Budget 0-20k Need a 24 hour download rig(Just for Downloads)

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Demon_Ryu

Disciple
Questions
  1. What is your budget?
    • 10K
  2. What is your intended use for this PC/hardware
    • Download rig, 24x7 operation.Power consumption must be minimum
  3. Do you have any brand preference or dislike? Please name them and the reason for your preference/dislike.
    • Nothing
  4. Are you looking to overclock?
    • No
  5. Which operating system do you intend to use with this configuration?
    • Windows 7 64 bit
 
Adding these
1.Power consumption must be minimum
2.24 hours operation
3.10k includes ram+hdd+mobo+cpu+chasis
4.Should not overheat
5.Mini itx preferred
 
First of all, you will not be able to fit the entire budget in 15K, forget 10K - if you want x86 + new components or are fine with reduced/zero expansion.

Secondly, go for something like the GoFlex Home/Raspberry Pi/Banana Pi - I have used them and they are good. Should be able to fit in your budget easily.

If you don't mind zero expansion - I would recommend going with a NUC/ASRock Box - this will be about 10K. Celeron CPU. Add 4GB of RAM + 1 TB HDD for 6K.

Another option would be the iBall 701 which runs x86 Windows 7 + has OTG support. Add a 64GB Strontium card - 999 on Amazon. Less than 6K and portable! Plus a HDD?

If you are from Mumbai, you could come over to my place to see my small Plex box - this has costed me the equivalent of 20K (Celeron 1037U, 4GB, 5TB, Morex 6600 chassis )
 
Since you will be doing 24x7 downloads, I am guessing that you will be using Torrents mostly.
For downloading torrents, NUC or old PC will be waste of money and electricity (in my opinion).

Raspberry Pi won't play nice with ext HDD unless you use a powered USB Hub. And not all powered hub's are safe for use with the Pi. I bought Plugable USB Hub from the US via a colleague just for the Pi. It costs 1k there. So my setup is RPi2 (3k) + charger (.5k) + 32GB Samsung microSD(.9k) + USB Hub(1k) + ext HDD.
But I mostly download onto my microSD card only and use my ext HDD very less.

You can use Banana Pi or Orange Pi as well. These boards have SATA connectors and so you can connect internal hard drives to these. I went for the RPi as it was available in India. For buying the Banana Pi or Orange Pi or Odroid C1 at a reasonable price, I would have had to order from AliExpress and wait for sometime.

I keep my RPi on throughout the night to keep my cable broadband connection alive(my provider logs me out automatically after an hour if I login from mobile browser. Only with Firefox or IE desktop browsers does it stay logged in).

If you want to download using IDM, even then you can go for these small boards. IceWeasel is an ARM port of the Firefox browser. You can install DownThemAll extension and you are all set. It has basic set of options but is good enough in my opinion. I have not tried JDownloader yet on my Pi. But it should work as well since it is based on Java.

The iBall i701 is also a good option as it is available for just Rs.3-3.5k. But I am not sure about the build quality. And it will heat up a lot more than these boards (if used 24x7) since it is in an enclosed package.
 
Thanks guys
But I have tried iball It heats up super fast and is not worth it(hangs most of time and is very difficult to operate,due to screen size) plus steam client and games do not work
Have raspberry pi and use it for torrent downloader
My main concern is for downloading steam games since I need a low powered pc (which will save electricity cost like hotshot said) and download all day plus torrent and idm
Configuring torrent on pi is a real pain in the ass and switching the mmc in and out is very tiresome
My main concern is a low powered pc which will not draw that much current

I have a i3 + 1tb hdd and 4gb ram lying around but they consume too much power when on
 
Demon_Ryu said:
Thanks guys
But I have tried iball It heats up super fast and is not worth it(hangs most of time and is very difficult to operate,due to screen size) plus steam client and games do not work
Have raspberry pi and use it for torrent downloader
My main concern is for downloading steam games since I need a low powered pc (which will save electricity cost like hotshot said) and download all day plus torrent and idm
Configuring torrent on pi is a real pain in the ass and switching the mmc in and out is very tiresome
My main concern is a low powered pc which will not draw that much current

I have a i3 + 1tb hdd and 4gb ram lying around but they consume too much power when on
Click to expand...
You can setup Samba on your RPi. Then you will be able to transfer files wirelessly/via LAN. Transfers will be very slow though.

