Low Power, Fairly Quiet NAS/Router - and reasonably priced

[NickH]

Hi,

I am looking at building a headless NAS/Router/E-mail box running ClarkConnect linux (based on CentOS/RHEL), and I am after a value for money low power unit. It is destined for my attic so space is not too important, but it should be fairly quiet as it will be over a bedroom.

From issues I have seen I want an on-board PCI-E Gigabit network port or the ability to add a proper PCI-E Gigabit card. 2 ports would be preferable

I had been thinking about the following:
- D945GCLF2 board - but not 64 bit, high power 945GC chip. Query on the LAN capability but no PCI-E.
- IM-945GSE/MS-9830 - but not 64 bit, low TDP, but relatively low power
- Via VB8001 - Not yet in the UK, fairly expensive.
- Via Nano boards - Not yet in the UK. Jetway are releasing some, but no fanless solution with the faster U2350 or U2400 chip available so far. I like the Nano chip because of its encryption capabilities which will help IPSec VPN processing.

Then reading these forums I started wondering about a "standard" ATX/mATX board with an under-clocked, under-volted athlon. Is there any mileage in this type of solution? If there is, what is the best solution. Because I will be running Linux and I'm very new to it, all under-clocking and under-volting must be done from the BIOS.

Nick

[jessekopelman]

Then reading these forums I started wondering about a "standard" ATX/mATX board with an under-clocked, under-volted athlon. Is there any mileage in this type of solution? If there is, what is the best solution. Because I will be running Linux and I'm very new to it, all under-clocking and under-volting must be done from the BIOS.

Nick

Yes, this is by far the best value solution. First find some boards that have the features you want and are readily available to you and then do some searches to see which ones support BIOS undervolting. All boards support underclocking, but it is mostly useless for anything other than allowing for lower voltage when that is also supported. I'm not sure if undervolting is even required, though, as for this task I doubt the CPU would ever get out of the low power mode if Cool n' Quiet is enabled. As for the CPU, I'd even consider going down to a Sempron -- basically get the cheapest thing you can. I'd recommend sticking with AM2 socket, though, as those boards are now cheaper than the older ones and an AM2 CPU has a better chance of being reusable in the future.

[dgccr]

Im also in the middle of building a quite / efficient NAS. I went with FREENAS
I am using a Celeron Conroe L ( basically a single core, core2duo chip )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116039

Its 35watts and $39.99 it packs more than enough power.

Together with this motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L ( $54.99 )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128357

This is a little bigger than the board you are using, May not matter being it will be in your attic but should make for a pretty low power efficient and powerful combo.

Best of luck and keep us posted as Im learning a lot on this forum.

After I finish my NAS setup I will be building a m0n0wall firewall Its an addiction!

-daryl g

[QuietOC]

Then reading these forums I started wondering about a "standard" ATX/mATX board with an under-clocked, under-volted athlon. Is there any mileage in this type of solution? If there is, what is the best solution. Because I will be running Linux and I'm very new to it, all under-clocking and under-volting must be done from the BIOS.

The AMD systems run cooler at idle than the Intel's even when not underclocked/undervolted. The only way this is not true is if you use Intel mobile parts.

I am not positive what the best solution is, because I don't need such a device, but my best guess would be a Geforce 8200 + Sempron LE-1250 for file serving duties. There are a number of other configurations that could meet specific needs. And I am pretty certain you can do the underclocking/undervolting in other OSes, but of course it probably won't be as easy as doing it in Windows.

G31 works okay as a very cheap desktop performance platform--though I think most people are better off spending a little more and getting a nice P35 or P4x motherboard.

[loimlo]

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page3.html
If you want mATX solutions, you might consider giving Gigabyte 740G a try. To pair it with a 65nm Sempron, you'd get a energy-efficient platform at a bargain price. Besides, Intel chipset draws more power compared to nVIDIA/AMD counterparts, Celeron doesn't support EIST, and hence no ability to underclock/undervolt by software.

[NickH]

Many thanks for all your advice. I wish there were a simple answer!

With your answers and doing a lot more reading, it looks like the most talked about solution is a 740G motherboard like the GA-MA74GM-S2. Some people seem to recommends the Sempron LE-1250 while others go for an Athlon 4850e. Prices seem to be about £26 for the Sempron and £45 for the Athlon. I suspect the Sempron is a much slower device so in terms of bangs for your buck so the Athlon may be the better device to go for, but I'd appreciate comments.

