80W is pretty good for 12TB but its still a lot of juice. You could save hundereds of kWh a year by shutting it down when you're pretty sure nobody's going to want to use it (depening on sleep/work/whatever schedules). A smaller server could be scheduled to wake it up ahead of the time people get h...

One final question. Can you use discreet GPU and on-board at the same time? Google isn't helping :( Depends on the implementation. On some motherboards it's either-or while on others, you can have both running at the same time. The only thing you can do is research that specific board model to see ...

My big storage server is always on. However, power consumption at idle is just around 80W (not bad for a 12TB box). The software I'm using (unRAID) spins down drives when they're not in use. Wuala sounds interesting but since my bandwidth is capped by my ISP, I'm gonna have to give it a pass. I've c...

New Intel motherboards actually don't come with onboard graphics. It just provides output to the graphics die integrated on processors. Is there a reason you're going for the i5-650 instead of less expensive i3-500 models? More apps/games are taking advantage of quads. If you're spending ~$180 on a ...

teq wrote:Unfortunately I can confirm from my own experience that the Scythe Shuriken Rev B does NOT fit in the H55N-USB3 board. It blocks the PCIe slot.
Cheers,
teq

Pictures?

I was browsing Newegg as I always do and I got a bit trigger happy and purchased an Intel D510MO motherboard among other things. Any advice on what the heck I should do with it? Here are some I'm currently considering: *Windows 7 DVR box *Kubuntu test platform *Windows Home Server test platform *Hac...

HFat: >ECC has essentially no downsides but, as I said, there's no point in going out of your way to have it on a rip library. > >You generally want it on servers, especially largish ones because servers are usually used to store data you don't want to lose. Traditionally, people have been putting a...

KayDat: >So, what makes ECC so important that you need it in a home server, but not your desktop computer? +1. This is a question I'd like to ask, too. My home server only stores DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray rips. It doesn't really do anything mission critical that would require ECC RAM. Only reason I ca...

@HFat
I'm curious, do you use ECC memory on *all* your computers?

Jay_S: >back in the days of cheap ram (2x1 GB ECC DDR2 for $29!) - ECC memory was only a few dollars more expensive than non-ECC memory. Not exactly the best deal. 2x2GB DDR2 800 ECC dropped down to $35 (Kingston). Non-ECC was $33, I think. :P On a side-note... BBCode and Smilies not working is star...

Pierre: >About the EVDS WD drives, I don't believe this is a good choice...in fact a bad one... > >I read an article - can't find the link at the moment - explaining that these drives have their error correction functionality limited to prevent video record operations from missing frames...i.e. if a...

[quote="Jay_S"]As is well known, raid is for UPTIME. It is not a backup solution, which is what home users (and even many small businesses) really need.[/quote] +1. I personally use unRAID for my media server. Drives are in JBOD configuration with each drive having its own file system with the drive...

I'll be buying an SSD soon and I'm just wondering, with these modern SSDs, is it still recommended not to format them to capacity? I anticipate 120GB drives to drop down to less than $200 and figured it would be a much better fit for me than an OS-only 40GB SSD. Should I keep some scratch space or c...

I expect that the iniital cost of "Sandy Bridge" boards will be more expensive than I would like Hmm, don't really think that's going to be the case. Since we're getting "mainstream" Sandy Bridge parts, I think it quite likely that there will be boards available in the $100 range. I wonder if AMD w...

Really nice article. I've been considering building a mini-server to act as a mirror for select files and that build looks just like what the doctor ordered.

Thread necromancy but we finally have a comparison of power consumption of the following motherboards: Model idle/load Intel DH57JG 29W/87W Gigabyte H55N-USB3 39W/97W Zotac H55-ITX-C-E 47W/112W source: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Home_Server_Build_Guide/Motherboard 18W difference between In...

I work with Mini-ITX all the time so I'm aware of limitations associated with the form factor. In fact, I actually need to get started on my SG05B + GA-H55N-USB3 + i5-760 + GTS 450 build for the bedroom. I also recently built an HTPC for my parents in a Sugo SG06 with an Intel DH57JG which has a ver...

Seriously, what RAM are you using to have this sort of problem? I can understand aftermarket coolers not being able to fit but for even the stock cooler to interfere with the RAM, I think it more likely that you need to replace the RAM. The coolers I've mentioned above are ones that are commonly use...

Cooler Master GeminII S (might need fan swap), Scythe Big Shuriken SCBSK-1000, Scythe Shuriken Rev B SCSK-1100, Thermalright AXP-140. I think Prolimatech also has one that would fit. Samuel 17? I think some of those coolers would block the PCIe x16 slot in most H55/H57 Mini-ITX motherboards. If you'...

I think the new design looks okay. It's actually quite similar to the old one as revamps go. A couple of gripes:
1. Can we get an option to have the poster on the left instead of the right?
2. Can we get a layout that doesn't occupy the full width of the browser?

HTPC is a niche market and it remains so. What these new devices are doing is bringing the things HTPC users enjoy to the mass market. People who went the HTPC-route due to lack of choice will probably move to one of these <$200 standalone boxes. However, there are those who opt for HTPC's because o...

Just recently had an ultrasound and that keyboard looks really similar to the one used with the computer connected to ultrasound equipment. I guess when you're spending thousands of dollars on equipment, spending $700 on the keyboard isn't as big a deal.

There are some processors that have seen pretty significant improvement with a new stepping (mostly with regards to overclocking and power consumption). Notable examples are Kentsfield B3 -> G0 and Bloomfield C0 -> D0. It should be noted though that both are initial releases of fairly new technology...

OCZ Onyx 2 Max Performance * Max Read: up to 275MB/s * Max Write: up to 265MB/s * Sustained Write: up to 240MB/s * Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS OCZ Agility 2 50-240GB Max Performance * Max Read: up to 285MB/s * Max Write: up to 275MB/s * Sustained Write: up to 250MB/s * Random Write 4KB ...

ilovejedd : What PSU are you using with the DH57JG/Core i3-530 and what wattage use are you getting ? Does this system work with only one fan ? I have it inside a Silverstone Sugo SG06B and am using it with the included 300W PSU. The build actually has three fans: intake fan: 120mm (included with c...

OCZ Technology today unveiled the next generation of its consumer-class solid state drive (SSD), the 2.5-in Onyx 2 series, which it said is faster, more durable and more affordable that its predecessor. The new Onyx 2 series uses multi-level cell NAND flash and a SandForce chip, indicating that OCZ...

I've got two of the dual-core Zotac IONITX and they're not exactly cool enough to run fanless in the extremely tiny cases they tend to be used with. I know it's tempting to go really low on the CPU since "everything" will be handled by the GPU but I've found that's not always the case even for a mac...

Office recently replaced the old HP w/Pentium 4 2.2GHz I was using with a Dell Optiplex 780 Desktop. Aside from the initial fan ramp-up during boot, I've found it to be fairly quiet during normal use even with the PC sitting just 2' away on my desk. Granted, that's in an office environment so noise ...

Silverstone Sugo SG06B (300W SFX PSU) Intel DH57JG Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz Scythe Big Shuriken Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 1333 CL9 1.5V Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB WD10EADS MCE USB IR Receiver Lenovo Multimedia Remote with Keyboard boot: 55W idle: 30W CPU Load: 70W GPU Load: 45W CPU+GPU Load: 80W CPU L...

The ION lowered power consumption on the original Atom. While the Atom 330 processor itself had a 10W TDP, its accompanying 945GC chipset had a TDP of 22W. The ION chipset not only added hardware acceleration, it also reduced power consumption. Alas, there's not as much incentive with the ION2 given...