Building Power efficient home storage server.

[Da_maniaC]

Hi all,

With the soon-to-be-widely-available 4TB drives i am looking into building a power efficient home storage server.
I am looking for a server that shouldn't come over 50 Watts of power use (idle preferrably around 25 Watts or even less).
Now one might say...just get a very compact NAS system or on-board CPU platform and you're all set. But, i'm looking for a very good ratio between power usage and performance and the possibility to also run a Windows (server) OS.
I think my final build is pretty much there...but i was just wondering how people here would feel about it :


Corsair Dominator 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CL9
Crucial M4 64GB 2.5" SATA3
Fractal Design Define Mini, Black Pearl
Gigabyte GA-H67MA-USB3-B3, S1155, H67, 4xDDR3,mATX
Intel Core i3-2100, 3.10GHz, 3MB, HD2000, S1155
Seasonic X-400, 400Watt, Fanless, ATX
SilverStone SST-NT01-E

Any thoughts?

[Darxide]

Seems like overkill to me.
Do you really need 8Gb of RAM? An SSD? An i3 CPU?
Just seems like a waste of money to me.
I'm planning a similar system, and I too intend to run WHS 2011, but I think one of AMD's fusion chips will be ideal.

Also, the SSD, not an option for WHS. It will refuse to install on anything less than 160Gb, as it assumes you'll be storing your data on there too, and thats the minimum.
My plan is to make a big RAID array and just put everything on there, including the WHS install.
I'm told there is a workaround so you can have a small 'boot' disk, and a bigger storage disk, but it incolves a lot of assing about, cloning disks etc.
And as the things gonna be on 24/7 anyway, why bother?

Just my thoughts.

[bot@xs]

i also think the ssd might be a bit over the top
this ram is good and 4gb should be enough if you don't plan to load the machine up
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147095

[Da_maniaC]

Hey guys,

Thanks for sharing and thanks for the offer (PM) @ bot@xs.

There are many reasons for the hardware choices i made.
The core i3 for example... it has very nice idle power states (around 3-4 Watt), while when i want to load it its powerful enough to do some Quickparring/Unrarring at reasonable speeds.
Same goes for the RAM...i like a little headroom and want to be sure i am using dual channel. On top of that, 8GB of RAM is around 15-20 EUR. more expensive then 4GB of RAM so i therefore chose 2x4GB instead of 2x2GB.

@ bot@xs: Thanks again for the offer you made me in PM, in the end its all still a hobby to me and i do enjoy assembling my own build etc.

In the end i guess you guys are right about the cheaper E350 platform, yet the i3 platform smokes it on all levels and still has better idle power states.
Of course, the system is a tad more expensive but considering the budget i was on its already below PAR of what i had in mind initially.

I will definetly take your remarks about the SSD into account though. Even though it might seem overkill...it will reassure me of a responsive machine at any time (something i've come to like since i've been running RAID0 SSD arrays in my own PC's ever since late 2009).
Another argument for the SSD is the fact that, the machine will be running solely on the SSD drive when the storage drives are not being used, which will result in a very beneficial power consumption most of the time.

[bot@xs]

have a 2nd look at the 2100 and it's idle power states. here is a good review involving the 2500 line but includes the 2100
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/31...o-head/?page=5

the ram i linked also comes in 2x4gb and offers plenty of head room. check this review out
http://www.overclockers.com/samsung-ddr3-1600-ram
and this thread about it here on xs
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...for-SFF-builds.

i think the 2100 would still be a good fit and allows you to expand later if need be. you could always throw in a higher chip and if you pick the right board and chipset you could stay ivy bridge compatible as well
gigbyte has a whole line up of boards that would be able to do that
http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/....aspx?nid=1048

[bot@xs]

double trouble

[Oats]

Also, the SSD, not an option for WHS. It will refuse to install on anything less than 160Gb, as it assumes you'll be storing your data on there too, and thats the minimum.
My plan is to make a big RAID array and just put everything on there, including the WHS install.
I'm told there is a workaround so you can have a small 'boot' disk, and a bigger storage disk, but it incolves a lot of assing about, cloning disks etc.
And as the things gonna be on 24/7 anyway, why bother?

Just my thoughts.

It is pretty simple to do, you just have to create a cfg.ini file that will tell it the partition size and to ignore requirements. Then put it on the install disk.
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/20...er-than-160gb/

You can use the same method to create a smaller C: partition on large drives as well so there is less wasted space.

[tbone8ty]

drobo ;-)

[Copie]

Get the 2100T over the 2100, the TDP is less (35w v 45w IIRC)

[Da_maniaC]

have a 2nd look at the 2100 and it's idle power states. here is a good review involving the 2500 line but includes the 2100
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/31...o-head/?page=5

the ram i linked also comes in 2x4gb and offers plenty of head room. check this review out
http://www.overclockers.com/samsung-ddr3-1600-ram
and this thread about it here on xs
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...for-SFF-builds.

i think the 2100 would still be a good fit and allows you to expand later if need be. you could always throw in a higher chip and if you pick the right board and chipset you could stay ivy bridge compatible as well
gigbyte has a whole line up of boards that would be able to do that
http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/....aspx?nid=1048

Thats a lot of information again, thanks!
Yeah even though some people are recommending me Intel boards (for possible ESXi compatibility in the future) i am drawn very much to the Gigabyte/MSI boards. Especially since the Intel mATX boards are lacking a SATA port, compared to the others.

That 1,35v RAM is looking pretty interesting, though sadly its not available yet in my country (i will e-mail some retailers for it).

Oh btw, i did swap out the 1333 modules for 1600 ones (that wasn't really a definite choice... i think i just made a sloppy pick from the vendor listing of the online shop). Here's how the current build looks:




I was indeed planning to stick with a downclocked 2100 and possible upgrade to a Ivy Bridge i5 in the future if the (idle) power states would be even better.

Get the 2100T over the 2100, the TDP is less (35w v 45w IIRC)

The 2100T is a little more expensive then the regular 2100. Yet the only difference is, that it has a lower clock speed.
A lot of people therefore get the regular 2100 instead and underclock/undervolt is themselves (Could be a nice experiment to see, if there are any sweetspots when underclocking as well).
Also on a sidenote; TDP <> Power consumption.

[Holy_COW]

For RAID/data protection go with FlexRAID

3rd party tools like drobo are slow, and if they die, you have to buy a new drobo and cross your fingers they will read your array.
Is a NAS based on linux dies, you need to have a linux and knowledge with it to pull the data.

All Raid5 arrays maintain ALL the drives up/spinning when you access data.


Flexraid does a software-level, snapshot based raid-4-like.
- Only the HDD which has the movie/mp3 you are using is up, the others are idle/in power save
- If the computer dies, you can plug the HDDs to any windows computer and they will read it, since flexraid doesnt modifies your hard drive, partitions or folder structure
- Its free!
- Since its snapshot based you have pro/cons, main are:
-> you can unplug 1 drive, take it to your friends house, copy data, go back and your array never crashed or died.
Same goes with HDD upgrade, copy all data to new HDD, replace it on the array, done. The rest of the HDDs stay available.
-> if you schedule the parity run /snapshot to run at midnight, and you deleted something, you have until midnight to recover it from the parity
-> on the other hand, if you saved new data and the HDD dies before the parity run, you can't recover it (so do a manual parity sync/run after adding new data to be safe)