I have no idea of how to download steam games. So won't be able to help you.

OT : I was thinking about getting the i701 if price comes down to Rs.3k again. I plan on using it to do some programming(python) while I am commuting. I heard that the screen is very very bad. Will I be able to see anything if I keep it on my lap and sit upright? Or should I get a 10 inch windows tab?
 
If you want to get Steam games, then a x86 is the only option ATM. Secondly, I still think you should go the NUC/Beebox way - this has the added advantage of ensuring you get a second PC/HTPC for watching movies when needed, and is small as well + good power efficiency.

@hotshot05 I too am thinking the same. Athough, reviews are bad - with heating and other issues - OP has pointed out the same.
 
Guys Screen resolution and viewing angles are very very very bad .For your position no.I had to hold the screen in front of my eyes to see whats going on
The moment you shift colors are degraded and screen look washed
Also 1024*600 is the native resolution which is bumped to 1024 * 800.As a result text are fuzzed and hazy.metro apps wont run on 1024*600 so you are pretty much stuck at 1024 * 800 if you want to use store.
Main drawback is that you cant charge while using usb keyboard or otg as it uses the same output.Can run max 3-4 apps simultaneously and you get just 4.5 gb of usable space after 1st boot
And if you just surf browser for 3 mins tab gets heated like a tawa
Got it for 3k from Fk and returned it
Not even worth that price

get 10 inch tab or if you can import the Microsoft surface pro 3

Was thinking of intel stick.Any one has any idea??
 
Demon_Ryu said:
Guys Screen resolution and viewing angles are very very very bad .For your position no.I had to hold the screen in front of my eyes to see whats going on
The moment you shift colors are degraded and screen look washed
Also 1024*600 is the native resolution which is bumped to 1024 * 800.As a result text are fuzzed and hazy.metro apps wont run on 1024*600 so you are pretty much stuck at 1024 * 800 if you want to use store.
Main drawback is that you cant charge while using usb keyboard or otg as it uses the same output.Can run max 3-4 apps simultaneously and you get just 4.5 gb of usable space after 1st boot
And if you just surf browser for 3 mins tab gets heated like a tawa
Got it for 3k from Fk and returned it
Not even worth that price

get 10 inch tab or if you can import the Microsoft surface pro 3

Was thinking of intel stick.Any one has any idea??
Click to expand...
See the review of Intel stick on Gizmodo. If you try to do too much using it, it will crash. I heard that for light use, it is good. It was available for 6.9k, last week on snapdeal.
 
The compute stick? No, not a good option. As with all HDMI sticks, they suffer from lag, crashing and heating issues. It would make more sense to get the NUC.
 
Are you certain the current PC you have consumes a lot of power ? PC s consume very little power for downloading, using some tweaks to turn off unnecessary components while downloading might lower total power required.

Buying a new PC will cost money, quite a bit, calculate how much time you'd need to use it to break even ( Current PC + high power vs new PC + lower power )

I have been using a Pentium 4 PC from 2005-2009 and an i5 750 since 2009 for downloading, they've been on almost 24x7 since, don't really bother about PCs power consumption, I'd rather have a full fledged PC at my disposal which can handle the brutal long hours rather than something which might not have all the functions ( linux boxes ) or go kaput on heavy use ( seriously you cannot download TBs of stuff on a tablet ).
 
get an atom micro pc
I use the zotac mag hd nd 01

the basic NUC runs for 9k and should be enough, just get old ram ( 2 gb ) and a old HDD 120gb/250gb and you are set within 12k.
power consumption is around 15-30w
 
Why is configuring a torrent client on the Pi a PITA? From your comments it seems that you're saving your files to the SD Card, and not to an ext HDD.
I'm pretty sure that once you a connect an ext HDD, half your problems will disappear.
Setting up file sharing on Linux is a pain, but you only have to do it once, and since you already have the Pi, I'd think it was worth the effort.
If all you want the rig to do is download torrents while saving power, and if you don't want to use the Pi, then I'd suggest getting a router that lets you torrent, and an external hard drive case for your 1TB disk.


