SFF Workstation advice

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pdw
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SFF Workstation advice

Post by pdw » Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:44 am

Hi all,

I'm planning a new "work" PC, and I'd like your feedback. My last build was seven or so years ago, and I've gotten out of the habit of following hardware news. Though I've been reading the reviews and forums here and it's been quite helpful. (I probably wouldn't be planning this if I hadn't discovered this site...)

The goals for the system are:
  • It has to be physically small. I don't have room even for a mini tower case. Also, Wifi is needed as there is no wired network.
  • Main use will be software development. I want fast compiles and I will have multiple VMs running. Linux as host operating system.
  • Gaming: not very important. If it can run Humble Indie Bundle type stuff, I'm happy.
My current plan is:
  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304
  • CPU: Intel Core i5 4690
    Or maybe a cheaper i5. Will depend on the total cost the system.
  • CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu
    Ok, I'm clueless here. This seems an appropriate choice? Oh, and the Node 304 specs say "CPU coolers up to 165mm tall", and the Kotetsu specs claim a height of 160mm, that should be sufficient margin, right?
  • Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI
    This seems like a decent board, and it has Intel wifi, which should have good & reliable Linux drivers.
  • RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB
  • Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB + WD Red 2TB
    I've heard bad things about WD Greens with Linux, so I'm avoiding those.
  • GPU: None -- integrated graphics.
  • Power suppy: be quiet Straight Power E9 400W
    Should I pay 30€ more for the 480W model with modular cable management? Honestly even 400W seems overkill, but CM might be nice.
Does this look good? Anything I should reconsider?

CA_Steve
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:17 pm

Welcome to SPCR.

Looks like a nice build. Your stressed load power is in the 130W range. So, 400W is certainly overkill, but it is a very quiet PSU. Unless you are in crisis build mode, I'd hold off a month or so for motherboard drivers/UEFI updates to settle down as the boards were just released a month ago. I'll leave the linux compatability/fan control stuff to some other forum members.

pdw
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by pdw » Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:54 am

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear my plan is basically sane.

Would you recommend I use some other PSU? Though bequiets are easy to find here and known good, and I guess having an overdimensioned PSU doesn't really hurt... (I know somebody is going to say picoPSU, but I don't want an external brick :) ).

CA_Steve
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:06 pm

There's the Seasonic G-360. It's fairly quiet...but not as quiet as the E9 and also not modular. There's the Seasonic 400FL2. Passive, platinum efficiency. Also ~40 euros more. Here's a price comparison at pcpartpicker.

sjoukew
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by sjoukew » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:29 am

The samsung 840 evo is very fast, but has a limited life-span when it comes to writing. It is meant for consumer use and not made as a work-horse. The pro series (840 / 850 pro) will last a lot longer. If you are running vm's from your ssd and comiling a lot, you will write a lot of data to your ssd, making the pro series a good choice.

quest_for_silence
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:43 am

sjoukew wrote:The samsung 840 evo is very fast, but has a limited life-span when it comes to writing. It is meant for consumer use and not made as a work-horse. The pro series (840 / 850 pro) will last a lot longer. If you are running vm's from your ssd and comiling a lot, you will write a lot of data to your ssd, making the pro series a good choice.

Well, that's a bit of FUD, as an humble Samsung 250Gb 840 EVO could probably write around 250Gb/day continuatively for 10 years, before wearing out: so there's no need of any 840Pro/850Pro (or similar drives) for any of the above quoted tasks.

sjoukew
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by sjoukew » Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:13 am

quest_for_silence wrote: ...as an humble Samsung 250Gb 840 EVO could probably write around 250Gb/day continuatively for 10 years, before wearing out:..
Do you have a source for those numbers? I can't find them on the samsung website.

