Over the last few years, we have been building small servers using Asus barebones systems. They've been great, and we can install whatever CPU we like, disks, memory, flavour of Linux and so on. They have proven to be relatively cheap and highly reliable machines. However, I just can't seem to find them any more!
Our requirement is room for at least 3 SATA disks, preferably 4 plus DVD, multi-core CPU, preferably AMD, good PSU, and capable of taking at least 8Gb of memory. I can find loads of tiny machines great for firewalls and so on, but nothing any larger. Even the Shuttles, still easily found, can't hold enough disks.
Does anyone know of a reliable supplier of Asus barebones, or something similar? The last thing I want to do is spend 4 figures on an HP and throw away a licence for Winblow$.
Yes, I know I can buy a case, mobo and so on, but that's a laborious exercise if regular, and kit becomes obsolete so fast, it has to be repeated almost every time we build a machine. We've looked at Zoostorm, which is the closest I can find, but they aren't barebones, and we don't need a 2tb disk, just because we want 8Gb of memory. With Zoostorm, it seems that the higher the CPU/memory spec, the bigger the disks, and so on, and it's very hard to find out what the mobo is, and whether it's Linux-friendly. Just too many unknowns and potentially expensive pitfalls.
Help/guidance greatly appreciated!
Cheers, Laurie.