I'm looking for a device which has USB 3 and Gigabit ethernet. It needs to be small, ideally raspberry pi size and cheap, less than £150. I know a NUC might fit the bill but they are quite expensive when you add RAM on top.
Could be worth having a look for laptops with broken screens on ebay? (*edit, like this?) I'm going to take a wild guess this is for sharing files across a network. Some routers come with USB3 now, and you should be able to find one that you can install custom firmware on that lets you disable pretty much everything except the file sharing.
hi its a pitty they did not update to usb3 and gigabit net as the pi 2 has just come out for £22 http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-new-raspberry-pi-2-now-with-windows-10-support/ http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/8326274/
A laptop would be too big. You're right. I've considered a router. It would be used with a Virgin Media Hub, so I thought I would need to disable the router capabilities of the hub so it just acts as a modem. I hadn't considered disabling the new router so that's a good idea. Yeah the Raspberry pi 2 would have been perfect. That's why I was wondering if there were any other little boards around with USB 3 and gigabit.
There are a few alternatives to the RPI. The hummingboard has Gigabit but not USB3; a bit more expensive as well. The MinnowBoard Max in that link might be your best bet, I think it has a USB 3 and Gigabit, not sure about the price though.
Bit bigger than you were wanting [mainly because i can't find the case i was thinking of...] and a smidge over the budget but what about something like this - EDIT: Replace the case [and PSU] with something like the Antec ISK 300-150 and it you end up with a relatively small file server... For Pi-like, the Banana Pi has Gigabit ethernet but not USB3 [but it does have a sata port, unsure on speed though]...
This is what I was hoping for, price isn't too bad but there aren't any UK suppliers and all the distributors have big back orders. Maybe availability will be better in a few months, I'll keep an eye out. This looks great thanks. I never would of thought I could get a brand new PC in such a small budget, probably because I go straight to Intel CPUS. That's a bargain, but if I gave this to my Dad he might want it in his office with a monitor and peripherals, rather than leaving it as a server in the spare room with the hub. He might also worry more about the electricity bill.
If you want to go smaller while ago I was looking at this case: M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure Check, but I believe it was height compatible with the stock AM1 cooler. You'd need a Pico PSU, or (what I was thinking of) the AM1H-ITX motherboard, which has a laptop charger compatible DC power input built in.
That is brilliant and I was just thinking of settling with USB2 and 100 Mb/s ethernet and getting a raspberry pi 2. But then I think I would find it more of a struggle to set it up as a NAS. I'll have to budget in a second hand SSD as well.