Abula
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by Abula » Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:21 am

There was a independant test that similated something similar on the 840 (none evo none pro), that i cant find =(

But on 850pro, according to Samsung website
Samsung's V-NAND technology is built to handle an 80 GB daily workload, which equates to 150 Terabytes Written (TBW), enabling you to use the SSD for long periods of time. Plus, it comes with the industry's top-level ten-year limited warranty.
Intel also has similar rating on the 730 according to their website, Intel® Solid-State Drive (Intel® SSD) 730
Data Center DNA. Gain extreme endurance—up to 70 GB of writes per day compared to the industry typical 20 GB per day—and enjoy peace-of-mind dependability throughout the life of the drive with advanced firmware algorithms, delivering performance consistency across all data types.2

sjoukew
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by sjoukew » Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:43 am

The 840 and 840 evo are built with tlc nand, of which they say have +/- 1000 program/erase cycles. Most other drives are using mlc nand chips which are capable of 3000 -5000 p/e cycles. Intel's drives usually have 5000 p/e cycles and are more expensive, (and have the Intel name, and fame, which isn't cheap either) .
the Samsung 850 pro is looking very interesting.

If you fill 50% of your ssd with data which isn't changed a lot (operating system, programs) all the writing of the frequently changed files will be on 50% of the drive, wearing out those remaining nand chips even faster. Depending on the intended use, reliability can be an thing to look in to or not.

UK_Peter
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by UK_Peter » Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:01 am

If you are right (and it goes against most hearsay comments I've heard, which say modern SSDs are more than reliable enough) what do you think of the Crucial MX100? More reliable than the 840 Evo?

I hadn't heard about the 850 yet, going to Google it now.

CA_Steve
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:33 am

sjoukew wrote:The 840 and 840 evo are built with tlc nand, of which they say have +/- 1000 program/erase cycles. Most other drives are using mlc nand chips which are capable of 3000 -5000 p/e cycles. Intel's drives usually have 5000 p/e cycles and are more expensive, (and have the Intel name, and fame, which isn't cheap either) .
the Samsung 850 pro is looking very interesting.

If you fill 50% of your ssd with data which isn't changed a lot (operating system, programs) all the writing of the frequently changed files will be on 50% of the drive, wearing out those remaining nand chips even faster. Depending on the intended use, reliability can be an thing to look in to or not.
This may alter your perceptions.
Hardware.info 840 EVO torture test
Our previous calculations of the lifespan of TLC-based SSDs were clearly off the mark. We made the erroneous assumption that static data remains in the same location on an SSD. We had put 160 GB of static data on the SSDs. Considering how much data was written to the SSDs in two and a half months, the static data was moved by the controller to other memory cells at regular intervals in order to keep an even load on all cells within the SSDs. That means that a nearly full SSD performs more operations in the background in order to move that static data around. However, that does not have a negative impact on the lifespan of the SSD. There's no difference between an almost full SSD and an almost empty SSD in that regard.
Even when you push an SSD to the max by downloading lots of movies everyday up to an average of 30 GiB per day, the SSD will still last you 24 years.
As often said in other threads, nearly any SSD made in the last year or two is fast enough for home use (unless you have some crazy high I/O demands or hunt in the bargain masement bin). Look for features (do you want on-board super cap for safe power down, built in OPAL level encryption), tools (like Samsung Magician), and in my case - how long has it been on the market without issues? Most issues being a screwed up memory controller chip/driver that causes data loss. So, I defer from suggesting newly released SSDs until they have a couple of months to be proven in the market.

quest_for_silence
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:41 am

sjoukew wrote:
quest_for_silence wrote: ...as an humble Samsung 250Gb 840 EVO could probably write around 250Gb/day continuatively for 10 years, before wearing out:..
Do you have a source for those numbers? I can't find them on the samsung website.

The most recent source is TechReport: look for their endurance test, the TLC-based 840 wrote almost 900TB before wearing out (besting by a significant margin some MLC-based units on SandForce controllers, which stopped around 750TB), that equals to a write rate of about 246GB/day for 10 years.
But you can find similar experiences on xtremesystems, in the thread about the Anvil's Pro endurance tests.

Pappnaas
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Re: SFF Workstation advice

Post by Pappnaas » Sat Jul 05, 2014 11:41 pm

Well, if SSDs do wear out at some point in consumer pc use can be a interesting topic.

But don't you have to backup often and regularly, no matter which HDD or SSD your running?

So with the exception of premature hardware failure, which would be covered by warranty, i fail to see the drama behind wear levels and Nand type... Pick a drive with 3 or 5 years of warranty and your good to go.

If you backup in a sensible way, that is.

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