Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Show off your quiet rig.

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gabeyd
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Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:28 am

I rebuilt my home BackupPC / Perforce / Samba server recently. It runs 24/7 (but disks spin down overnight usually), so I wanted low power consumption, small is always nice, and quiet is nice, but it will be moving to a closet once I'm done tweaking on it, so quiet is third on the list.

It runs BackupPC to automatically backup my desktop, my wife's laptop, my netbook, and my Mac. It runs munin to keep track of bandwidth, temperatures, disk usage, etc.

It's my Perforce server for home software development, and it's an always on Samba share.

Parts:
  • Raidmax ITX-0907-BP ITX Computer Case
    Intel D510MO ITX Atom 510 Board
    PicoPSU 150 + extra connector
    80W 12V AC/DC Adapter
    2 X 1TB Hitachi 3.5" 7200 RPM Hard Drive (RAID1)
    120GB Western Digital Blue 2.5" Hard Drive (Boot and OS)
    2GB DDR2-800 RAM
    DVD+-RW Drive
    Scythe S-Flex 80mm Fan SFF80B
    Carefully chosen SATA, and custom power cabling
    Ubuntu Server x64 9.10
Power Consumption (measured on AC with Kill A Watt):

Code: Select all

	Idle                        28W
	Idle 2x1TB Heads Unloaded   26W
	Idle 2x1TB Low RPM          23W
	Idle 2X1TB Spun Down        19W
The RaidMax case appears to only be available at Fry's. It is large for an ITX case, but I chose it because it fits a full size DVD drive and a 3.5 inch hard drive. It came with a 300W Mini ATX power supply, but I never used it.
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You can see where I cut some sheet metal from an old CD-ROM drive and riveted it to the hole that the power supply left. That gave me room to use where the power supply used to be. Also, you can see the DC input for the PicoPSU was brought through the ATX back plate.
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The D510MO motherboard is nice, it has a dual core Atom that supports Hyperthreading and x64 instructions. It has no fans, just a large passive heatsink. The only drawback is that it has only 2 SATA connectors (and no IDE), so I had to use a PCI sata card to get two more. The two 1TB drives for the RAID 1 array are attached to the motherboard SATA connectors, and the 2.5" laptop drive and the DVD are attached to the add in card.
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In order to get three hard drives in the case, I drilled holes in the bottom of the case and mounted one hard drive up from the bottom with some rubber gromits that I had left over from an Antec case. Then, I built a custom second hard drive mount out of some plastic to mount the second hard drive on top of the first. They just barely fit in the case where the power supply used to be, and right behind the 1 and only fan. I bouth some "left angle" 8" SATA cables online to keep cabling tidy, and made my own custom "left angle" SATA Power connectors spaced just right for my 2 drive stack. There is little, but just enough clearance between the S-FLEX 80mm fan and the two drives.
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The laptop boot drive sits on top of the case, where the 1 3.5" official mounting position is. Having the system installed on a thrid, laptop drives allows the two 1TB hard drives to spin down where there are not backups running, or no one is using the samba share.
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The DVD Drive slids in sideways on top of the whole thing. I write the most important data to a DVD-RW weekly, and rotate them whenever I remember.

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Temperatures run 37 for both 1TB drives, and 35 for the laptop drive. The CPU runs around 29, and the VRM about 50. The S-Flex is running at 1300 RPM.
Last edited by gabeyd on Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jay_S
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Post by Jay_S » Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:28 pm

Very cool build. Excellent fab work with the PSU plate and the HDD duplex brackets. I recently built a D510MO server as well and love it. Similar parts (WD Blue, Pico80 & 60W brick) and OS too.

How are you measuring temps? LM-sensors? lm-sensors works on my D510MO, but reports very odd voltages (from 'sensors' issued in TTY). Like, 5 or so V specs are wacked out and in "warning" states. Is this the same for you?

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:10 pm

Ya, lm-sensors works fine for temperatures, but does report bad values for voltages. I'm also using hddtemp for hard drive temps, both monitored and logged with munin.

Image
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xan_user
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Post by xan_user » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:15 pm

Sweet rig!
With no optical drive would a mini ninja fit?(not on that mobo) Or do you know the case dimensions? Don't see it at all on raidmax site...

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:22 pm

xan_user wrote:Sweet rig!
With no optical drive would a mini ninja fit?(not on that mobo) Or do you know the case dimensions? Don't see it at all on raidmax site...
Not sure how big a mini ninja is, but the case is 5 1/8" by 9 1/4" by 11 1/2" roughly. I can take some internal measurements for you the next time I have it apart if you let me know where you want measured.

Ya, it does not seem to be on the raidmax site, or sold anywhere that I can find other than Fry's: Raidmax Case at Fry's

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:25 pm

That's a really nice case, I actually love it.

With the PSU removed, could a mATX board fit?
190.5mm x 228.6mm area for the mobo.

I don't need any expansion slots, just a much smaller case...

I have a PICO and all. It looks like it might just barely fit?

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:29 pm

bonestonne wrote:That's a really nice case, I actually love it.

