Building a NAS: CPU & Fan advice

aryonoco · Post by **aryonoco** » Sun May 03, 2009 7:08 pm

Hey all,

First post to this forum, though I've been reading it for a long time

I'm building a FreeNAS box, and have a number of questions about what to put in it:

1) CPU: I'm pretty sure any modern CPU is able to serve in a NAS, so my two choices are Intel 430 Celeron D 430 and AMD Sempron LE-1200. The Celeron is a bit more expensive where I live, but that is not a major problem. I'm looking to see which one has the least power requirements, specially at idle. The Celeron's TDP is 35 W whereas the Sempron's 45 W; but that doesn't tell me anything about idle power consumption, and that's what I'm looking for. Which one should I go for?

2) Case fan:The box I'm building will have one of these CPUs, 1 RAM module, one CD ROM and 4 SATA hard disks. Ethernet, VGA and all else is onboard and I'll use software RAID, so no raid card either. While I'll keep the CPU's heatsink and fan, I don't know whether the case would need a fan or not. Can I get away without putting in a case fan? Or will the 4 HDDs run hot? This will be in a midi-tower case, if that makes any difference.

3) RAM: This box will be a Samba server as well as an NFS server. Nothing else, and it will have maximum of a couple of users. Do I need more than 1 GB of RAM?

Thanks.

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Sun May 03, 2009 8:58 pm

When considering the energy usage between your two choices, you need to look at both the cpu and the motherboard chipset. As an example, I just built a computer using an Atom cpu and the Intel 945 chipset. An A64 2000+ and a 780G (test between the two at Tom's, I believe) uses a watt or two less with almost twice the cpu power, the old 945 chipset being the reason for the Atom falling down.

That's not much help to you because I don't know of any easily available info on chipset energy usage. But my reading has led me to think that the AMD choices have the advantage on the chipset end.

aryonoco · Post by **aryonoco** » Sun May 03, 2009 10:46 pm

DanceMan wrote:When considering the energy usage between your two choices, you need to look at both the cpu and the motherboard chipset. .

Fair enough. I had actually forgotten about the chipset.

The MBs I'm looking at are at the very low end of the spectrum, and so, on the AMD side I'm looking at 740G while on the Intel side I'm looking at G31.

So, perhaps I should rephrase my first question. Which one of these will consumer less power, especially at idle: Sempron LE-1200 + 740G or Celeron 430 D + G31?

mgarl10024 · Post by **mgarl10024** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:32 am

Hi,

This'll only answer half of your question, but I recently built a server using the 740G with an LE-1300 which idles at 35watts.
Check: viewtopic.php?p=456447

Hope that helps,

MG

zprst · Post by **zprst** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:59 am

aryonoco wrote:3) RAM: This box will be a Samba server as well as an NFS server. Nothing else, and it will have maximum of a couple of users. Do I need more than 1 GB of RAM?

Generally speaking: no, you could do fine with far less. Depending on the usage scenario (working with smaller, frequently accessed files vs. transferring huge chunks of data sequentially, for example), your network setup and a couple of other factors, a larger filesystem cache could raise the performance quite a bit, though.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Tue May 05, 2009 10:13 am

1. Celeron doesn't support Speedstep which means you are locked at motherboard's vcore setting. On the other hand, you can control vcore of Sempron by motherboard's bios or software. Besides, AMD chipset tends to draw less power than Intel counterpart. All in all, a combination of 45W Sempron and 740G is a proven champion in terms of power consumption and decent performance.

2. ATOM is a good mate for minimal chassis, but it doesn't make sense for larger case. AMD stock cooler is decent assuming that motherboard owns fan control. As for case fan, a quiet 120mm fan wouldn't be louder than 4 HDDs, so I would get one for safety anyway. Were I you, I would concern the HDD mounting first. 4 HDDs are doomed to generate much vibration which means HDD suspension is required.

3. I'd get a 2GB stick without think since it is dirt cheap lately.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Tue May 05, 2009 2:38 pm

I've been putting together a little NAS myself lately, and I think hard drive cooling is pretty necessary. Well, my situation is probably a little different than yours, I got a Chenbro ES34069 case, it's a dedicated NAS case that hold 4 drives plus a 2.5" drive, and a mini-itx motherboard. Anyway, I've been experimenting with quieting it down, it has 2 70mm fans to cool the hard drives, and I discovered that driving them down around 7v to 5v they become a lot quieter, but during a little rsync test my hard drive temps were going from 40s to high 50s and 60s. In a bigger case, you should have much less of a problem, but I'd definitely recommend running some tests. Keeping the big 120mm fan in the back is probably a good idea.

And I'd also agree with bumping it up to 2GB, memory is cheap as hell these days.

