From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 22 22:16:26 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B73E216A41C for ; Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:16:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from brently1@bjwcs.com) Received: from bjwcs.com (iad-wws-002.bjwcs.com [208.185.25.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C14043D49 for ; Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:16:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from brently1@bjwcs.com) Received: from [127.0.0.1] [66.252.69.26] by bjwcs.com with ESMTP (SMTPD32-8.05) id A34654C0090; Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:16:38 -0400 Message-ID: <42B9E338.1070307@bjwcs.com> Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:16:24 -0700 From: Brent Wiese User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Benjamin Keating References: <781e2bc0050622144315cf3b25@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <781e2bc0050622144315cf3b25@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD & mini-ITX X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:16:26 -0000 Benjamin Keating wrote: >I've been eyeing up these mini-ITX boards - would like to make a quite >little file server. Does anyone here run a mini-ITX board (what >model)? Does it work out of the box? Anything not supported? I'd go >for one of VIA's as AMD's and others are still a little new and >pricey. Recommend a shop to purchase from (in the US)? > > I've tried several of the VIA mini-itx boards (not with FreeBSD tho). Not bad. But: 1: cases aren't super plentiful and the nice ones aren't cheap 2: for a file server, I want gig-E, something not built on to the VIA boards, at least not since I've last checked (could be available now) 3: I think it actually ends up being cheaper to buy a little cube system w/ a standard AMD/Intel chip 4: Many of the cases for the via boards don't have multiple drive bays... since you mention file server, I assume you'd want to at least mirror 2 drives 5: for the price, you may just want to consider buying a USB-NAS adapter (Linksys and Dlink both have them) or getting a Buffalo Terrastation (or similar) and save yourself a lot of work assembling, etc. Of course, this assumes you only want to use the box as a fileserver.