stacked on top of each other), and are often fanless (no, that doesn't mean they overheat, it means they're designed not to need one...), resulting in much less noise and much less power consumption. Many are cheap, and they make ideal Linux/BSD boxes for all kinds of things - web/mail/dns/anything server, backing up your data (or each other), monitoring security cameras for movement, etc. Here's a few examples for more information:

Here, here, here, here, here.

Some of them do actually officially support Linux/BSD AFAIK, such as the OpenBrick and LinITX.com.

-Andrew

• They can't route beyond a very simplistic inside/outside net.
  
• They only have VERY simplisitic firewall capabilities
  
• They can't directly connect to a T1
  
• Few can do VPN, and ones that do are much more than $60.
  

You may find the OpenBrick to be a good starting point. They take 2.5" drives and run off 5V. Build a DC->DC convertor circuit using something like a MAX787, or (if you have more heatsinks than time) a 7805, and you should be able to run it off a lead-acid battery a very very long time.

I have no association with them.

Tiny, well-designed, fanless little box - NatSemi GEODE chipset. PCMCIA, CF, USB, serial, parallel, TV-OUT, sound. I run the pebble distribution of linux (along with a stripped down X) on a 126M CF card, mounted readonly/noatime - it's monitoring the house's energy use. I guess it's about equivalent to a Pentium II, but I'm not playing games on it.

It was under $400, I think.

The only thing worse than that is this. Click on the "how big is OpenBrick" links and you get enormous JPEGs of the OpenBrick next to phones and stuff. The JPEGs are so big that I lost patience waiting for them to download over dialup. Maybe the dimensions are at the bottom of the picture, but I'll never know. I had to go to some other site to get dimensions on the OpenBrick. Sheesh! 100k to convey the information "7.1 x 4.6 x 1.6 in". That's got to be some kind of record for a crap-to-signal ratio (excluding cases where the content is 100% crap).

How is it different from the OpenBrick ? Mh this mini-box seems to run a 800 Mhz x86 processor (OpenBrick has a 300 Mhz Geode processor). I heard the OpenBrick could not play DivX smoothly, maybe this is the solution ?

Sounds interesting, has anyone gotten one already ?

There is a french company (can't recal the link) that makes nice shiny boxes for these things that are basically little cubes

Was it the french company that does OpenBrick? They look nice, but they do not use Mini-ITX.

check out the openbrick

For a quiet (fanless) low-powered and small but inexpensive and complete PC (utp,serial,parallel,usb,vga,tv-out, etc.) you might want to check out the OpenBrick

It boots off a Compact Flash card - FreeBSD and Mandrake images available, and optionally supports a HD

The FatPoint is also known as OpenBrick in Europe. I made a Debian image wich can fit on a compact flash and wich can also do a wireless access point. That's really impressive all we can do with this little box.

The FatPoint is also known as OpenBrick in Europe. I made a Debian image wich can fit on a compact flash and wich can also do a wireless access point. That's really impressive all we can do with this little box.