SFF Forensics PC on a budget, any help would be appreciated.

Hello folks,

I'm in need of some guidance, advice and suggestions.
I just entered a PC forensics class at my local community college and my professor has a very nifty compact forensics PC/briefcase setup that he purchased from this manufacturer's web site:

http://www.forensic-computers.com/airlite3.html

As you can see the base price of $3,995.00 is rather steep and there's no way that I can afford that anytime soon and unfortunately I probably need one some time soon.

But then I started thinking and came to the conclusion that a SFF/Mini PC might be small enough, powerful enough, portable and some what affordable enough for me to piece together, over 4-6 months, and still perform all the functions of the above mentioned compact forensics PC/briefcase with some room to spare.

So now I come to the Tomshardware community for help!


This is what I'm looking for in performance and features:

The mini motherboard needs to have at least 3 pci slots for expandability, the slots will be used to emulate what the PC/briefcase already has built directly in.
The motherboard can support between 2-3 gigs of RAM, for bootable forensics/pen-test CD's like Helix/Whoppix/Auditor(backtrack).
A PCI-Express or AGP slot to get some stress relieving gaming on, a man can not survive on just bread alone.
At least 4 USB2.0 slots to make up, with little nicknacks and gadgets, where the PCI slots can't due to being occupied and 1-2 IEEE-1394 firewire connections(2 preferred).

The SFF/Shuttle/Mini PC case must have 2 bays available, the 1st for a CD/DVD combo drive of some sort, the 2nd for more expandability(maybe a drive tray for a 2nd backup imaging harddrive) and a 3.5 floppy drive.

I've come up with the idea of having a SCSI laptop harddrive as my bootable drive, I have yet to think of how to strap the little sucker down inside the SFF, and a 300gig ATA harddrive of some sort as my main imaging harddrive.

The CPU will be a AMD 64 in the 2.0-2.2 GHz range.

Well now you folks have the specifics of what I'm trying to imitate and what I'm shooting for and any help would be highly appreciated.


PC Forensics Monkey.


P.S. Does any body know who the band is that's playing in the background of this Whoppix demo?

http://eks0.free.fr/whax-demos/?f= [...] config.xml

Hello mdd1963,

I agree with you that the forensics PC/briefcase that my professor owns is rather out dated hardware wise and that a really decent, just below top of the line, laptop would cover most of what the PC/briefcase can do. But I currently don't have a laptop and can't afford the price tag of $2,000-$2,500 dollars to purchase said laptop on my time line of 4-6 months.

That's why I have posted here, to ask the tomshardware community for guidance in helping me find the parts I need to make a SFF/mini forensics PC that can do everything my professors forensic PC/briefcase does and possibly more and still be portable.
All at a price that I feel I can afford to save for and/or piece together over 4-6 months time and not have to go on the Mac & Cheese/Top Ramen with hot dogs diet.

So please folks, I need your advice, guidance and help.

Thank you.


PC Forensics Monkey

Hello wun911,

The reason why I'm aiming for a SFF/mini PC is due to the fact that I can upgrade and swap out PCI cards of different sorts for different reasons/uses later on down the line, whereas I can't easily do that with the $2,000-$2,500 laptop and I will more likely be able to afford piecing together the SFF/mini PC in my 4-6 month time line and be down with it.

In other words a laptop no matter how portable they are is limited in it's expandability and the SFF/mini PC that I'm looking to build is only limited in what I can add and remove concerning the PCI slots and some what on it's portability.

There is NO WAY that I'm ever and I mean ever going to be able to afford what my professor has but what I wish to do is build some thing as close as possible to it in the form of the SFF/mini PC that I have already described.

So once again does any one in the tomshardware community have any suggestion and advice on what I will need to complete my desired Forensic SFF/mini PC?

Thank you once again.


PC Forensics Monkey