Foobox
From foonas
Contents |
About foobox
The foobox project is a foonas.org experiment to produce an affordable community owned open source low power home server. This server will be comparable to high end consumer storage devices in features with an edge on build cost. It will be possible to purchase the components from normal online retailers and build it but will also be available pre-assembled from foonas.org.
Full support for the foobox will be provided by all the foonas Linux distributions and this will drive initial support for x86 based devices.
Hardware Requirements
- A minimum of four easily hot-swappable SATA drive bays
- Gigabit ethernet
- Capability to boot OS from flash
- Low power and noise
The Competition
Overview
Most NAS vendors are using Orion SoCs (with the exception of Thecus in the list below) and these seem to start at about £400 including VAT from recognised UK retailers for the cheapest devices with no hard disks included.
- Buffalo Terastation Pro II/Live - Approx. minimum price £400
- QNAP TS-409 - Approx. minimum price £400
- Thecus N5200 - Approx. minimum price £450
foobox Benefits
The foobox has various features not found in standard consumer storage products including a display port (VGA and/or other), scope for a CD/DVD reader or writer, audio output ports, a PCI or PCI-E port and compatibility with a variety of standard x86 Linux distributions.
foobox Hardware
The following list is subject to change, also none of these components have yet been evaluated by foonas.org. Please wait until final part list is announced before purchasing!
- Chassis: Chenbro ES34069
Unfortunately the chassis is by far the most expensive single component however it does include a 120W Universal 110/240V 19V AC adapter and internal 180W DC converter (which may/may not be compatible with our motherboard).
This retails for approx. £175 inc VAT from mini-itx.com. The chassis holds a standard mini-itx motherboard, appears to be reasonably presentable and of good build quality and has all the features we are looking for.
- Memory
The memory cost for your device depends on how much you would like to put in, what manufacturer you prefer and where you purchase it from. Cost for this component should start at about 1GB for £15 inc VAT upwards from Crucial.
- Motherboard
The unreleased MSI MS-9832 revealed at Computex 2008 (translated) is an Intel Atom powered mini-itx board that offers four on board SATA ports. Atom based hardware is looking to carry a good balance of price/performance/power consumption, however currently available boards only feature fast ethernet and two SATA ports. Currently there is no projected retail price for this component.
Another option for the foobox motherboards could be the VIA EPIA SN series of mini-itx boards. These boards carry a similar set of features and are based on VIA Eden (C7), however these start at about £160 and the Intel Atom pricing may be favorable.
- Bootable IDE Flash Module
This flash drive will store firmware including foonas-em, foonas-iscsi and other utilities as well as some user storage space. A 128MB module with more than enough storage for these is available for approx. £17 from mini-itx.com however these are available up to 8GB in size from their store.
- Other parts
Various other low cost parts may be required to complete assembly however according to the chassis manual all the SATA & power cables are included. We are enquiring about the power supply compatibility and hope that another PSU will not be necessary to power all the drives in this device!
Total
The current projected build cost for the foobox is approx. £380 including VAT without disks based on the expensive VIA EPIA SN boards. This could be further reduced with an alternative board.