With the PSU removed, could a mATX board fit?
190.5mm x 228.6mm area for the mobo.

I don't need any expansion slots, just a much smaller case...

I have a PICO and all. It looks like it might just barely fit?
Ok, there's a second vote for me to open it up again. I have a mATX 190 x 244 board I'll set on top, and eyeball it. Are the mounting holes in the same place for a mATX and ITX? I'll check that too.

mark19891989
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Post by mark19891989 » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:55 pm

nice job, i have been looking for a mini itx case that could hold 2 full size hard drives and a pico psu , for my atom+ion server/htpc just need to find it on sale in the uk :)


thanks for posting, Mark

xan_user
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Post by xan_user » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:02 pm

gabeyd wrote:
xan_user wrote:Sweet rig!
With no optical drive would a mini ninja fit?(not on that mobo) Or do you know the case dimensions? Don't see it at all on raidmax site...
Not sure how big a mini ninja is, but the case is 5 1/8" by 9 1/4" by 11 1/2" roughly. I can take some internal measurements for you the next time I have it apart if you let me know where you want measured.

Ya, it does not seem to be on the raidmax site, or sold anywhere that I can find other than Fry's: Raidmax Case at Fry's
Thx-
Sounds like it should fit. m-ninja is 115mm/4.5"
-Unfortunately I need another case like i need a new hole in my head-
I should convince my gf she needs a new pc...

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:06 pm

ITX and mATX holes are (or appear to be) the same places.

i just can't tell from any of the pictures if there's a bar that separates the PSU area or not.

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:24 pm

To answer both questions in one reply:

1) If there was no CD/DVD, then there is 4 5/8" clearance from the top of the motherboard (not the socket) to the wall of the case. So, my guess is that a mini ninja would NOT fit, since the CPU and socket are almost certainly going to be more than 1/8", unless your 4 1/2" measurement is from the motherboard to the top of the ninja, including the CPU and socket?

2) I would say "Yes" a mATX motherboard would fit in this case once the stock power supply is removed. And, in fact, it looks like it might be designed to do that, as the cross brace that would make it very hard to get a mATX motherboard into the case is actually removable with screws, where as every other junction is riveted. They thought the cross brace might be removed. I think it could be put back in place after the mATX motherboard was in place. Note, though, I didn't actually try it, because I didn't want to unmount all my existing stuff, just held my mATX motherboard up there and eyed it.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:32 pm

could you measure the gap size from where your mobo ends to where the edge of the case is? I'm so desperately itching for 2cm.

your mobo is 170mm wide, i need roughly 191 (i'm willing to take a chance on .5mm).

Would much rather be safe than sorry for a case this size

Jay_S
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Post by Jay_S » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:43 pm

gabeyd wrote:Ya, lm-sensors works fine for temperatures, but does report bad values for voltages. I'm also using hddtemp for hard drive temps, both monitored and logged with munin.
munin looks pretty slick. I'll need to check into that for sure. Any tips / stuff to look out for with munin?

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:51 pm

bonestonne wrote:could you measure the gap size from where your mobo ends to where the edge of the case is? I'm so desperately itching for 2cm.

your mobo is 170mm wide, i need roughly 191 (i'm willing to take a chance on .5mm).

Would much rather be safe than sorry for a case this size
18mm. It would be VERY close. It's possible that the board could be pushed toward the back plate another 1mm or so, maybe. But at least the case is only $40...

Image

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:56 pm

Jay_S wrote:
gabeyd wrote:Ya, lm-sensors works fine for temperatures, but does report bad values for voltages. I'm also using hddtemp for hard drive temps, both monitored and logged with munin.
munin looks pretty slick. I'll need to check into that for sure. Any tips / stuff to look out for with munin?
The default hard drive temp reader uses "smartctl -a" which spins up the hard drives, so I've found a replacement that uses hddtemp which just returns null when the drives are spun down. Otherwise, munin is pretty easy to get running. If you can read and modify perl, you'll be able to do minor customizations to it, but it works pretty well out of the box.

mark19891989
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Post by mark19891989 » Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:36 am

does any one know any sites that sell that case, and ship to/are in the uk , i have googled around and cant find any

thanks mark :)

lifeisgood
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Post by lifeisgood » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:15 pm

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Last edited by lifeisgood on Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jaydeesan
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Post by jaydeesan » Sun Mar 28, 2010 11:51 pm

This case, or at least the guts of it, is sold under a number of names/makes with different bezels and power supplies.

I *think* the original (I could be wrong) is the Chieftec BT-02

I've seen it coming out as "Spires" a while ago: http://us.aving.net/news/view.php?articleId=138448

Canada Computers sells them in 2 versions as their own brand - one with the same bezel as the OP, and one with the same bezel as the Spires above:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.ph ... id=CAS.893

http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.ph ... id=CAS.893

jaydeesan
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Post by jaydeesan » Mon Mar 29, 2010 12:04 am

I really liked the case in pictures. I bought the second one from CanComps (because it's the only one I could get around here, I like the Chieftec one better). I was planning to put up my system in it on here as well, but no time these days, + I'm having issues with the mobo so I put those plans on hold for now.

