Saturday 22 August 2009

Intel And Mini-ITX Makes For Neat Little PCs

Now that Mini-ITX has become a mainstream form factor, it is so much easier to get the various components needed to build systems on it.

We used to do a fair amount of Mini-ITX systems based on the VIA EPIA series Mini-ITX platform. The big plus with the EPIA series was the ultra low power usage with some systems being completely fanless and thus ultra quiet. SSD was not common place, so a Compact Flash drive could be used as an alternate to a laptop hard drive.

Intel has a couple of Core 2 Duo/Quad based Mini-ITX form factor boards:

To date, we have been using In-Win BM639 series chassis to put everything into. They are a very classy looking case in black.

We have professional services office such as doctors and dentists that have these little PCs strapped under a counter out of sight with only a keyboard and mouse on an articulating arm along with a wall mounted LCD providing folks in the room maximum desk space for charts and paperwork.

Currently, Intel has a promotion on for their vPro series IITX motherboard:

There are a number of chassis manufacturers that have their products involved in the offering, so this would be a good way to discover other Mini-ITX chassis manufacturer’s products without costing us a dime.

One promising chassis is made by a company we have never heard of is Winsis.

The Wi-02 chassis looks quite nice too (product shot from their Web site):

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Philp We been look into w101 and w102

have you try any yet i am kind curios about relibity ps ?

In long term use ?

The intel promo with case broad make them pretty good deal

also feature intel broad like amt seem make pretty good combo
Andy

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Andy,

So far, the only Mini-ITX chassis we have been using is the Antec BM639 series in black or silver.

We have not had a problem with them yet.

Philip