I do not think a NAS box on its own needs too much power - about 1GHz should allow me to run a Gigabit ethernet connection somewhere near its full speed if the card will allow it. My PCI card and on board connection will not. The other features of ClarkConnect like Intruder Detection (if it is worth the effort for a domestic installation), e-mail scanning, content filtering (when my little boy gets older), IPSec VPN and so on all consume more power. Is it worth spending the extra? In some ways it would depress me to buy the Athlon. The quietish system I built 18 months ago has a GA-MA69G-S3H with an A4000-X2 (65w) and it would mean my NAS box/router would be more powerful than my desktop!

@dgccr - have you looked at ClarkConnect for a combined router/firewall/NAS box?

[jessekopelman]

The quietish system I built 18 months ago has a GA-MA69G-S3H with an A4000-X2 (65w) and it would mean my NAS box/router would be more powerful than my desktop!

Get the 4850e and swap that for the 4000+, then put the 4000+ in the NAS. At a given voltage, these things all use the same amount of power. The 45W chips may be able to undervolt better with no underclocking, but that is not a concern for your application. If you have to loose a few hundred megahertz to get the lowest voltage, so be it.

[hybrid2d4x4]

Get the 4850e and swap that for the 4000+, then put the 4000+ in the NAS. At a given voltage, these things all use the same amount of power. The 45W chips may be able to undervolt better with no underclocking, but that is not a concern for your application. If you have to loose a few hundred megahertz to get the lowest voltage, so be it.

Good idea.

If you decide not to alter your desktop as suggested above, I'd get the slower and cheaper 4050e or 4450e AMDs rather than the 4850e for NAS duties, or even a sempron LE as others mentioned. I don't know if this applies to where you live/buy from, but over here the 4850e carries a huge price premium over both the slightly slower ones and the regular 4x00/5x00 line at similar and even faster clock speeds. Like you, I'd be tempted to get a dual core, just for future-proofing. Who knows what other tasks this pc will take on in the future...

[dgccr]

@dgccr - have you looked at ClarkConnect for a combined router/firewall/NAS box?

I have not, I will take a look. Im still in the process of building it, How much can you "undervolt" an Sepron LE? I was looking at them for a bit but noticed the intel celeron 430 came in 10watts under right off the bat at 35w would the AM2 be more efficient? "im new to the whole efficiency game"

-daryl

[loimlo]

If one don't need absolutely lowest power consumption, dual core counts since it is dirt cheap anyway. In fact, I've made a similar decision of late like all you said. I purchased a 4850e for my main rig and retired 35W 3800+ for HTPC. Btw, 4850e's retail box is prettier than 3800+'s counterpart.

[Botanic]

This thread is awfully a lot like this one:
viewtopic.php?t=51546

Could you post the total amount of power that you rig draws, if you have the possibility? I am very interested in that kind of numbers

[NickH]

How much can you "undervolt" an Sepron LE?

-daryl

Have a look here for lowest voltages and frequencies and this calculator I bumped in to.

@jessekopelman, I also thought of swapping the CPU's, but I was not sure of the extra power consumption I would find with the underclocked and undervolted 65w 4000+. I'll try pumping in the figures into the calculator I referred to above. It would be a shame to squander the extra processing power in NAS/router. Longer term I had been eyeing up a 5600+ for the desktop as that is the fastest 65w processor which I can get. Perhaps I should shelve that idea as the price premium is too big for the moment.

@Botanic, I suppose the threads tend to converge on the same "good" kit.

[jessekopelman]

@jessekopelman, I also thought of swapping the CPU's, but I was not sure of the extra power consumption I would find with the underclocked and undervolted 65w 4000+.

Undervolted 4000+ CPU will have the same power consumption as undervolted 4850e, the difference is that the 4850e should be able to maintain a higher clock speed at the same voltage. For your application that is not an important consideration.

[danielG]

(...) I suspect the Sempron is a much slower device so in terms of bangs for your buck so the Athlon may be the better device to go for, but I'd appreciate comments. (...)

