Shuttle PC's (Yes I'm Thinking More)

[deathman20]

This idea sorta started with a piggy back idea from this thread which no one has replied to.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=607627

I need something... preferably small... to act as either as a storage server/device. I prefer to have it directly connected to the network, but since there seems to be a lack of those devices I went with another train of thought. Still a eSATA drive would be sweet as well that had good RAID 1 functions.

Anyways moving on...

Here is something I speced out. Not sure on the overall size of the case though since like I mentioned something small would be ideal but need room for drives. Course changing anything in there is accpetable from the setup I selected.


Shuttle P2 Chassis SP35P2V2 Intel Socket T(LGA775) Intel P35 Aluminum Black Barebone - Retail
Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E2200 - Retail
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail
SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223F - OEM
EVGA 01G-P3-N870-AR GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

At least at the core. If there was a good integrated GPU Shuttle out there (at least semi decent) I'd go with that one as and just ditch the idea of a dedicated video card currently. Harddrive wise I need to have 3 in here....
1 drive will be the OS and what ever minor applications and such I put on there might do my downloads on this PC and save my main PC. So 160-250Gig maybe use a 320Gig I have laying around. The other 2 drives would be 1-1.5TB drives in Raid 1 acting as my media storage.

If I got something like this I'd probably use it for web-browsing as well and some other minor things. Mainly to offload things on my main system I'd like to keep on a stable system (maybe office might go on here).

From all this my X360 would hook up to it (from downstairs via Wireless N) and play the media off the PC from Vista (or maybe Win7) through Media Center.

Looking for suggestions or options while keeping the physical box small, yet usefull if its a PC setup and not a NAS type system.

 

[vulcanman09]

looks good BUT.
if you are not gaming on it , then i would ditch the powerful sli video card and buy something less
powerful
and instead purchase a more robust processor ( core2quad ) maybe

1 thing about shuttle`s and other small form factor system`s
contact shuttle about buying a spare motherboard for that system
shuttle`s motherboards are not known for long term reliability

 

[deathman20]

looks good BUT.
if you are not gaming on it , then i would ditch the powerful sli video card and buy something less
powerful
and instead purchase a more robust processor ( core2quad ) maybe

1 thing about shuttle`s and other small form factor system`s
contact shuttle about buying a spare motherboard for that system
shuttle`s motherboards are not known for long term reliability

Don't want a quad in the system... want something small and quiet yet good enough to perform the task without spending buco bucks. Figured a dual would be more than good enough for that and if I need to OC it I can (people have gotten quads up to 4Ghz in this shuttle case, not sure on those temps though). Not sure if I want that CPU mind you but wanted something at least as a starting point. Downside at least the one I picked out is no Virtual support in Win7. Have to find that list for what is supported.

Shuttles what they have shoddy components? Or just built to not last that long? Man its hard to get something reliable, small, fits the needs and cost effective at the same time that I can build.

Graphics card... yeah can get smaller, figured if I did have it I could do some minor gaming on it if need be but if I get a board that has video on it I can always add it later as well. Might just go up in the models to find one that has onboard video.

 

[vulcanman09]

the problem with those little cases , is that heat from the processor , video card , chipset
can generate quite a bit of heat inside of those little boxes,
the next thing is the fan that sucks in and blows air out through the cpu heatsink is not powerful
in regards of airflow
i had 1 in socket A days , and there was a lot of heat in there
( cooked 2 hard drives in less than a month )
probably a better hdd mounting system now but stagnant heat is still an issue

 

[deathman20]

So something like a MicroATX case might be a better solution.

 

[vulcanman09]

yes that is correct

www.directron.com

has the dfi X58 micro-atx motherboard in stock

also has the dfi p45 micro-atx motherboards as well

 

[vulcanman09]

the p45

http://www.directron.com/lpjrp45t2rs.html

the x58

http://www.directron.com/lpjrx58t3eh6.html

 

[vulcanman09]

i recommend this case

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...&csid=ITD&recordsPerPage=10&body=REVIEWS#tabs

 

[madhatter256]

looks good BUT.
if you are not gaming on it , then i would ditch the powerful sli video card and buy something less
powerful
and instead purchase a more robust processor ( core2quad ) maybe

1 thing about shuttle`s and other small form factor system`s
contact shuttle about buying a spare motherboard for that system
shuttle`s motherboards are not known for long term reliability

In my experience, I've seen more of their powersupplies go bad than the motherboards. Usually, the motherboard was also affected by the bad PSU resulting in no-POST boards, etc.

I'd recommend building one from scratch, like what vulcan is suggesting. You have more control over the quality of parts you want to put in.

 

[deathman20]

Like the case... didn't see that one on the egg at first.