Just quickly though:
- it's not as good as it appears, at least not for anything more powerful than an Atom
- power supply is almost guaranteed to be crap in most/all versions of it

To answer the questions above:

No you will not fit a mini ninja in it.

No you will not fit a standard mAtx board in it. (Unless you hack it up and have the board stick out of the front :) )
With the PSU removed, could a mATX board fit?
190.5mm x 228.6mm area for the mobo.
What board is that???

ntavlas
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Post by ntavlas » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:23 am

I like the creative use of available space. Nice case for a NAS.

Could you share your software setup please? Are you using Samba? If so what kind of transfer speeds are you getting?

gabeyd
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Post by gabeyd » Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:14 am

Running Ubuntu Server 9.10.

My server's primary function is to run BackupPC. It automatically backups up itself, my web server, my desktop PC, my laptop, and my wife's laptop. Very cool software. Check it out if you have not seen it before.

Also, it runs a perforce server for source code management for my various projects.

It does run Samba, but I don't use it much. Iozone says that I'm getting around 80M write and 44M read writing a 2G file:

Code: Select all

              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread
         2097152       4    6528   82775    40270    45541
         2097152    1024   79378   81330    41821    45045
         2097152   16384   82199   84854    44426    46737
That's over a Gb wired Ethernet, but not using jumbo frames.

Anything else you wanted to know, or was there a specific test you wanted run?

ntavlas
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Post by ntavlas » Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:36 am

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I mostly wanted to know what kind of transfer speeds to expect from an atom samba server. I cannot test at the moment as don`t have a gigabit switch yet.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:22 am

Late reply, just saw the question about the board I have in question.

It's a VIA PC1 platform that I picked up. The version I have is the 1.5Ghz/400mhz PC3500G. VIA C7-D processor paired with PICO 90W with a 102W adapter, but I've been testing it out with lower wattage adapters such as 40W which ran stable, but the brick got toasty (indicating that it was using less than 40W, but not much less.

It's sluggish with the 512mb of RAM it has now, but with the maximum 2GB installed, it's a great little system, makes for a great web browsing/word processing computer. Not much else use to me, I can't say I've turned it on at all in the past couple months because I sold the 2gb of RAM i used in it.

more info here:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/em ... /index.jsp

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Post by sea2stars » Thu Aug 19, 2010 6:33 pm

Just a heads up. Someone on eBay is selling these one at a time for $16.99 plus $10 for shipping. I may grab another if I can find someplace to hide it from the wife.

Raidmax ITX-0907-BP

user dealznsalz

acumental
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Re: Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by acumental » Tue Jul 19, 2011 6:36 am

After reading your article I was inspired to buy the Raidmax chassis and have a go at modding the case to accommodate 2 drives in the same manner you did. I'm using a zotac h67-itx motherboard with the intel i3 2100T which is only 35W so I think I'll be okay using this chassis with limited airflow. The only decent power supply I could find was the Seasonic SS-350SFE 350 W to replace the pitiful power supply that came with this case. I didn't like having only 1 (or 2 if I chose the Silverstone 450 model) options that were both pretty pricey, so having an external power supply and having room to add two drives became an attractive option. The problem now would be how to plug an external power supply into the chassis using quick disconnects. I did a little research and found this site: http://www.showmecables.com/viewItem.asp?idproduct=5509 It has the 24 pin extension cable in 2 sizes 6 and 12" If you notice on the male end they use chassis mount flanges. Perfect! http://www.showmecables.com/viewItem.asp?idProduct=5523 is the cpu core 2x2 cable. Still haven't found a sata distribution cable, but I'll keep looking. My other option would be to take an old power supply, remove the cables that I need from it and buy the molex connectors, pins and crimp tool. I kind of like this option because it would make fantastic cable routing. It might be a little premature to post this, but I just wanted to get some feedback before I commit. I am thinking that the spacing might get very tight, I'm not sure exactly how deep these connectors are. Any thoughts?

mentawl
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Re: Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by mentawl » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:05 am

In case anyone's interested, looks like it's also sold in the EU as the APlus CS-102B.

http://maxpoint.de/en/products/cases.ph ... ectID=1217

Control13
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Re: Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by Control13 » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:56 pm

Would a server like this be able to host gaming, voice, and irc servers?

HFat
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Re: Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by HFat » Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:20 am

Generally, yes but it depends on how many users you've got and what games you're talking about. Ask the people who run the kind of servers you want to run and ignore opinionated snobs.

Control13
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Re: Small, Low Power, Quiet Atom based Linux server

Post by Control13 » Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:49 pm

HFat wrote:Generally, yes but it depends on how many users you've got and what games you're talking about. Ask the people who run the kind of servers you want to run and ignore opinionated snobs.
Well, just between 1-160 users... and the game is just a little 2D multiplayer game that can be run on a Dual core computer with 512MB of ram (PC3200 DDR to be exact) haha.

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