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue May 05, 2009 3:03 pm

I have a Gigabyte 690G with the Sempron LE1250, XP, one HD for now and it uses a steady 46W. I used 1G for awhile. Adding a 2G stick sure made a better computer. There are times when you want to install or update software and the machine with 1G became exasperatingly slow.
I bought the single core cpu as it was dirt cheap and I didn't think it would make a difference, but I will replace it with a dual core for the same reason as the increased memory.
I will replace board with a 740G.

aryonoco · Post by **aryonoco** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:04 pm

Thanks a lot for the very informative posts guys. I knew I could count on this forum.

@cordis
Yes, that case of yours really does look interesting, but I'm thinking about future-proofing my NAS and making sure that I can put at least 6 HDDs in it. That unfortunately means I have to go for a midi-tower. However, it seems I underestimated the task of cooling the hard disks. I'll make sure I'll provide sufficient cooling for them, and put a silent 120m fan at the back as well.

@mgarl10024
Thanks for referring me to your thread. My supplier doesn't seem to carry the Enermax PSU, but your thread introduced me to the whole notion of 80-plus certified PSUs. I'll also keep undervolting the cpu in mind, even though the one I'm going for is the 2.1 Ghz LE-1200, so there might not be much room in it.

@loimlo
That's good to know. The Sempron is cheaper anyway, and the motherboards are also cheaper, so it seems like Sempron it is. I'll also upgrade the RAM to 2GB. This box is expected to last me at least 5 year

Two more questions:

1) As I said, I am now thinking about 6 HDDs. I can't find a motherboard with 740G supporting 6 SATA connections. Seems I'll have to go for 780G. Does that use much more power?

2) What's the general consensus on the Corsair CX-400 PSU? Is it good?

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:40 pm

2) What's the general consensus on the Corsair CX-400 PSU? Is it good?

I just put that power supply in my Gigabyte 690G system this weekend. I am disappointed. The Fortron Source 60GLN 300 watt it replaced was significantly quieter.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Wed May 06, 2009 6:16 pm

aryonoco, do you consider Gigabyte 740G board? 6 SATAs on this board
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page1.html

1. As for 780G, it may consume a bit more juicy such as 2~3W at idle.

mgarl10024 · Post by **mgarl10024** » Fri May 08, 2009 5:37 am

As I said, I am now thinking about 6 HDDs. I can't find a motherboard with 740G supporting 6 SATA connections. Seems I'll have to go for 780G. Does that use much more power?

aryonoco, do you consider Gigabyte 740G board? 6 SATAs on this board

That's the board I used - and yep, it has 6 SATA connections.
I'm sure I read something about the 740 not having such a great throughput with that many drives, but with just 2 drives (and an occasionally used SATA DVDRW) it's been working excellently for me. All depends what you are trying to do with it I guess.
Some of the more experienced people here may be able to help recommend some sort of expansion card - perhaps the motherboard could control x drives and an expansion card the others - maybe sharing the load and getting you better performance?

Hope that helps,

MG

aryonoco · Post by **aryonoco** » Sat May 09, 2009 7:18 am

Thanks for the information guys.

It seemed I had somehow overlooked the GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2H, and while I am usually a Gigabyte fan myself, I can see 780G boards on the market that are cheaper. For example the Foxconn A7GM-S 2.0 AM2+ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813186165

The SPCR review on the Gigabyte is very glowing, so I am very tempted to go with it, however the Foxconn has arguably a better chipset and is still cheaper, so that is also tempting. Anyone with experience using this Foxconn?

About the chipset and it's ability it's performance on 6 SATA drives, I did some googling but couldn't find anything. I was also of the impression that the southbridge controls the I/O, not the northbridge. Is this correct? These motherboards nearly universally use the AMD SB700 chipset for that. Has anyone build a box with around 6 disks using this chipset? Or should I use an expansion board?

I have put a deadline of May 13 for myself to wrap up my research and order the parts. Anything I can find until then will be extremely helpful. Thanks.

Worker control · Post by **Worker control** » Sat May 09, 2009 11:10 am

If 2 SATA ports are enough, an Atom/945GSE board would be a good fit. My system uses 18-19W:

viewtopic.php?t=51554#463825

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat May 09, 2009 7:36 pm

If you want tp stress 6 SATA HDDs at the same time such as raid I am afraid than no chipset on the market can provide good performance. But normal file server at most would use 1 or 2 HDDs meanwhile anyway.

As I said before, 780G may draw a bit of more juice at idle.

Edit: correct grammar mistakes

gratou · Post by **gratou** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 2:34 am

pls see silentpcreview topic 35078

I am doing the same and the way to go for total protection seems to be by using ZFS and RAIDZ under Solaris. This not only protects against drive failure, but also against data corruption. Now I am at the same stage: investigating suitable hardware.... Not an easy task!

Building a NAS: CPU & Fan advice

Building a NAS: CPU & Fan advice

Re: Building a NAS: CPU & Fan advice

cool hard drives

945GSE