Purpose
It started out that I don't need a server, a nice 1TB external hard drive would suffice, but that's way too boring. With that said, in order to justify having a server running 24/7/365 it would need to use as little power as possible. I almost bought a D945GCLF2D, but then I didn't. Not too much longer, Intel released the D510, with dual core support and LOW

Power Consumption

So power results, I've sinced looked at other solutions, FreeNAS ended up being a little too basic. But here are the results:


-Windows XP Professional
-Idle, hard drive spun up - 18w
-Idle, hard drive spun down - 15.4w



Windows 2003 Server R2
-Idle, active - 20w
-Idle -18w(hard drive does NOT spin down in the server OS)

Box is currently running Windows 2003 Server R2


Parts

Ark PI-01 2-Bay Mini-ITX Computer Case - Got it for like forty bucks from a local computer retailer called "Geeks.com"
Intel Atom D510 Mainboard - Bought at Frys Electronics for 79.00
1GB of Kingston PC-6400 DDR2 Memory - Also bought at Frys Electronics for 30.00
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB - From Amazon.com for 54.99
PicoPSU-80 - Purchased from from minibox.com for 59.00
Enermax 80mm Case Fan - From Frys Electronics for 5.99. Super quiet! Its kind of cool, the shaft floats magnetically, no ball bearings.



Now the fun part, pictures:

The D510 Board


Mainboard and Case ready


View from the side, need to get that lame, blinky LED fan out of there!


Mainboard installed, power supply removed, lame blinky LED fan removed.


So as I was removing the fan, I found this useless obstruction meant to create a neat effect if you have a lame blinky LED fan in the case.....DREMEL TIME!


Dremel'ing away


I found that the little 12v Dremel that wasn't cutting it, literally....Time for the big drill!


Done! Ah, that was much faster!


Grill re-installed and back on the box. I did try to cut the metal baffling out, but my Dremel discs were too weak, so I will need to go find some better ones at sears or something. I'm also waiting for my wife to bring home a can of flat black spray paint so it doesn't look so goofy with the silver. I'll put that picture up later tonight.



Painted and baffling removed.


UPDATE:
So I've got a few things in the mail since:

-(2) 6.5" SATA II Cables. Just the right length
-PicoPSU-80. This thing is freaking sweet!
-Reshaped front fan hole, and added rear PSU cover plate
-Picked up a new refurbished SATA CD drive for $5.99 at a local computer retailer

New Fan Installed with re-shaped hole. Finally got a grinder bit for my new Dremel.


PicoPSU-80 Power Supply.



Fan Installed from the left side:



Fan Hole. I really messed it up, I wish I would have waited. I wanted to use U Channel Edging, but I found some old weather stripping that I wrapped around the hole, then used a lighter to heat it up for forming it to fit the hole quite nicely.



New PSU Backplate Cover. I cut up an old and non-working PSU. I think it looks nice, no more gaping hole.




View from side.



View of the other side.



Put the lame blinky LED fan to good use, removed one of the LEDs and installed it where the green power light used to be, looks cool.



Hard Drive Installed. The wiring isn't as clean as I would hope, but it looks good!



Thanks for looking

I would not buy the 64MB cache green drive for use with server 2k3. I believe this is the WD10EARS, part of WD's new "advanced format" drives, which uses 4k sectors. Server 2k3, along with XP & WHS, will not like the 4k sectors. You have to jumper something or other. More here:
http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php? ... -wd-align/

Also, unless you really need 3GB of RAM, just replace the 1GB stick with your 2GB stick. The D510MO doesn't support dual-channel memory, so there's no performance gains to be had with multiple sticks. Just extra power consumption if your applications don't use it.

I have the same case in my build here

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=58201

im using a pico psu with a intel e5200 with 2 full size drives and have idle power usage of 33w , so i think your build with an atom and 1 drive will be less than 40w

Sweet! Lucky the one in your build doesn't have the window on the one side huh? I'm not too fond of gamer looking cases....I like things to be very simple.

Oh yeah definitely it probably would add some extra load, I think even with the extra ram stick, I'm shooting for 15w, but even if I'm at 20-21 idle, it shouldn't be too bad.

I just looked at the cost of the kilowatt in the state where I am moving to, and at 20w, it will cost 91 cents a month to run.

Sweet! That means probably with the router, 15w +/-, I could run both for a dollar and some change each month.

I put the picture up with it painted, and the metal baffle removed, and I like it a lot more. I may end up adding a 80mm slow spinning fan upfront just to be sure.

Is this the Hard Drive that would work best for Win2k3 server?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

Hmm the WD10EADS appears no longer available through newegg... Closest similar drive is the WD10EVDS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136496
The EVDS is *not* the new advanced format drive. It will work in older operating systems out of the box. Don't buy it without doing your own homework though, might be something I haven't seen.

Might be helpful - how to read a WD drive model number:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/2579-001028.pdf

Otherwise, you can jumper the EARS drives to trick your OS into thinking it's aligned.

I actually was able to find the WD10EADS through Google shopping, a lot more than the newer model. But, its worth it.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=WD10EADS&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=17088818321558722509&ei=tt6uS9LDH4aetgPWneHPDQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBgQ8wIwAg#ps-sellers

yer my case is solid, im not really a fan of case windows tbh

the front looks much better now the inside has been painted

i dont have a fan on the front of mine, i just have 1 at the back, if i put my hand in front of the grill at the front i can feel air slowely getting sucked in.

Thanks. Yeah the case was the cheapest and most local one I could find.

There are various projects on here that have given me some ideas on things I want to do.


One thing I want to do, is use a piece of metal probably from a CD-ROM to cover the hole where the power supply was.




That looks really good. Albeit, I don't the equipment to rivet, I could probably just regular large thread screws.

The box is now finished!

I just started this type of project myself.....
Going a little more crazy, though...
I bought the Asus AT5NM10-I & the 3ware Escalade 9500S-4LP (PCI-X RAID)

The Plan is Loading Freenas onto a 2GB CF card with sata adapter, plugged in the onboard SATA plug.
3x 1TB WD Green's in Raid5 on The Raid card + 1 500GB WD Green for
downloading torrents.
Also thinking of sticking another 500 WD Green on the last SATA onboard,
just to backup the REALLY important stuff on the R5 array...(pics & tunes).
Been testing over my Gigabit net, and I get between 80-90 MegaByte PS write speed to a temp. Raid0 array...
The board just jumps to 50% CPU use...
Really surprised by the NM10 chipset & the D510 CPU...
Jus wish I bought with PCI-E and Dual GB LAN...maybe later...

Yeah that sounds pretty good! These are totally fun, my first ITX build...you'll have to post a link here to your build so I can check it out.

nice build.

I'm building a similar toaster NAS.

Shuttle K45
2x 2TB HDs
Pico PSU
92mm Nexus
D510

...and yes, these mITX boards are fun to work with.

Yeah! will post some mugshots when the last couple of parts arrive...
The coolest part is an OLD AT case (sorta like mATX, only it's not..)
The Mainboard won't be an issue... but still a lot more parts going in..