[geeks] Low-cost Dual-Core Opteron mini tower server at Dell

[Bill Bradford]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 08:20:58AM -0600, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> You can't be serious

I'm serious.

> the VIA PC-1 motherboard[0] at ClubIT is $60 and it 
> runs on DDR2-533 (or greater) RAM, up to 2 Gigs. 

Yes, and unfortunately I don't have the money for that right now.

> If you really want a VIA PC-1 gOS MB let me know, as I have one about to
> go spare (nothing wrong with it, just don't need it).[1]

I'd love it, I just cant justify the expense to the wife right now.

> I just pulled a Linksys NSLU out of a moving box, along with 2x 250 USB 
> drives, and it got me looking at the available hacks and mods for it - did 
> you know the original units were running at half-speed? Later models run 
> the CPU at 266 MHz, the originals ran the CPU at 133 MHz (a speed not even 
> documented in the CPU specifications). IIRC your biggest complaint was that 
> the NSLU was slow - I wonder if the newer, faster NSLUs are any better. (It 
> seems that by "removing, with extreme prejudice" on resistor you can let 
> the CPU run full-speed on the older units). An NSLU running a *nix OS witha 
> couple USB drives might really drop your power usage - much more than a 
> full PC (no matter how green it is).

Had one, did the speed boost to it, etc - I'd rather have a "real" computer
running Solaris 10 w/ZFS.

> Also, I wonder how the Intel D201GLY2 compares to the VIA PC-1 MB for power 
> usage - the Intel board has two SATA ports, takes DDR2 RAM (cheap these 
> days), and can run 64 bit operating systems (it is a Celeron chip based on 
> a Conroe core). You could take one of those MBs, spend $20 or so on a 1 Gig 
> RAM DIMM, and then get the smallest ATX power supply you can find (180 or 
> 200 watt) and make sure it has a 12v 4 pin wire for the MB, then swap in 
> your existing HDs and you're all set - a better machine for just about 
> $100. (heck, it would be ideal if you could wedge the Intel board into a 
> Sun Unipack case, then stack a couple of your home-made Unipack USB cases 
> for storage and have that be your backup solution ;^)

There's tons of alternatives, etc - but right now I can't justify the
expense to buy a smaller and less power-hungry system when the one I have
works just fine. 8-(

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford 
Houston, Texas