After giving a lot of thought to what I use my server at home for I came up with the following list of essential features:
- Quiet, due to my recent move the server will now be located in the house
- Low power usage, it runs 24/7 so it should be as cheap as possible to run
- Sizeable storage, to enable me to move my iTunes library onto the server and share it across the home network
- Small, once again this is due to the server being in the house
- Backup, to backup the various computers in the house
After a lot of looking around I decided on a Tranquil T7-HSA, which meets most of the above,even although it is advertised as a Microsoft Home Server. Still a quick email secured a discount of £50 if purchased without Windows Home Server and an explanation that the reason for not including a Linux option on their web site was that “they didn’t want to confuse things”.
Pre-sale help and advice were excellent as was the delivery. I placed my order through their web site on the Wednesday afternoon and received my server the following Monday!
On opening the box I found:
- The server itself
- A power supply
- A USB-HDD power cable
… yep that’s all!
So what’s the technical details, I hear you all ask?
- Via 1.5Ghz CPU
- Internal 500GB HDD
- 1GB DDR2 RAM
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports for additional external HDDs
- Power consumption <24W for the system!
- Integrated power for up to 4 x USB 2.0 external HDDs
- Dimensions 224mm (deep) x 232mm (high) x 57mm (wide)
- Fanless operation
- Oh! and its use for the next 5 years is Carbon Offset by Tranquil
Now I don’t know about you all, but written dimensions don’t mean a lot to me, so here’s some pictures of it with a copy of O’Reilly’s SQL in a Nutshell for comparison, while you probably don’t all have a copy of it I’m sure you all own at least on O’Reilly book…
Here’s a shot of ALL the available ports…
Though if you remove the rear plate (three screws) things become a bit better…
Now why all the hidden ports, well if you recall it’s designed as a Windows Home Server which specifies things like no keyboard. Tranquil provide the Servers full ready to use and can provide an automated restore CD which negates the need for a keyboard, monitor etc. Ah! but what about Linux… well I’m sure it’s possible to do the same via a suitable kickstart (or similar) script.
However, that is currently beyond me and as I was keen to see what it could do I plugged in a keyboard, an external DVD drive (borrowed from work) and monitor to install Fedora 8.
That’s all for now, though I’ll post more once I’ve got it fully configured and had a bit more time to play with it…
Hi there – just a quickie to let you know I’m looking forward to reading your next instalment of installing Fedora 8 on the T7-HSA since I’m hoping to be doing the very same thing in the near future! Thanks for your help in advance.
@splankie, thanks for the reminder, I’ll try and get a follow up done later this week.
Any luck with installing Fedora on the Tranquil PC? I guess you’ll be going for Fedora 9 now that it’s out…
Did you manage to get Linux setup OK on the T7? I’ve tried installing both Debian and it’s sister Ubuntu via a USB memory stick installation and both have failed – Debian failed to find the ISO image to install off the USB stick and Ubuntu went through a complete installation but failed to boot on start up. Annoying. Anyone had any success?
Have you given up on the idea of installing Fedora Linux on the Tranquil PC? Or just tooooo busy….! We’re all dying to know what happened next!
@Anonymous and @Andy, apologies for the extended delay in posting about my Fedora Linux experiences but I’ve been putting my two OU courses first.
They both finish soon so I’ll finally be able to write more about my experiences.
That said, my T7 has been happily running Fedora 8 since I installed it back in March.
Hi can you tell me where I can find the rest of this article. I have a Tranquil T7-HSA with WHS on it but its down at the moment and I am wanting to install Ubuntu on it instead.