Low Cost / Small PC Platform for SpinRite 6

[MarkGoddard]

I am a Mac user with a need to run SpitRite on some SATA HDs from my Synology. Does anyone have a recommendation for a small PC that I can attach my SATA drives to? My son does have a Windows laptop, but I'm not sure if I can connect the drives since it doesn't have a SATA connection.

 

[PHolder]

If you ONLY need a system that can do SpinRite and nothing else, then perhaps you don't even need a full PC. A motherboard that supports an iGPU, a low end CPU with integrated GPU, some RAM, and a PSU is all you technically need. You could spring for a cheap case, of course, but since you're not going to be using it all the time, you could just as easily run the whole thing sitting on a table with the motherboard still in the box it came in. You wouldn't even need a boot SSD/HDD because you could boot off of USB. An AMD AM4 system with a 5600G could work nicely. The CPU is around $150 right now. ( https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-5600G-12-Thread-Processor/dp/B092L9GF5N )

 

[MarkGoddard]

If you ONLY need a system that can do SpinRite and nothing else, then perhaps you don't even need a full PC. A motherboard that supports an iGPU, a low end CPU with integrated GPU, some RAM, and a PSU is all you technically need. You could spring for a cheap case, of course, but since you're not going to be using it all the time, you could just as easily run the whole thing sitting on a table with the motherboard still in the box it came in. You wouldn't even need a boot SSD/HDD because you could boot off of USB. An AMD AM4 system with a 5600G could work nicely. The CPU is around $150 right now. ( https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-5600G-12-Thread-Processor/dp/B092L9GF5N )

Thanks. I thought about this. I am looking at Ebay now as well since I would like to keep this as cheap as possible (ideally < $200) total. I see a lot of micro PCs in that range, but they don't have SATA.

 

[PHolder]

I went through PC Part Picker and chose the lowest priced items that had a brand name I would consider. Here's the summary:

PC Builder - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, Rosewill FBM-X2 MicroATX Mini Tower - PCPartPicker

PC Builder - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, Rosewill FBM-X2 MicroATX Mini Tower

pcpartpicker.com

If you put it in a case, I would additionally look for a single bay drive sled that supports hot swapping the drives you want to test, just to make your life easier.

 

[MarkGoddard]

I went through PC Part Picker and chose the lowest priced items that had a brand name I would consider. Here's the summary:

PC Builder - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, Rosewill FBM-X2 MicroATX Mini Tower - PCPartPicker

PC Builder - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, Rosewill FBM-X2 MicroATX Mini Tower

pcpartpicker.com

If you put it in a case, I would additionally look for a single bay drive sled that supports hot swapping the drives you want to test, just to make your life easier.

Thanks for the detailed help.

 

[MarkGoddard]

I found an old Dell PC on Ebay with 4 SATA ports that should work great for this. < $85 delivered. Thanks for the help.

 

[miquelfire]

For those who has the same issue as the OP, one thing to note, does AMD have a point where you only have UEFI and no BOIS? I think with Intel, it was 8th (9th?) gen that was the last one to support it.

 

[PHolder]

does AMD have a point where you only have UEFI and no BOIS?

That's technically up to the MOBO manufacturer. I haven't yet heard of an AMD MOBO that doesn't support a CSM/BIOS but I'm sure someone will get there sooner or later. It would make sense on the AM5 break to do this, because of the switch to PCI5 and DDR5 and USB4, etc... as well as the new enclave project with MS... lots of new changes so why not throw one more in.

 

[Dave]

If it wasn't written in assembly language, I would half-jokingly ask Steve for a Raspberry Pi port of SpinRite.

 

[PHolder]

Raspberry Pi port

Actually, even cheaper, might be a Pico (from the Raspberry Pi Foundation). It's meant for embedded devices, so not meant to have a screen or anything, but you CAN add a touch screen for a few bucks. I'm sure you could probably add a disk controller for a few bucks too. The nice thing about it is that it's very small, not very powerful, so not a lot of cooling needed, and very cost effective. I envision a Spin Rite dongle that you could connect to any PC... and it would work like a VM to house the low level code in a way it can work with any other PC.

@Steve, how about this for an idea...? I know you went the way of the RTOS so you could have a Windows feel... but maybe you don't need to deal with booting on specific PCs and just built an API for talking to a "dongle" and a Windows user of said API as the example that the FOSS community could port to Mac's, Linux and phones and tablets.

 

[DiskTuna]

Actually, even cheaper, might be a Pico (from the Raspberry Pi Foundation). It's meant for embedded devices, so not meant to have a screen or anything, but you CAN add a touch screen for a few bucks. I'm sure you could probably add a disk controller for a few bucks too. The nice thing about it is that it's very small, not very powerful, so not a lot of cooling needed, and very cost effective. I envision a Spin Rite dongle that you could connect to any PC... and it would work like a VM to house the low level code in a way it can work with any other PC.

@Steve, how about this for an idea...? I know you went the way of the RTOS so you could have a Windows feel... but maybe you don't need to deal with booting on specific PCs and just built an API for talking to a "dongle" and a Windows user of said API as the example that the FOSS community could port to Mac's, Linux and phones and tablets.

I have seen a similar idea executed around MHDD (a DOS based tool):

I have seen similar ones with more elegant boxes around them, typically found at ebay.

 

[DiskTuna]

Or uglier FTM, matter of opinion I guess ..

 

[Dakar Dad]

I picked up a Dell like this off eBay for $75 and it rips through drives being an I7 processor and it is not very big at all.

Dell Computer

 

[MarkGoddard]

I picked up a Dell like this off eBay for $75 and it rips through drives being an I7 processor and it is not very big at all.

Dell Computer
View attachment 556

Yeah, that is essentially what I did. Computer is supposed to come today, so we'll see.

 

[Dakar Dad]

Yeah, that is essentially what I did. Computer is supposed to come today, so we'll see.

Works great, just hit F12 a few times and it will give you boot menu.

 

[PHolder]

I guess it should be noted that @Steve mentioned this device in the newsgroups as possibly being suitable. He has ordered one (coming on a slow boat from China) to test it out. This is pretty close to the level of a RPi, so it might be just the ticket for someone who wants something not too expensive and no fuss.

 

[miquelfire]

This was posted to a teams group at my job. The jump of two generations for the Intel makes it hard to tell if it's better for Spinrite use or not. How much does the processor really matter with Spinrite anyway? I wonder if the processor (at least the core Spinrite uses) ends up spending 90% of the time just idling?

 

[MarkGoddard]

Works great, just hit F12 a few times and it will give you boot menu.

The Dell I got is working fine. Then I ran into the drive size limitation :-(

 

[rfrazier]

It's been a long time since I've built a PC, but are you talking about the 2 TB limit? Maybe you can partition the drive into multiple 2 TB chunks and they would show up as separate drives in SR. If that's all wet, please forgive.

May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. Ron

 

[MarkGoddard]

It's been a long time since I've built a PC, but are you talking about the 2 TB limit? Maybe you can partition the drive into multiple 2 TB chunks and they would show up as separate drives in SR. If that's all wet, please forgive.

May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. Ron

Yeah I might try that later, but I was hoping to avoid erasing the disk. I ordered a restore from BackBlaze and a replacement drive, so once I am back in business I might try that.