I was using an MSI Wind Nettop for about 6 months(both the single core and dual core version). The Wind worked fine once I changed the stock fan for a quieter unit. However, under full load it did tend to get a bit noisy. Two reasons for changing to the Fit was the size (think phonebook) and power draw (18 watts under load for single core, 22 watts for dual core). Most people wouldn't think twice about 22 watt power draw but I'm trying to as green as possible. I guesstimate that the Wind was costing about $6 a month to leave on all the time; the Fit cost less than $2. The big advantage the Wind has over the Fit is ram; the Wind can be fitted with up to 2GB and the Fit is limited to 1GB.
One of the Poster above mentioned E-SATA. I've only seen E-SATA on a few top of the line Gaming "Laptops" which are way overkill for a music server. While E-SATA is a lot faster than USB2.0 it's not required for serving music. The one place that you're really going to notice the difference is at backup time. Backing up my music library on my main PC using E-SATA takes under two hours. Backing up using USB2.0 takes 12-14 hours.
It's been a long time since I've seen a laptop computer with a PCI slot. However, many laptops have PCMCIA slots and E-SATA cards are available. A lot of the newer laptops/notebooks are using the smaller Express Card slots which are smaller than PCMCIA. Express Card E-SATA cards are available.
One of the Poster above mentioned E-SATA. I've only seen E-SATA on a few top of the line Gaming "Laptops" which are way overkill for a music server. While E-SATA is a lot faster than USB2.0 it's not required for serving music. The one place that you're really going to notice the difference is at backup time. Backing up my music library on my main PC using E-SATA takes under two hours. Backing up using USB2.0 takes 12-14 hours.
It's been a long time since I've seen a laptop computer with a PCI slot. However, many laptops have PCMCIA slots and E-SATA cards are available. A lot of the newer laptops/notebooks are using the smaller Express Card slots which are smaller than PCMCIA. Express Card E-SATA cards are available.