Home User Hardware Specifications

[johnlil]

I'm hoping to use UT in my home. Currently I have the following devices:

1. Dual boot (XP/Ubuntu) Desktop
2. iMac
3. GOS EeePC
4. PS3
5. Wii
6. iPod Touch
7. Work Laptop (XP) mostly tunnelled into work via VPN

I want to log and control my sons access in terms of time and content and UT does, I think, exactly what I want.

I had hoped to use one of a couple of old box's as my UT install, however a combination of unsupported hardware and 2 years storage in the roof have meant this is not an option.

Kindly the responses to other posts have guided me to the following conclusions,

Buying a second hand server from eBay is not a good idea as the sort of hardware available cheaply is old, too powerful and possibly incompatible, therefore I will build my own?

Reading a series of posts about the specifications necessary for this small deployment, without any heavyweight modules leads me to the following idea, on which I'd appreciiate some guidance, suggestions and feedback

Motherboard: Jetway J7F4 fanless Via C7 1.2Ghz Processor
RAM: 1GB DDR2
Ethernet: 2x Gigabit Realtek RTL8110SC in built
SATA HDD: c. 80GB what would be best spec and the MOBO supports Raid0/1?

Case: TBC

Questions:
1. Does this have the horsepower to do what I want
2. Best spec and configuration for HDD

Target price would be c. £200 built

[proactivens]

Your going to have a hard time finding a mobo with raid that works with untangle, especially in that price range.

[MunkaySteve]

If it helps, my current project that I am about to embark on involves installing ubuntu server x64 on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ with 8GB RAM, installing VMWare Server 2.0 and then creating two virtual machines, one for my file server and one for Untangle. I managed to source 3 Intel Pro S 10/100 PCI Network cards that I can install two of on the board I have purchased, and am using existing hard drives.

I paid around £160 for the board, processor and RAM, and managed to ebay a bargain on the nics - £1 each.

If I was in your position, and had case / PSU, I'd look for a similar board (£40-45), cheapest possible CPU (£40) and 4GB RAM (DDR2 is around £30 for that amount). Get a cheap as you like SATA disk (around £30), and then the quest is to bag a deal on linux supported NICs. The Intel cards are generally excellent, but normally quite pricey. Others may be able to suggest particular models that would meet your busget. Might be worth checking the hardware sticky threads and the hardware wiki.

Alternatively, it might be worth trying to find a couple of years old desktop PC going cheap and adding RAM / NICs as appropriate.

[MiniPilote]

Your hardware should handle load fine, less the RAID. As Proactivens mentions, RAID is a bit of a trick on UT. I currently run a few of the VIA C7 based systems without any problems. The 80gb drive should be more than adequate.

I've also built an Intel Atom 330 based system that works well too.

[johnlil]

Got the message about RAID, available function of the MOBO, will not use!

Glad to hear C7 isn't the total BoS I thought it was.

[NoV!ruses]

If you need something for a good price just buy an NME SG1000 from here. $289. UT is preloaded. It's small, it comes with 2 nics and a gig of ram.

http://www.newmediaera.com/SG1000_SpecSheet.pdf

[hkgonra]

If you need something for a good price just buy an NME SG1000 from here. $289. UT is preloaded. It's small, it comes with 2 nics and a gig of ram.

http://www.newmediaera.com/SG1000_SpecSheet.pdf

Got complete specs on that ?
Also how many nics are in it ?
Can it hold 3 ?
How many users would it be good for ?

[NoV!ruses]

Celeron 440(2.00GHz)
1GB DDR2
160GB HD
The current specifications has two nics. We have it rolled in a 50 user environment.
To hold 3 nics we would have to special order a dual nic card. This has not been tested.

[far182]

FYI that's a fair price for a Shuttle pre-built.

[hescominsoon]

Your going to have a hard time finding a mobo with raid that works with untangle, especially in that price range.

http://forums.untangle.com/showthread.php?t=6879