Computer hardware is so inexpensive these days that you can buy all the parts you need for a nice solution for less than $500.

Many of our customers build a system with the following:

• 2 gigahertz Celeron or Pentium 4
• 128 MB of memory
• Case, power supply
• Motherboard (we recommend a motherboard with ATA133 support and a built-in LAN [ATA100/ATA133 IDE supports hard drives > 120 gigabytes]
• 1-4 hard drives of identical size and brand
• No mouse required
• Keyboard, video card and monitor only required during installation
• Promise Ultra100 TX2 (see below) or compatible controller card if you plan to add 4 hard drives (see image to the right). These cards are free with the purchase of any retail hard drive > than 120 gigabytes in size

reByte currently supports and recommends the Promise Ultra-100 and Ultra-133 hard disk controller cards for systems that require an off-motherboard controller. 

Promise ULTRA100TX2 ATA100 /DMA-100 EIDE IDE DMA CONTROLLER CARD DUAL CHANNEL
Promise ULTRA133TX2 ATA133 /DMA-133 EIDE IDE DMA CONTROLLER CARD DUAL CHANNEL

We recommend a minimum of a Pentium II processor and motherboard. We have some users who reuse old Pentium 1 machines with 64 MB of memory and they work fine. Just know that when reusing these machines, you may spend more time “reconfiguring” them by adjusting bios settings that were probably configured to specific hardware.

Complete PII and PIII machines can be found used or on eBay for $50 or less. Add a hard drive or two, a reByte card and you can build a very workable solution for less than $400.