[martinald]

I agree, this is a dreadful idea. The CPUs are going to hog a whole load of energy (as are the motherboards). The HDDs are going to be seriously used and probably prone to complete breakdown.

An ARM SoC would do this same job much faster probably at much less cost, with FAR less energy consumption.

[switchbak]

That's very true - one of those mini Linux sticks would fit the bill nicely, for example: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-authentic-R...

And apparently Intel has the same thing with it's atom chip: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/intels-compute-stick-...

With high capacity flash getting fast-enough for real use, I don't see much of a need for spinning platters anymore.

It's seems like a shame to give up on all that old hardware, but technology marches on I suppose.