Celeron 1037U vs J1900 for ligthtweight server?

[JJ]

At home I have a several year old Xeon (65W E3120) powered file server with 15 x 3.5" drives that I'd like to shut down during the day. So I'm putting together a headless, low-powered 24x7 music server to run Logitech Media Server and feed my house full of Squeezebox players. That's all the new server will be doing.

A miniITX integrated motherboard/CPU combo would seem to be most cost-effective for the job. The system will be housed in a Mini-Box M350 chassis with no fans, and will use a picoPSU. The boot drive will be a 64GB SSD and it will have one additional 2.5" 2TB data drive.

Right now I'm leaning toward a 1037U board, probably the Biostar NM70I-1037U. The 1037U has only two cores vs. the J1900's four cores, and 1.8GHz vs 2.0GHz. The 1037U (NM70 chipset) has the advantage of one SATA III port for the SSD. Disadvantage is that it uses a CPU fan, although I understand the fan is speed regulated.

The system will be run headless, so video performance isn't an issue. However, I am thinking that if/when the system is retired as a server, it could be repurposed as an HTPC.

Opinions?

[washu]

The cores in the 1037U are quite a bit more powerful than the cores in the J1900. Unless your application scales well to 4 cores the 1037U is the faster CPU despite only having 2 cores and a lower clock speed.

That being said, for your stated purpose either is overkill. Neither will have any problems streaming music even with several clients. Both will also make fine HTPCs.

I personally would use a better quality board than a Biostar, but that is just me.

[JJ]

There's an ECS motherboard that's very similar in both features and price to the Biostar - the ECS NM70-I2 (1.0). I could just as easily go with that one.

[Stevo_]

At home I have a several year old Xeon (65W E3120) powered file server with 15 x 3.5" drives that I'd like to shut down during the day. So I'm putting together a headless, low-powered 24x7 music server to run Logitech Media Server and feed my house full of Squeezebox players. That's all the new server will be doing.

A miniITX integrated motherboard/CPU combo would seem to be most cost-effective for the job. The system will be housed in a Mini-Box M350 chassis with no fans, and will use a picoPSU. The boot drive will be a 64GB SSD and it will have one additional 2.5" 2TB data drive.

Right now I'm leaning toward a 1037U board, probably the Biostar NM70I-1037U. The 1037U has only two cores vs. the J1900's four cores, and 1.8GHz vs 2.0GHz. The 1037U (NM70 chipset) has the advantage of one SATA III port for the SSD. Disadvantage is that it uses a CPU fan, although I understand the fan is speed regulated.

The system will be run headless, so video performance isn't an issue. However, I am thinking that if/when the system is retired as a server, it could be repurposed as an HTPC.

Opinions?

I'd get the ASROCK DC version of the J1900 mobo, no pico psu needed, I have one running off a 30W 19v brick just fine with one 849 EVO 250GB SSD in a Morex 557 case under Linux Mint. As far as I can tell power peaks around 12W maybe a bit more, subtracting out the brick.