FreeBSD & mini-ITX

[Brent Wiese]

Benjamin Keating wrote:

>I've been eyeing up these mini-ITX boards - would like to make a quite
>little file server. Does anyone here run a mini-ITX board (what
>model)? Does it work out of the box? Anything not supported? I'd go
>for one of VIA's as AMD's and others are still a little new and
>pricey. Recommend a shop to purchase from (in the US)?
>  
>
I've tried several of the VIA mini-itx boards (not with FreeBSD tho). 
Not bad. But:

1: cases aren't super plentiful and the nice ones aren't cheap
2: for a file server, I want gig-E, something not built on to the VIA 
boards, at least not since I've last checked (could be available now)
3: I think it actually ends up being cheaper to buy a little cube system 
w/ a standard AMD/Intel chip
4: Many of the cases for the via boards don't have multiple drive 
bays... since you mention file server, I assume you'd want to at least 
mirror 2 drives
5: for the price, you may just want to consider buying a USB-NAS adapter 
(Linksys and Dlink both have them) or getting a Buffalo Terrastation (or 
similar) and save yourself a lot of work assembling, etc. Of course, 
this assumes you only want to use the box as a fileserver.