Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
7
Building an Appliance/
Nettop System
In ThIs chaPTEr
In a strict sense, we define an
appliance system
as a small, quiet computer
that is dedicated to one task or a group of related tasks, such as a home
server, a
network-attached storage
(NAS) box, a media center front-end, or a
home-automation controller. In a broader sense, an appliance system may be
a general-purpose computer that is particularly small, quiet, and unobtrusive.
By that definition, the archetypal appliance systems are the Mac mini and the
many models of ASUS Eee nettop systems and all-in-ones.
Determining Functional Requirements
Hardware Design Criteria
Component Considerations
Building the Appliance System
Final Words
But we don't have to buy a Mac Mini or ASUS Eee. We can build our own sys-
tem based on a 6.7” square Mini-ITX motherboard with an AMD or Intel pro-
cessor and run Windows 7 or Linux on it. Because we're designing and building
it ourselves, we can optimize our system for our own needs and budget.
For example, we can build an inexpensive, nearly silent appliance system with
moderate performance around an Intel Atom motherboard and processor, or
we can build a system with mainstream desktop performance around an Intel
Core i3 or Core i5 processor. If we want both silence and high storage perfor-
mance at the expense of storage capacity, we can install a fast, silent solid-
state drive (SSD). If our priorities are low noise and high storage capacity at the
expense of disk performance, we can install a quiet, high-capacity 5,400 RPM
laptop drive. Or we can strike a happy compromise between noise level, ca-
pacity, and performance by installing a 7,200 RPM or faster laptop hard drive.
Those aren't options with the Mac mini or the ASUS Eee.
The point is, we can have it our way, and so can you. In this chapter, we'll de-
sign and build the perfect appliance system for our needs. But your priorities
may differ from ours, so we'll also point out alternatives all along the way.
Determining Functional Requirements
The problem with determining functional requirements for an appliance
system is that the appliance umbrella covers a huge range of systems. For
example, we found 18 ASUS Eee models, ranging from a $230 nettop with a
single-core Intel Atom CPU and no display to an $1,100 all-in-one model with
a Core2 Duo processor and a 21” LCD display.
We can't build an all-in-one system—one that embeds the motherboard and
drives in the display—but that's all to the good. With an all-in-one system, if
one thing breaks, the whole computer is unusable while you ship it off for
