I built myself a new server:


It's made out of these:
AMD Sempron LE-1250
be quiet! Shadow Rock Topflow (fan removed and used as a bottom intake instead)
Asus M4A78-EM
8GB ECC DDR2
60GB OCZ Vertex 2
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green (WD20EARX) (suspended with some trusty old bicycle inner tubes)
SuperFlower Golden Silent Fanless 550W
A really old case + several cans of spray paint

It is really, really quiet. Even quiter if I disconnect the single fan, but I keep it connected and running at the minimum 280rpm (be quiet!'s web site doesn't have comprehensive specs, but I'm guessing that the fan is nominally 300-1500rpm) for safety. It might actually need the fan if it gets hot in the summer too.

I'm quite impressed with the efficiency of the PSU. Before it arrived, I had everything running off an Antec TruePower 550, and it idled at 47W. When I switched that for the SuperFlower, it went down to 27W (with only the SSD and no front panel monitor). While the Antec is a few years old now, that's still a massive difference.

You can read a bit more about the server and its front panel monitor on my website. If all has gone according to plan, the pages at those links will be served by this very server.

Very nice. I like the front panel monitor.

Awesome. Now I want to build a server just to have that display!

What dimensions does the display have?

5.6" diagonal (113x85mm), with the whole panel being 127x100x6mm, a very good fit for the triple drive bay cover. The controller board is about the same size. You can find these for sale on eBay (it's a AT056TN52 V.3). A case with more drive bays could probably fit a larger screen (7" maybe?) rotated 90 degrees, although the viewing angle might be a problem.

Very nice do like the paint effect you managed to get!

Thanks for the info.