Sorry. I missed the part where you said wanted a machine to download Steam games. Disregard what I said earlier.
Have you tried underclocking your i3? At low speeds it shouldn't consume much more power than an NUC setup.
Disable all the external peripherals - extra SATA ports, USB, sound etc that you can in the BIOS to save some more power.
 
Last edited:
ch@ts said:
Why is configuring a torrent client on the Pi a PITA? From your comments it seems that you're saving your files to the SD Card, and not to an ext HDD.
I'm pretty sure that once you a connect an ext HDD, half your problems will disappear.
Setting up file sharing on Linux is a pain, but you only have to do it once, and since you already have the Pi, I'd think it was worth the effort.
If all you want the rig to do is download torrents while saving power, and if you don't want to use the Pi, then I'd suggest getting a router that lets you torrent, and an external hard drive case for your 1TB disk.
Click to expand...
He wants to download steam games. For that neither router nor Pi will work.
 
Consider this ASUS EeeBook X205TA

https://www.asus.com/in/Notebooks/ASUS_EeeBook_X205TA/overview/
https://www.asus.com/in/Notebooks/ASUS_EeeBook_X205TA/specifications/

1. Low power consumption equivalent to mobiles and tablets, same processor as in latest mobiles and tablets, Intel® Bay Trail-T Quad Core Z3735F 1.83 GHz Processor.
www.gsmarena.com/allview_wi8g-7643.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/allview_viva_i10g-7639.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/allview_wi7-7640.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/toshiba_excite_go-6466.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/acer_iconia_one_8_b1_820-7217.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/acer_iconia_tab_10_a3_a30-7218.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/jolla_tablet-6816.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/hp_pro_slate_10_ee_g1-6964.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/allview_wi10n_pro-7644.php

2. Instead of mechanical harddrive, 32GB eMMC which consumes very less power than mechanical HDDs and runs faster than microSD cards.
3. Installed licensed original Windows 8.1 (not a compromise on operating system which you are looking)
4. Having own screen of 11.6" 16:9 HD (1366x768) Glare panel.
5. Having Wifi and bluetooth,
6. Having bulit-in speaker and microphone.
7. Having its own backup, having battery. No need to worry about UPS thing. Runs 12 hours without power on its batteries.
8. Weight less than 1 kg.
9. Having extra slot for micro sd cards.
10. Having its own web camera.
11. Dimension equivalent to tablet of 10 inches. 28.6 x 19.3 x 1.75 cm (WxDxH)
12. Having onboard memory 2GB.
13. Having microHDMI output.
14. If you later change plan not to use it as download machine, you can carry anywhere as a low-weight browsing machine in remote area where no possibility of electricity.
15. Having very nice cosmetic look and choices of color to chose.
16. You can showoff anywhere.
17. Ready-made download machine.
18. Having its own touch pad, no need of mouse.
19. Having its own keyboard.
20. Having very good brand name ASUS.

CONS:
Its price is around Indian rupees 15,000 which is higher than you budget of 10,000.
It is not having Ethernet RJ45 Jack connector. For this you will need extra Usb to ethernet rj45 adapter/converter to connect through wire, otherwise if you use wireless, no issue at all.
 
Last edited:
babhishek said:
get an atom micro pc
I use the zotac mag hd nd 01

the basic NUC runs for 9k and should be enough, just get old ram ( 2 gb ) and a old HDD 120gb/250gb and you are set within 12k.
power consumption is around 15-30w
Click to expand...

Hey bro how did you get your hand on this??
Any idea where I can buy in India
 
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