Hi everyone:

I've sent up a little file server using some old parts I had lying around: Intel Bad Axe board, e4700, 4 GB ram, etc w/ three 2 TB drives in it. Since the data doesn't get updated frequently, I am running them as individual drives rather than RAID and doing a 'manual' RAID1 on all the drives. (i.e. USB drive manual copy)

The problem is the machine is using a lot of juice at idle (73 watts) even with an 80 plus PSU. This is with the drives spun down. So, I was thinking about the new Atom setup as it's probably 16-18 watts at idle with the drives spun down.

THe problem is something like the intel board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... Tpk=d510mo

Only had 2 SATA ports. I would like to get that up to 6. The board has a few expansion slots, but I don't know whether they would support an add on card. Also does the board mount in a standard ATX case?

Thanks for any assistance!
Chris

Well, i solved the "not enough SATA ports on Atom board" by :
1) buying the only board with 4 SATA ports - AT3IONT-I : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product
2) buying a aditional SATA controller with another 4 ports - Adaptec 1430SA :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

This way i get the low power usage (38-40W with one HDD running, the rest sleeping) while having a lot of SATA ports.

It is not your 16-18W, but still half of your current power usage. Question is - it is worth for you to spend all that money ?

ITX board mounts are AFAIK at the spot of mATX board mounts, so all cases support them.

PS: Before anyone comes up with Zotac NM10 DTX board with 6 SATA ports - only 2 can be used in non-RAID enviroment, the remaining 4 must be used with their RAID controller in RAID setup.

Yea the money question is tough... I figured if I could really get toward 25 watts, that it is probably worth it for something that's on 24/7.

Based on those numbers, it may be worth it just to go with a i3 if I'm going to spend the money.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1013-page5.html

This board by Intel as well already has 6 SATA ports. I'm not sure what the difference in power consumption would be...

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0328830

Thanks,
Chris

the SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-H-O or SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-HF-O are very nice looking mini-itx boards, with 6 stat ports each.

they support raid, and the second one has added advanced server features... downside is certainly price(185 &~225), but upside is that you'll be getting server quality parts that should last you a while.

I don't know how reliable zotac mobos are... but they're advertised as performance machines with the ion chipset. Many of them have 6 SATA connections.

Jetway makes some motherboards with a special daughtercard port, like this one:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/nf96fl_510

so you can add this daughtercard:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/adpe4s

and bring it up to 6 sata ports, and that should leave the pci slot free, I think. But many boards have a pci or pci express slot, and you can always put a normal expansion card in there. I managed to get a half height sata pci card into the small 4 bay chenbro case, it can be done.

Chances are that you won't get it down to the sub-30w idle stage with a full-sized PSU, would probably have to move to a Pico PSU or similar to get that kinda efficiency at that kinda low load.

FWIW, I'm running an older D945GCLF2 + 2.5" IDE HDD + 2x1.5TB 5400RPM drives from a 430w Coolermaster supply, and at idle (all discs spinning though), I'm pulling 55w from the wall.

That is because of the chipset, my Atom+ION board uses 38W in idle with 1 WD10EADS running (+the 4-port Adaptec SATA controller), about 60W with all 8 drives running. And those numbers are from socket. Of course i use a bit more effective PSU (Seasonic S12II-330 Bronze).

Oh, I know. But I ran the home server from a Pico-PSU 90w (I think) during testing, and it was generally around 40-45w power draw. In the case of ultra-low power draw machines, the inefficiency of a full-sized ATX PSU can have quite a large effect.

Seems like someone else has fallen into the fallacy of thinking an Atom is better. Sorry but from a cost/performance issue, the only way an Atom makes any sense is for a Laptop where price is not an object.

Personally, you would be able to get as good if not better energy savings using a budget CeleronD and board with IGP on it that actually supports 4+ sata ports and 4+GB of memory. Don't forget you do not have to buy a 300 watt PSU to run such a low powered system. Go with a >200 watt PSU that's 80+ as they're out there.

This shouldn't set you back more then $200 for the Board, CPU, Ram and PSU if you pay attention. For the Atom based system you're looking at at least $70 for just the Board/CPU and it's not going to be upgradable nor will it have the needed ports to be worth the money spent.

If anyone ever used an atom, they would know that a celeronD is no comparison. For one, celeron halts on any multitasking or multiple calls, it has no hyperthreading. The celeron might have more raw power, but having used netbooks vs laptops with celeron D's..... celeron chokes nonstop plus uses more wattage. I would take a N series atom over a celeronD anyday. And of course the D series Atom rocks and is viable for many things. However, you could even go single core atom on a mobo....

an atom uses single digit watts on idle. The ion part makes it burn up wattage. The problem lies in finding a board with 6 sata on it.

However, this board here, this is the lowest wattage setup I could find. All one needs is a pci-e sata card. If you raid, add-on cards are normally higher quality for cheap too.

Single Core w/ Hyperthreading

that board you pointed out is a very good one, on newegg, your first thought. Overall, that would be quite powerful. I am not sure you need it. Cost wise, jeez, that is cheap. Good thing abotu the D510 is its 64 bit memory usage. If you went Linux, I am guessing it could be a cheap little rocketship with 4 gigs in it and 4 threads.

My first attempt at a Windows Home Server used Atom...

I bought the ECS 945GCT-D because it had a PCIe x1 slot, and bought a 4-port Highpoint RocketRAID card for a total of six SATA ports.

I was satisfied with the Atom 230's performance (although it spent a long time indexing). However, the SATA card did not pass through drive SMART info, and I had no warning that one of the drives was filling up with bad sectors. I lost some data as a result.

So I would caution you with add-in SATA cards. Ultimately, I bought a 45W Athlon and a 740G mobo that has six native SATA ports.

When used just as a card for SATA ports and not as a RAID card, the Adaptec 1430SA does pass the RAID info to the OS.