Hmmm. I'll try to find that URL... Sorry, that was off the cuff.

Jim

Well, it's been a while since I've looked at those sites, and they've changed. I think silentpcreview.com was the one I was thinking of. I think I may have been thinking of this article, which is now rather old.

It seems to me that Mark Lord's new network server (the one in the tin cookie box) is fanless and silent as well. I don't remember the details of that machine.

You can put your 3.5" IDE drives in acoustic enclosures ( this place sells them) that reduce their noise. That, combined with something like mlord's machine might be the ticket.

I have the music server in a closet with my network server/firewall machine, so I don't really care about the noise. What I want to do (time and $$$ permitting) is to make a completely silent cookie-tin like computer with a flash drive and wireless that just NFS mounts the music partition from the server in the other room. The other alternative is to buy a squeezebox and install that server software on my existing machine.

I've been using mp3blaster as my linux console mp3player. I wanted a console player so I didn't need a big machine running X and a mouse, etc, etc. This player has some really cool functions, in my opinion (shuffle groups, for instance). You can make mp3blaster work with lirc (linux infrared remote control), so that you can control it with a standard remote (or even the empeg remote, I suppose). I haven't done that, but if/when I make the silent little flash-drive player machine, I will probably get that working.

I really think that linux with software raid and Samba is the answer, at least for the server side. You can use the server as the player, if it is quiet enough, or use a variety of different players, from Windoze machines with Winamp, to squeezeboxes, or other linux client-only player machines.

Jim