Holiday 2012 Small Form Factor Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on December 5, 2012 1:55 AM ESTUp to 24TB of storage in a 5 gallon case
A year ago I wrote a file server builder's guide, which generated more discussion than any of my other guides. Succinctly, there are a lot of options to consider when you build a file server. There are many operating system choices, from FreeBSD and FreeNAS, Ubuntu and Samba, to Windows Home Server 2011. You can read more about those software solutions in the previous file server guide, as the information remains relevant. Windows Home Server 2011 gets the nod here, simply because of its ease of use. If you're willing to spend a bit more time implementing a free file server OS, there are many compelling alternatives.
Dustin recently reviewed Fractal Design's new ITX case, the Node 304. What impresses me most about the Node 304 are its sleek styling and its ability to house six full-size 3.5" hard drives. As 4TB drives are the highest capacity models available to the mainstream market, the Node 304, which has a volume of about 5 gallons, has the ability to put up to 24TB of storage in a small footprint on your desk or on a bookshelf. My own testing indicates that the Node 304 is capable of keeping lower RPM (i.e. "green") hard drive temperatures well within comfortable operating temperatures (less than 40C) even under full, artificial load.
That said, the Node 304 is, as you might imagine, cramped when you stuff it full of six hard drives. To ameliorate this concern, we're pairing it with Silverstone's ST50F-P power supply, a 500W 80+ unit that is one of the smallest ATX power supplies available. Furthermore, we're recommending Silverstone's short cable kit, which helps with installation and cable management.
ASUS' P8H77-I is one of the few ITX motherboards with six SATA ports. As such, expansion cards aren't necessary to fill the Node 304 to its maximum hard drive capacity. This motherboard is also particularly well laid out when installed in the Node 304, which again helps with installation and cable management. It's important to note that file servers do not require powerful processors, so again the Celeron G540 gets the nod here.
Finally, Western Digital released its Red line of hard drives this year, which Ganesh reviewed. These drives are ideally suited for server use: they sip power, they're user configurable, and they run cool and quiet. Western Digital Red drives also carry a 3-year warranty, compared to the 2-year warranty of Western Digital's Green drives and many of Seagate's higher capacity storage drives. These Red series drives are available in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB capacities; hopefully a 4GB model will be available soon. 4TB hard drives are currently available from Seagate and Hitachi. That said, the base model file server outlined below features a single 3TB Red drive as this capacity represents the best dollar per GB ratio of the three Red models. Of course, only you can determine how much storage you need, and definitely watch prices as I've seen these fluctuate wildly over the last month in terms of cost. Also keep in mind that consumers are not in a good position to judge the reliability of hard drives, and that the plural of anecdote is not data.
| Component | Product | Price |
| Case | Fractal Design Node 304 | $90 |
| Power supply | Silverstone ST50F-P | $78 |
| Power supply accessory | Silverstone short cable kit | $20 |
| CPU | Intel Celeron G540 2.5GHz dual-core | $45 |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8H77-I mITX | $100 |
| RAM | Corsair Value Select 4GB DDR3-1333MHz | $18 |
| Hard drive | Western Digital Red 3TB | $155 |
| Operating system | Windows Home Server 2011 | $50 |
| Total: | $556 |
On the next page, we outline two SFF gaming systems.
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yhselp - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
It’s great that you do an SFF guide, but this one feels somehow … toned down. You say “There's also an aesthetic appeal to minimalists like me who like the efficiency of having no more computer than necessary to accomplish computing purposes.”, and then proceed to recommend rather conservative builds. I’m not saying we should be on the extreme thermal edge, but none of the configurations you suggest are optimized and focused (except for the file server on the condition one needs all the HDD bays).For the budget build you could use an M350 enclosure, sure, it’s more expensive but it’s also much more compact. At $100 (including a picoPSU and a power brick) I think it’s a great deal for what you’re getting. You have to use a 2.5” HDD for it, but then again you can find those (1TB) for as little as $70 now. What you end up is an impossibly small toy-a-of-box which you can slap on the back of your monitor if you wanted to.
For the gaming build you could use a Silverstone SG06-450 – you can fit any (single GPU) video card in there and the PSU would take it. It also has two drive bays (3.5” and 2.5”). It’s well-ventilated, trust me – I used to run an i5-750 and a GTX 470 in that thing. I even installed a closed-loop liquid CPU cooler in one of those. Heck, for the BitFenix Prodigy’s size you could build a full-fledged system. I mean that, two GTX 690s, or one 690s and a dedicated PhsyX video card, or anything that fits in 4 slots, a number of HDD bays, ODD, ATX PSU, liquid CPU cooling – the works. There are at least 4 enclosures from Silverstone alone that can pull this off.
I respect what you’re doing, I’m an SFF proponent myself, but I’d really like to know the motivation behind your conservative choices. Anandtech is a very reputable source (if not THE source) and many people read what’s on the site as ‘law’, that’s the reason why I’m being so thorough – I think more SFF options should be voiced.
pvdw - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
Zach, if you want your buyer's guides to be taken seriously you need to do more research.I'm certainly no expert, but as I mentioned in a previous review of small server builds, part selection is completely different from gaming machines. A 500W PSU for a server build??? You really need to check out the Seasonic S12II-380 and 330. They have no problem handling 6 drive home server builds, are practically silent, and much more efficient. You could go with the modular if you need space.
Also, an alternative to the Node 304 is the Lian Li PC-Q08, which may well be a better choice noise-wise. There's no way to tell from the Node 304 review since Anandtech simply doesn't have the equipment to compare quiet builds.
BTW, I love most reviews and articles on this site, but some like this are just annoying.
war59312 - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
Hi,Small typo on page 3:
"hopefully a 4GB model will be available soon."
That should of course be 4TB, not GB. :)
Take Care,
Will