[Wlug] Looking for a new system

[John Stoffel]

Guys,

I've been looking around for a new system at home, basically to act as
a file server (NFS, Samba) and backup server using Bacula.  It also
needs to run http and mysql and other daemons as needed.

I'd like to get at least a pair of 250gb drives to mirror them for
storage, with LVM volumes on top.  And of course room for expansion to
another pair of drives down the line.

But I'd like it smallish and quiet as well.  Oh yeah, it needs to have
a PCI slot for a SCSI controller, since my tape drive is SCSI for
backups.

Desires:

	- small
	- cheap
	- quiet
	- low power
	- boots without a keyboard/mouse needed at all
	- onboard video (don't really need it at all)
	- PCI slots for expansion
	- four 3.5" drive bays internally
	- SATA ports on board
	- AMD or VIA EPIA
	- 1Gb of RAM or more. 

I've looked at the Via EPIA style systems.  Just not sure if they have
enough oomph for what I want.  

The other thought is to just take my old Dell Precision dual cpu Xeon
550mhz box and make that my main server, holding all my data, etc.
It's got the drive bays, and PCI slots and scsi controller all in
there already.  I could add in some SATA controllers for the new disks
without a problem.  And it would continue to hold my ISA 8-port serial
card.  And it's got the memory for what it would be doing pretty much
as well.  

Then I'd just get a new system for my desktop with a much smaller disk
drive.  

Systems I've looked at:

  - bare bones AMD x2 on ebay.
  - VIA Epia Nanoscale dual CPU box
	http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7109201579.html
  - buying a dell from their closeouts


Any comments?

John