On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:05:28 -0800 (PST), Cats wrote:

Since it will be in the living room and on all the time it *has* to be
quiet.

Investigate some of the fanless systems you can get, solid state HD
and you have a totally silent computer. Won't be in the £40 2nd user
via eBay price bracket mind. My server is PIII 800Mhz (it was a new
Compaq from eBay), the only fan is a large slow one in the PSU the
twin 160GB HDs hardly make any noise. The CPU has a large heavyly
finned bit of aluminium, no fan.

You don't need GigaHertz of processing grunt to run a AWS logger.
Maybe a mini ITX motherboard based system, low power as well,
important for something that is on 24/7. 100W 24/7 is 2.4 units/day,
20W is 0.48 units day...

--
Cheers Dave.
Nr Garrigill, Cumbria. 421m ASL.