Hardware Building a mini PC?

[Harsky]

I am toying about with the idea of building a mini PC with the sole intention of using it to download torrents and since I figured that I don't need a power hungry machine, I thought I could go for one of the mini PC. What are the recommended components to get and which is the best maker for the case?

 

[jpxdude]

Check out www.mini-itx.com

I have been using a shuttle machine for the last couple of years, but my future project is going to be building a tiny pc using the ITX standard, which is a fully functioning motherboard at approximately 17x17cm in size.

Check out some of the projects on that site, including the PC in a windows XP box, and a GTA PC. I want to build one for a media centre once I decide to get a HDTV

GTAPC
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/gta-pc/?p

Windows XP Box
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/?p

I'm waiting for the Intel Fly-Creek motherboards which should allow for some pretty powerful CPU's to be used.

 

[perkele]

Just get a Western Digital Mybook World Edition and install Transmission on it.

 

[FAST6191]

I am pretty sure there are several xbox torrent (and even usenet) clients so that should be a good route.

Stick a version of linux on there (x-DSL or something) and you are sorted. Better yet I seem to recall a python script or two that could do the same thing.

Xbox £50 at the high end (you do not need a DVD drive so you could even score an xbox with a busted one at a slightly lower price).
Big IDE drive: also about £50 these days for 500 gigs.

XBMC can also play back just about everything and setting up a share should not be that hard either.

 

[Harsky]

I am pretty sure there are several xbox torrent (and even usenet) clients so that should be a good route.

Stick a version of linux on there (x-DSL or something) and you are sorted. Better yet I seem to recall a python script or two that could do the same thing.

Xbox £50 at the high end (you do not need a DVD drive so you could even score an xbox with a busted one at a slightly lower price).
Big IDE drive: also about £50 these days for 500 gigs.

XBMC can also play back just about everything and setting up a share should not be that hard either.

i do have a modded Xbox with XBMC and a 200gb HDD but it never occurred to me that a torrent client can be run on it. Shame I'm not linux literate

 

[sepinho]

.. or you could just re-use an old PC in case you have one lying around. Or buy a cheap, old business-class computer on Ebay. Personally, I'm using my _ancient_ P3-700 as fileserver and seedbox running tf-b4rt and an even older Dell P3-450 for my IPCop firewall. Energy consumption for both would be negligible, if it weren't for the numerous hard disks in the file server. I'm gonna have to consolidate those in the near future!