My electric bills have been getting too steep lately, so as one step
to reduce them I'm consolidating my mail server, file server, and
database server into a single box running Linux. The file serving
part of the equation consists of two Maxtor external firewire hard
drives, so I figure I should simply be able to plug the drives into
the new server once completed.

I want the new PC to be silent, or at least pretty darned quiet, but
this time around I'm also concerned with power consumption, as in
consuming very little! It also needs to include a fast enough
processor to take care of the usual server chores for a small
workgroup (actually just me and my wife on various machines scattered
around the house -- she's a graphic artist, I'm a programmer). I
figure anything around 500MHz and above should do the job. Finally, I
want the case to be as compact as possible so I can just tuck it away
anywhere that's convenient.

What can I build to meet these criteria, especially the low power
consumption one? Thanks in advance!

--Scott