ASUS RS100-E7/PI2 1U Server Barebone LGA 1155 Intel C204 DDR3 1600/1333/1066

Pros: Very pleased. I'm using it with an i3-2120 and 2 x 2.5" HDs and it's been in service since April 2012. It measures in at 28W on my APC UPS, awesome. I'm running Server 2008 with no problems whatsoever. Will be getting 2 more for Svr 2012 in a few weeks. Fits great in a 24" deep rack nicely. There's space for 2 x 3.5" drives but if you get 2-gang brackets like the Kingwin HDM-225 you can put 4 x 2.5" drives in no problem.

Cons: Not really a con, but the blue power LED on the front can literally light up a room at night. Kinda like looking at the sun. I disconnected it since the green HD and Ethernet LEDs are almost always showing activity, hense power...

Other Thoughts: Maybe slightly quieter fans, or better control over thier speed. With a system consuming a total of 28W from the wall you hardly need much cooling. It's certainly not a problem though.

Pros: cheap

Cons: does not work, RAM, CPU, BIOS, all as needed keeps beeping, Asus support clueless. same money I could have bought a dell Server.

Pros: Love this system. I'm using it as a render node for 3ds max and it works extremely well.

Cons: I was trying to get the CPU temperatures as low as possible so i redid the thermal paste a few time and like an idiot i over tightened and put a small crack on one of the crew holes on the back plate that holds the heatsink in place. Buying the heatsink from their estore only gives you the heatsink, it doesn't come with the back plate that holds it in place which is ridiculous. I'm taking eggs off because I've been trying to get a replacement from Asus and they don't seem to care or even want to bother with it.

Pros: quiet, rack rails, inexpensive, BUT --> read the cons and comments before you waste your $$

Cons: I3 only, ECC only, BIOS does not properly report ECC so memtest86+ will not test as ecc.

Other Thoughts: I have four of these machines, one returned for failure (dead after three months) and another one is dying -- 50% in less than a year. Random errors, segfaulting in random places. First thhought it was memory (memtest spewed a bazillion errors). Changed memory from 2x4GB Kingston 1333 ECC 9/9/9/24 to 2x4GB Corsair 1066 7/7/7/20 (all my local guys had for ECC). Memory errors went away -- probably because of the lower speed -- but OS still segfaults and corrupts disk (Gentoo 3.4.9, 64bit multilib). It's the server for sure (confirmed not the disk -- tried two, they work perfectly in other faster machines) not the cpu, not the memory. These servers are flaky and the ECC/BIOS problem has been posted elsewhere. Apparently ASUS coulnd't care less about this problem. I regret buying these, for sure...

Pros: Small compact rack mount system, includes rails and dvd drive. Also includes ASUS management software if you are stacking a bunch of these in a rack. CPU supports Xeon series - so you can get quad-core w/ 8 meg cache.

Also supports a RAID PCI-Express x16 card.

Cons: The hard drive bays are somewhat hard to access and there is only two, but you're only paying 430ish so it is worth it.

The board does not support any integrated graphics controller that comes w/ the CPU and is picky about the types of memory that it supports (although it does do ECC - which is win).

Other Thoughts: Put a couple of western digital greens (2tbs a piece in it), 16 gigs of ram, a raid card, and a xeon. Powered it up and got it functioning rather quickly.

I'm running RHEL 5.5 on it, and using it as a fileserver w/ the drives in a RAID 1 configuration.

Very good investment for the money if you're looking for a single CPU system, since it comes with rails (which many small bare bone servers do not).

Pros: Excellent layout for a 1U, low-depth case, has an Asus P8B-M motherboard, comes with a PCI express riser. System runs cool. No driver issues with Server 2008 R2 64-bit. Runs cool, and fans are quiet.

Cons: Limited room for expansion, but it's 1U!

Other Thoughts: System specs:
-ASUS RS100-E7/PI2
-Intel Xeon 1230 3.2 GHz Quad-Core
-8 GB Kingston DDR3-1333
-Western Digital 160GB Caviar Black
-Samsung Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB
-2 x Western Digital 750GB Caviar Black
-Intel SASUC8I RAID Controller

To make the laptop drives fit, I used a Kingwin HDM-225 adapter, took a bit of drilling to make it fit.

Server

Pros: Nicely laid out, holds 2 HD's, Cables were pre-routed, for the price, this ASUS chassis is ridiculously nice. No complaints, and there shouldn't be if you do a little studying and make sure all your components will function together. Compact!

Cons: None so far.

Pros: This is great little powerhouse server. It runs quite quietly and with the optional KVM chip can be fully managed remotely.

I installed a E3-1230 processor and 8 gigs of RAM and it easily hosts a couple of virtual servers.

Cons: The only downside to this machine is that there are a limited number of vendors making the correct ECC nonbuffered RAM which is REQUIRED.

Other Thoughts: I have a little datacenter in my closet at home and happily hums away all day long.

Pros: Solid case. Decent cooling. Sata 6gbps. Efficient low power power supply. Comes with rails

Cons: "Raid" listed isn't hardware raid, it's just a weird form of quasi-software raid, and quite useless.

Although board "supports" 8gb single dimms, no one makes 8gb single dimms that will work with the server, limiting the maximum memory to 16gb.

Pros: I got the server for the great price. It works very well, and comes with all the necessary parts (CPU heat sink with thermal grease already applied, all the screws for hard drives, rails).

Cons: could use more fans around the hard disk areas.

Other Thoughts: the second hard disk fits underneath the CDROM. Not a problem, but read the manual. This is a 1 U box, so it is tight like all 1 U boxes, but not worse then other 1U servers. The problems with the description others notes are fixed. I did get the bundle, and all the parts fit and worked.