Not really. My main machine has a 65nm Athlon X2 4400+ (2.3 GHz), the HTPC has a Sempron LE-1200 (2.1 GHz). The Sempron is only slightly slower when doing simple tasks such as web browsing, etc. You can only really tell the diference in heavy duty computing, such as playing HD video.

[NickH]

I'm not going to be able to start buying bits for this until late march. In the meanwhile you guys have got me into playing around with my GA-MA69G-S3H PC. First I tried under-volting it to 1.15v which was fine, and then I downloaded the AMD Cool 'n' Quiet drivers. Most of the time when idling, this drops the multiplier from X10.5 to x5 and the voltage to 1.1v and sometimes 1v. Since the PC is idling most of the time, as will be the server I build, perhaps this is a better way to go. Any comments?

To cope with the higher power which may be needed from time to time, I was thinking of using a 12v 120w DC-DC Car type mini-itx psu and a homebuilt transformer (using a 12v lighting transformer, bridge rectifier and capacitor). The homebuilt bit will be electrically noisy but I am hoping a car mini-itx psu will sort this out. It will also be a slightly high voltage (16v), but this should be in the operating range of the mini-itx psu. Again, any comments?

My home built transformer should only cost £10 - £11 for a 105w supply but it should have enough power for a mainboard with an AMD 4850e, 2.5" HD, 3.5" HD and network card.

[jessekopelman]

I downloaded the AMD Cool 'n' Quiet drivers. Most of the time when idling, this drops the multiplier from X10.5 to x5 and the voltage to 1.1v and sometimes 1v. Since the PC is idling most of the time, as will be the server I build, perhaps this is a better way to go. Any comments?

When people talk about undervolting AMD, they are usually talking about getting < 1V (typically between 0.8 and 0.9V). Often you have to underclock (via dropping multiplier or whatever) to achieve these low voltages.

[WillyTrombone]

if you can find the parts, a celeron 300a could probably work wonders. At least, that's what I used in a similar capacity. It was originally overclocked to 464 as my main gaming rig until it got replaced by a 1 GHz Athlon in y2k for games, and replacing my previous router's K7 that died in a horrible death under a malfunctioning peltier cooler. But the 300a ran 5 years 24/7 at its 300 MHz default setting and I only dismantled it to replace it with an off-the-shelf router to add easy wifi support to my network. I can't remember the name of the board, but it was an abit model -- I want to say BH6 -- and extraordinally stable (and as such, made a huge name for itself as the be all-end all overclocker's board from the pentium II edge-connector-cartridge days). It was actually a pretty funny configuration: I had tnt card in it for graphics and could run unreal tournament and quake 2/3 servers on it when I felt like it. But it was also a backup computer for anyone to use if the other household computers were occupied. So, it was running win98 with sybergen for NAT and a wind32 port of apache along with some random ftp server and often some kind of p2p software, too. It didn't quite have enough horsepower to burn CD's and the lack of USB was a major inconvenience. But it does highlight the point that routers aren't particular demanding in a SOHO environment.

But really, that would be my "fun" answer. My more serious answer and my intention to assemble the next time I move would be a hardware router such as the asus WL-500g or Linksys wrtsl54gs with dd-wrt and some USB storage. it should be able to run a number of server-type applications. And it should be able to do it very inexpensively. $80 for the router, $20 for a drive enclosure, and and reasonably large drive that's not currently in use (in my case, I already have an IDE enclosure with a 200 gig ATA drive that I use to hold music and videos to play on my xbox360)

The only other option that is nearly as cost-effective that I cna think of would be to buy an older-generation computer off ebay or something. If power consumption (aka heat generation) is more important that spending the absolute least amount of money, you might want to look toward the embedded market (with which I am admittedly largely unfamiliar)

[morglum]

if you can find the parts, a celeron 300a could probably work wonders. At least, that's what I used in a similar capacity. It was originally overclocked to 464 as my main gaming rig until it got replaced by a 1 GHz Athlon in y2k for games, and replacing my previous router's K7 that died in a horrible death under a malfunctioning peltier cooler. But the 300a ran 5 years 24/7 at its 300 MHz default setting and I only dismantled it to replace it with an off-the-shelf router to add easy wifi support to my network. I can't remember the name of the board, but it was an abit model -- I want to say BH6 -- and extraordinally stable (and as such, made a huge name for itself as the be all-end all overclocker's board from the pentium II edge-connector-cartridge days). It was actually a pretty funny configuration: I had tnt card in it for graphics and could run unreal tournament and quake 2/3 servers on it when I felt like it. But it was also a backup computer for anyone to use if the other household computers were occupied. So, it was running win98 with sybergen for NAT and a wind32 port of apache along with some random ftp server and often some kind of p2p software, too. It didn't quite have enough horsepower to burn CD's and the lack of USB was a major inconvenience. But it does highlight the point that routers aren't particular demanding in a SOHO environment.

