[rescue] Short-depth 1U x86 Systems

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Jonathan Sturges <jonathansturges at yahoo.com>
>Date: 2008/03/09 Sun AM 09:46:50 CDT
>To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [rescue] Short-depth 1U x86 Systems

>> Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 18:46:41 -0600
>> From: Zach Lowry 
>> Subject: [rescue] Short-depth 1U x86 Systems
>> To: The Rescue List 
>> 
>> I'm looking for suggestions on a short depth x86 box. Similar to a  
>> Netra X1 (1CPU, Dual HDs) but with a little more oomph. Maybe  
>> something in the 1+GHz range. Anyone have any ideas on  such a system?
>> 
>> Oh, and I should mention, it should be able to run OpenBSD. That rules  
>> out Nokia appliances and Cobalt x86 boxes.
>> 
>> --Zach
>
>I would think most of the 1U chassis designed for Mini-ITX boards would be 
short-depth, though I haven't looked at these lately.  I remember someone 
makes a dual (side-by-side) Mini-ITX 1U, which is kinda neat.
>The VIA Mini-ITX systems are somewhat underpowered (though over 1 GHz), but 
Intel even has a few Mini-ITX boards now that should be better (see 
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/D201GLY2/index.htm).  The Intel 
boards should be plenty fast for you.  Don't know specifically if any of these 
can run OpenBSD though.

The newest version of the Intel "Little Valley" board, the D201GLY2 has what 
amounts to a Core Solo CPU, wrapped up as Celeron CPU. It is a Conroe-L core 
running at 1.2 GHz with 512K cache. It takes a single 2 Gig DDR2-533 DIMM 
(though only documented as supporting 1 Gig RAM), and has 2x SATA ports and a 
single IDE port, along with a single PCI slot. It is small, quiet, and 
reasonably powerful (it will run 64 bit OS), though I've never tried to run 
OpenBSD on one.

As for small chassis, I've had good luck with Supermicro and Tyan barebones - 
both sell "shallow" barebones chassis, which I've gotten off eBay for pretty 
reasonable prices (I think the last servers I got were about $150/each for a 
barebones system that took 2 Gigs of RAM and socket 478 CPUs, the MBs sported 
on-board IDE RAID and accommodated two cold-swap[0] HDs (but no internal 
optical).

They don't appear to be on eBay from the seller I bought mine from, but they 
pop-up from time to time... Mine came as stripped servers new in the box (the 
seller sold off the RAM, CPU and HD before offering the chassis) but included 
the rack rails.

Hope this helps,

Lionel