Not sure I really want to try to sell you a hobby project, but here are
some additional thoughts for consideration:
- Does FreeNAS support mounting NTFS? I don't know, maybe it does
- Both solutions are wildly overpowered for SqueezeCenter, which is
happy with 1GHz VIA style systems (assume sufficient memory)
- Your DIY price includes 2GB of RAM though SS4200 ships with only
512MB. Both are probably sufficient for a dedicated SC7 box, but 2GB
would be an additional upgrade to SS4200. Flash storage will also
cost extra, but FreeNAS works fine from a USB key (which you may
already have) as it is mostly resident in memory after boot
- SS4200 is very quiet, which is why I purchased it. The mounting for
the disks quiets them in addition to reducing vibration. The 70mm fans
produce lower frequency noise than most CPU coolers, and lower
frequencies tend to be less annoying. I find that one of the WD disks
in a cheap USB enclosure is noisier than the three of them in the
SS4200. Noise may not important if it lives in a closet
- SS4200 does sound like an airplane for a few seconds after
power-on, before it settles the fans. I've not seen them speed up
during normal operation
- Was curious about power consumption, so I plugged it into my
Kill-A-Watt. All figures include idle gigabit LAN connection and IDE
DOM (hosts OS):
- 2W in ACPI S5 (plugged in, not powered on, no WOL)
- 49W steady idle with 3 WD 1TB disks not seeking (max startup load
was 86W)
- 39W steady idle with with all disks in sleep mode (hdparm -Y
/dev/sd[abc])
- 3W in ACPI S5 with WOL enabled
- With a 32W CPU and efficient PSU the DIY PC will need more power
than the SS4200, but probably not too much more
- I use WOL to suspend my dedicated SC7 system when idle, which is
much more power friendly than leaving it on regardless of idle draw.
I only use my SC7 for a few hours per day even on the best of days...
:)
- The DIY PC has the advantage that it can be used for a wider array
of other purposes in the future, and has a more standard PSU. It also
has a VGA port, which is very helpful for installation if you are not
familiar with serial.
- Using a system limited to a serial console is primitive by modern
standards. Even installation of a standard Linux distro like
RHEL/CentOS is not well documented. It could be frustrating if you
have to figure it out along the way (if you want some specifics let
me know!)
- If you use FreeNAS on SS4200 then you will probably want to
configure the BTX boot loader to not use ACPI. This is much like
configuring grub, so if you're comfortable...
- SS4200 has 2x eSATA, some MBs do as well
- The DIY PC will look like a small PC, the SS4200 will look like a
black plastic briefcase from the 70s. Some spouses prefer industrial
design to utilitarian hobbyist chic :)
All this said, you will probably have things running on the DIY PC with
less time and (potential) diversion than the SS4200. If the SS4200 works
for you then it will likely draw less power and produce less noise, but
could cost much more time and energy to complete.
Best of luck with your planning!
--
syburgh
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