Tooloop Boxes
All boxes should meet these requirements or at least have a very good reason not to. It’s a wishlist of the perfect media server.
This is supposed to be a community maintained list of boxes that are known to work properly with Tooloop OS so we don't have to think – we pick and order.
Maybe we can find a vendor who will build “Tooloop certified” boxes to our specs some day :-)
- Rack-mountable A computer belongs in rack. Only very rarerly there's a reason to put it elsewhere. It’s safe there and it’s easy to reach and maintain.
- Longevity Industrial and server grade components are built to last. They withstand high temperatures, run 24/7 and you can still purchase them in a year or two.
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Chassis
- Size mostly doesn’t matter! Resist the urge of going small! Do you really, really need to? Small = hot.
- Cooling does matter! Passive cooling is mostly not for us media people. Not if your app uses at least some computational power.
- Silent would be nice. In a museum, a showroom or in a theatre we want to be as silent as possible. Not on the expense of bad cooling, however.
- Dust filters are the logic consequence of active cooling. If you can't provide dust filters in the chassis or rack, you will be back in half a year.
- SSD-Drive They’re providing your videos and images much faster than spinning drives. Depending on the chassis, there’s options to mount tiny SSDs.
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BIOS
- Silent boot
- WoL
- No or custom logo
| Box S | Box M | Rack M | Rack L | Rack XL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Super small and darn cheap, like e.g. an Odroid or a Raspberry Pi. | Cheap-ish. An industrial ITX box with no extra graphics card. | This has similar specs as Box M but in a rack, where it belongs. | Serious CPU and GPU power. 2 U space for cooling. | The BFG9000 of media servers. 4 U of space for components and cooling. |
| SOC | Mini ITX or NUC | Mini ITX or µATX | µATX | µATX |
| Quad Core 1.2GHz | Quad Core 2.4 GHz | Dual Core 3.40GHz 7th gen. Intel Core i3 | Quad Core 2.7 GHz 7th gen. Intel Core i5 | Quad Core 3.6 GHz 7th gen. Intel Core i7 |
| On-chip graphics | Onboard graphics (AMD or Intel) | Onboard graphics (AMD or Intel) | Firepro or Quadro card | Firepro or Quadro card |
| 1 GB Ram | 4 GB Ram | 4 GB Ram | 8 GB Ram | 16 GB Ram |
| 100 € | 300 – 600 € | 600 – 800 € | 1200 – 1400 € | 1400 – 2000 € |
| Shopping list | Shopping list | Shopping list | Shopping list | Shopping list |
| Part | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chassis | DIN rail or metal | ≈ 30 € |
| Mainboard | Raspberry Pi 3 | ≈ 35 € |
| Power supply | USB thingy | ≈ 10 € |
| Part | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chassis | IPC box | ≈ 100 € |
| Mainboard | Fujitsu D3313-S | ≈ 200 € |
| Ram | 8 GB | ≈ 80 € |
| HDD | 64 GB SATA flash module | ≈ 90 € |
| Part | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chassis | 1 U IPC rackmount chassis, good cooling (for the size) | ≈ 200 € |
| Mainboard | Fujitsu D3313-S or Fujitsu D3441-S | ≈ 200 € |
| CPU | None or Intel i3-7100T | (≈ 130 €) |
| Cooler | None or Dynatron K2 | (≈ 42 €) |
| Ram | 8 GB | ≈ 80 € |
| HDD | 64 GB SATA flash module | ≈ 90 € |
| Part | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chassis | 2 U IPC rackmount chassis, dust filters, good cooling, full height card slot | ≈ 200 € |
| Mainboard | Fujitsu D3441-S | ≈ 200 € |
| CPU | e.g. Intel Core i5-7500T | ≈ 200 € |
| Cooler | Dynatron K666 | ≈ 45 € |
| GPU | e.g. ATI FirePro W5100 or Nvidia Quadro P2000 | ≈ 360 – 450 € |
| Ram | 8 GB | ≈ 80 € |
| HDD | 256 GB SSD | ≈ 130 € |
| Part | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chassis | 4 U Rackmount chassis, dust filters, good cooling | ≈ 200 € |
| Mainboard | Fujitsu D3441-S | ≈ 200 € |
| CPU | e.g. Intel Core i7-7700 | ≈ 280 € |
| Cooler | Dynatron K17 | ≈ 42 € |
| GPU | e.g. ATI FirePro W5100 or Nvidia Quadro P2000 | ≈ 360 – 450 € |
| Ram | 16 GB | ≈ 160 € |
| HDD | 256 GB SSD | ≈ 130 € |