But really, that would be my "fun" answer. My more serious answer and my intention to assemble the next time I move would be a hardware router such as the asus WL-500g or Linksys wrtsl54gs with dd-wrt and some USB storage. it should be able to run a number of server-type applications. And it should be able to do it very inexpensively. $80 for the router, $20 for a drive enclosure, and and reasonably large drive that's not currently in use (in my case, I already have an IDE enclosure with a 200 gig ATA drive that I use to hold music and videos to play on my xbox360)

The only other option that is nearly as cost-effective that I cna think of would be to buy an older-generation computer off ebay or something. If power consumption (aka heat generation) is more important that spending the absolute least amount of money, you might want to look toward the embedded market (with which I am admittedly largely unfamiliar)

did you have a look at Linksys's NSLU2 ?
I'm not sure if it's still being sold anywhere else than ebay but..

It's a NAS with 2 USB ports (you can solder more on..) that, like the wrt54gl can be flashed to used an alternative firmwire (unslung) or actually use debian.

pro's: It's a bit more powerful than the wrt54gl (266 mhz, 32mb ram, 32mb flash) and you can add extra storage easily. Only takes about 5W if I remember correctly.

My nslu2 is running unslung and is doing the following:
web server (lighttpd)
ftp server (pro ftpd)
itunes server (firefly)
torrent box (enhanced-ctorrent)
pbx (asterisk)
update my no-ip.com address ..

oh.. and it also is a NAS )

all for about 50$

[Plekto]

My suggestion is to get a board with integrated video and lan. Drop a small athalon/via/celeron in it. Undervolt. Use Linux. Entire os plus setup should fit on a self-booting CD. No HD also makes it less vulnerable to hackers. Set it up to reboot automatically if the power goes off and load the CD. CD loads, it loads the drivers and so on, and starts working. (possibly it will need a tiny 8-16mb ramdisk - be sure to turn off disk caching as well)

Without any video actually being shown, no HD, and a pico power supply, the only heat source at all would be the puny CPU. Toss that in any old case. Or a cardboard box, since we're talking about a bare board with a CD drive, CPU, and 1 stick of memory. Use a CD drive and a ramdisk as it gives them no way to alter the machine at all. Plug the thing into a switched power supply and run that down to a wall switch near your computer. Hackers? cycle the switch and wait 30 seconds.

[WillyTrombone]

thanks for the tip, morglum. The only reason I suggested the wrt and asus routers were that they were the only ones that fulfilled the following requirements:

-listed as fully supported by dd-wrt (of course if there's another viable option for an OS, this doesn't matter)
-has USB support for external storage
-is readily available for purchase.

Running debian actually sounds pretty nice. I'm going to go look up more info on that model right now.

[WillyTrombone]

and now I see why it had previously ducked under my radar: my search has also been constrained by the need for wifi support.

Is there appropriate hardware and software available to let the NSLU2 to act as an access point as well? I haven't looked into it much, but my impression is that USB wifi devices are generally poorly supported in linux, and often incapable of running as an access point in any environment.

Anyway, for the top poster, this might not be an issue. I don't see any mention of wireless access, and I still firmly believe that in terms of cost and power consumption, a hacked router would ultimately be the best way to go.

[lutorm]

But really, that would be my "fun" answer. My more serious answer and my intention to assemble the next time I move would be a hardware router such as the asus WL-500g or Linksys wrtsl54gs with dd-wrt and some USB storage. it should be able to run a number of server-type applications. And it should be able to do it very inexpensively. $80 for the router, $20 for a drive enclosure, and and reasonably large drive that's not currently in use (in my case, I already have an IDE enclosure with a 200 gig ATA drive that I use to hold music and videos to play on my xbox360)

I would not recommend going this route.

