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Recommendations for a Single Board Computer?
Lardmonster asks: "I'm looking for a Single Board Computer that's reasonably spec'd for performance, but low power (from a Wattage perspective!). I'd like to build a small machine to host NFS/Samba shares, store email, and run Slimserver. There are some nice-looking boards from Soekris, but they max out at 266MHz and have limited RAM. Can anyone recommend similar devices that are low-power, up to 500MHz, with IDE connector and have a SO-DIMM slot? Compatibility with i386 binaries is not necessary. Many places sell similar boards, but only in large quantities, and the prices are generally prohibitively high when they're publicized at all."
Pick one up for cheap and use external usb devices. Should run you $100 for the device or less and $20-$50 for the external case for a drive. You don't need it to do much, so don't hurt yourself by looking too hard.
eBay.
Search for "single board" and you'll find plenty. Buying direct is not really an option because, yes, they are expensive. Get them secondhand, after a company's already gotten their quantity discount. You can get almost any architecture and performance level.
I have been looking for similar reasons at this kind of thing. I think I am going to go for a Linkstation by Buffalo. It is a network attached storage device which has quite a lively hardware hacking community, mainly because it runs linux and is easily reflashable.
I also want to run the slimserver and there are details on how to run it on this hardware here (depending on whether you have the MIPS version or the PPC version). You can upgrade the hard drive (though not officially) or if you want you can also use external USB2 hard drives as it has a couple of USB ports.
If you want the officially hackable version of this box, they sell a thing called the Kuro Box and they actively encourage hacking it.
HTH
BJPirt
The 4801 soekris can have 256meg of ram and a 266 is plenty for nfs and samba . . . I didn't see anything in your post that negated the use of a soekris for what you are wanting? 266mhz is just fine for a file server for home use, 256mb ram is probably overkill, on the 4801 there is 44 pin udma33 interface (you can buy a converter if you want 40 pin or you can use the PCI slot and put your own card in if you want).
.and unless it's a beast You'll probably be happy with the soekris boxes . .and if not, put it up on ebay, I'll probably bid on it (or consider using it for other projects. A nerd that cant find a use for a soekris box needs to get rid of that girlfriend). . .)
I question whether you are looking in the wrong direction for what you are wanting to accomplish. You are looking for something to run drives for a streaming server which means you'll need a power supply for those too (which you won't pull off one of the low power sbc systems generally). Unless you just want to dump a single 2.5" drive in there, and in that case, again, the soekris 4801 would work just fine.
But, if that's still not your bag, stop looking at SBC's, get one of the low end nano VIA boards (the cheapest one has no fan on it already and relies on passive cooling), underclock it as far down as it'll go. You'll reduce your power draw and you'll also have a much cooler (lower in temperature) system and won't need additional case fans. All you'll need to do is hunt for your case that has the quiet psu and you can do what you please with it.
(I have a 4801 as a router/firewall device, and before using it there I tried it out as a file server using an old 10gb 2.5 I reclaimed from a laptop and it was quite peppy. The only thing you have listed in your descrip that I didn't try was the slimserver software . .