[rescue] Cheap, fast, PC server

[Phil Stracchino]

Aaron Finley wrote:
> Peter Corlett wrote:
> 
>> That spec is slightly behind the curve, except for the RAM requirement. You
>> might need to compromise on "only" 4 or 8 GB unless you spend a lot on a
>> server motherboard.
>>
> 
> Well, I just looked through my parts bin, and I have 2 Xeon 3.2/533s 
> sitting around. Looking on eBay, looks like a SuperMicro X5DPR-8G2+ 
> would run me about $30. So all I'd need was the case, drives, and RAM 
> (12GB). Can anyone recommend a quiet EATX case, or does such a thing not 
> exist?


Thermaltake's Tsunami Dream case will hold an EATX board, is available 
without the nerdboy window, and is (in my experience with mine) all but 
silent.  With a good quiet CPU fan (in my case, a Thermaltake K8 Silent 
Max) it's all but inaudible sitting two feet to my left.  If I stick my 
head under the desk next to it, I can just about hear it running. 
Literally the loudest sound it makes in normal operation is the Samsung 
SATA hard disk seeking, and that's a quiet disk.  The only time I ever 
actually *notice* a mechanical sound from it is when the NEC DVD drive 
spins up.

Techtastic review:
http://www.techtastic.ca/reviews3/tsunami.html

Froogle finds five vendors selling it for $105 or less.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2         ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
   alaric at caerllewys.net            alaric at metrocast.net
           It's not the years, it's the mileage.