I've had a Linksys wrt350n (basically a 801.11n version of the 54) running dd-wrt as a file server for about a year now, and it's very unstable. The usb is flaky, most devices were not recognized if plugged directly into the router. To get the hard drive to connect I had to find a usb hub that would work with the router (took 3 tries) and then plug the hard drive into that. Moreover, it tends to lock up when doing heavy I/O through afpd or samba, especially when access is over the wireless. I have to reboot it about every 2 days because it drops off the network.

If that's not enough, you should be aware that it's not possible to run fsck on any reasonably large file system from the router. The ext3 fsck needs at least several hundred mb of ram to check a 1TB volume, and the router only has 32mb. Even with swap space enabled it will reliably lock up when trying to do an fsck of the served volume, which really is not a situation you want to be in...

I think these little routers just aren't made to do server tasks 24/7. There's a comment on the dd-wrt page somewhere to the same effect. I've finally had it with that solution and is in the process of configuring a little box based on the 945GCLF2. It's true that it uses 25W compared to 7W for the wrt350n, but for that you get a (hopefully not flaky) x86_64 compatible processor (the Atom 330 *is* a 64-bit processor, contrary to the OP remark), dual core, *and* you can run a standard linux distro like fedora or ubuntu. The specialized embedded distros like optware are much less user-friendly, have much less packages, and forget about trying to build a kernel unless you are a wiz. (I have worked with linux for more than 10 years and failed getting a kernel that worked. Luckily I avoided bricking the router in the process...)

That said, the dd-wrt is rock solid as a wireless router, much better than the original linksys firmware.

I was intrigued by the NSLU2. It seems a lot of people are happy with it so it must work better than the routers. I'm pretty sure it's no longer produced, though, so it might be an iffy way too.

[NickH]

I have now built my system:
Motherboard: GA-MA74GM-S2
CPU: Athlon AM2 5050e (I could not get a 4850e at the time)
HD1: Seagate ST960817SM, 2.5", 60GB SATA-2
HD2: 500Gb Hitachi SATA-2 P7K500
PSU: picoPSU 120w with 110w power brick
Memory: 2Gb (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 PC5300 (taken out of my PC which I upgraded to 2 * 2GB PC6400)
Network Card: Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual port PCI-E
FDD: none
CD/DVD: none

Power:
Standby - < 6w
Idle (HD2 standby, CPU at 1000MHz): c.35w
Almost Idle (HD2 spinning, CPU at 1000MHz): c.40w

I went for a 2 disk solution so the operating system (ClarkConnect) could go on the lower power drive which never spins down, and my data files could go on the second drive which goes into low power mode after a set period. This may be a bit of a mistake as the power saving is minimal.

I've taken about a 5w hit for the network card. As the box is going to be used as a router I needed a second network port and I got this high performance bargain on fleabay. In terms or performance it beats the c**p out of an RTL8169 PCI based card.

Rather than underclock/volt I am using Cool and Quiet, but I have capped its speed to 1800MHz. In reality, apart from when booting, it sits at 1000MHz all the time, so I have not got any sensible power readings under load. I do not anticipate it needing more than 1000MHz very often. If I disable C 'n' Q and lock the CPU to 1000MHz/0.8v in the BIOS it uses the same power but I lose some flexibility.

The case came with a very noisy 400W PSU. I switched it for a picoPSU which has saved about 10W and is silent. The system uses up to about 80W when booting until the operating system loads C 'n' Q which is why I went for as 120W picoPSU rather than 90W (I was using more than 90W during boot up with the original PSU).

I am still fiddling with ClarkConnect before I deploy the box in anger. I am still trying to sort out the VPN - I can get it to work but think I can do better - and CC have just started beta testing V5.0 so I may hang on until it is released as it will bring significant improvements (to user setup and VPN).

I have not made up my mind yet if I'll leave the box running 24/7 or allow it to shutdown after 11pm if it sees no PC's connected then have it power itself back on some time in the morning and have it kicked into life by WOL in case I take up sleep-walking.

BTW, I have mounted my 2.5" drive in a 3.5" slot using twisted bungee cord to give me a cheap anti-vibration mounting