Low power raid server with REAL gigabit ethernet

[mgiammarco]

Hello,

I would like to build a home raid server. Obviously low power and silent.

I have seen in this forum some mini itx/micro atx motherboard with several gigabit ethernet interfaces.

But this interfaces are connected to pci bus and so cannot reach real gigabit speed.

Can anyone suggest me a silent motherboard with gigabit ethernet connected directly to north bridge or south bridge.

Thanks in advance!

[smilingcrow]

On the Intel side take a look at the S479 boards as they are new enough to probably have a decent Gigbit Ethernet implementation. Check for one that will support the Celeon M 4xx series chips if you want a cheap single core CPU; otherwise you are looking at a Core (2) Duo.
Here are two: Asus and Gigabyte. The price of these boards has dropped the last couple of months and isn’t looking so steep.

On seconds thoughts the Celeron M 4xx series very likely doesn’t support Speedstep as its predecessors didn’t, so you won’t get particularly low power consumption at idle. In which case a Core Solo would be better.

Hopefully, someone else will point you in the right direction with regards AMD.

[mhv10]

Hi,
I've been working on a similar project, and have been posting some datapoints on this thread:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=32043

Here's a quick rundown of power figures using my Kill-A-Watt on a few mATX w/gb-lan systems at my disposal. Everything stock (voltages, fans, etc) unless otherwise noted.


1. MSI 915GM Speedster w/Dothan Pentium-M 1.6Ghz, 1 x 512MB DDR-400, 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV, LiteOn DVD burner, seasonic ss-330hb ps

Initial BIOS bootup: 54 watts
XP at Idle: 51 watts (Desktop mode) / 46 watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 61/61/62/59
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 403.160ms, 67bit factoring - 19.874ms

Comments: Had a lot of trouble getting first one to work, but RMA'ed it and this one seems stable. Great in combination with cheap eBay S478 Pentium-M CPU recovered from broken laptops. Only issue: doesn't boot if my WD RE2 400GB SATA hard drives are plugged in. Otherwise seemed ideal for NAS server use.


2. MSI 945GT Speedster w/Core Solo T1300, 2 x 1024MB DDR2-667, 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV, LiteOn DVD burner, seasonic ss-330hb ps

Initial BIOS bootup: 65 watts
XP at Idle: 60 watts (Desktop mode) / 50 watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 65/63/63/63
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 353.98ms, 67bit factoring - 19.073ms

Comments: Picky about memory that it will work with. Check their list of qualified memory modules before buying. Otherwise, worked pretty well. Like its 915GM sibling, the stock heatsink is very noisy, but my attempts at using aftermarkets heatsinks hasn't worked well yet. Will end up using this for my NAS server almost by default.


3. Gigabyte ga-945gm-s2 motherboard w/Core 2 E6600, 2 x 1024MB DDR2-667, 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV, LiteOn DVD burner, seasonic ss-330hb ps

Initial BIOS bootup: 85 watts
XP at Idle: 71 watts (Desktop mode) / 71 watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 101/96/105/112
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 106.77ms, 67bit factoring - 7.064ms

Variation #1: added 3 WD 400GB "RE2" SATA drives - idle goes up 15 watts
Variation #2: added GeForce 7600GS - idle goes up 15 watts

Comments: Recent impulse purchase. Never intended for NAS server, but interested in its power consumption anyway. CPU Temp at idle was 21c, 41c at peak usage, using Gigabyte's measurement utility. Using stock Intel heatsink, which is nice and quiet, but disturbing when it chooses to spin down.


4. Intel D865GLC motherboard w/3.0Ghz Northwood, 2 x 1024MB DDR-400, GeForce 6200 256MB AGP, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, Seagate 7200.8 SATA 250GB hd, samsung dvd burner, seasonic 330w ps

Initial BIOS bootup: 120 watts
XP at Idle: 79 watts (Desktop mode) / 78 watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 145/136/140/151
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 137.323ms, 67bit factoring - 12.817ms

Comments: Older Windows desktop. Not too bad at idle.


5. ABit KV-80 motherboard w/Athlon64 3000+ (clawhammer 512kb), 2 x 512mb ddr-400, GeForce 6200 128mb AGP, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, Seagate 7200.10 sata 320gb disk, liteon dvd burner

Initial BIOS bootup: 115 watts
XP at Idle: 88 watts (Desktop mode) / 73 watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 128/131/131/133
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 230.880ms, 67bit factoring - 13.834ms

Comments: Older Windows desktop. Surprised how high idle is. Benchmark data is probably not useful given how bad these numbers are but how good the machine "feels".


6. iMac w/Core Duo T2500, 2 x 1024mb ddr2-667, 250GB SATA disk, dvd burner, integrated 20-inch LCD display.

Initial BIOS bootup: 90 watts
XP at Idle: 78 watts (Desktop mode) / ?? watts (Laptop mode)
Prime95 / CPU-BurnIn / 2 CPU-BurnIn / Prime95 + CPU-BurnIn: 94/94/98/99
Prime95 Benchmark: 4096FFT - 293.981ms, 67bit factoring - 15.882ms

Comments: These figures are all booting into XP using Bootcamp 1.1. Another datapoint against using Prime95 for benchmarking.


Hope that helps,
Mark

[mgiammarco]

First thank for great replies!

Searching myself I have found that nvidia Nforce and some SIS chipsets for athlon that support gigabit ethernet (without using pci).

I have also found the sis/geode low power platform called EAGLE II but it seems it is not on the market yet.

But I suppose an athlon (ever undervolted) draws too much.

Also 54 watts seems too much for me but I suppose it is already a very good result.

BTW: This site claims very low power consumptions for his servers:

http://www.polywell.com/us/servers/Low- ... Server.asp

Is it possible? Which motherboard are they using?

Thanks again for replies!

[smilingcrow]

Also 54 watts seems too much for me but I suppose it is already a very good result.

I managed 39W at idle and 50W at full load for a Core Duo desktop system @ 1.66GHz. With a more efficient power supply you could take that down a bit. You’ll have to check if it’s a ‘native’ Gigabit NIC though, there’s a link to the manufacture’s website at the end of this User Review.

[mhv10]

This is in my other post, but it might be worth repeating that a 1GB Terastation NAS appliance draws 40 watts in active use.

PS: smilingcrow - great job on all the recent posts!

[smilingcrow]

PS: smilingcrow - great job on all the recent posts!

Thanks. I'll get some sleep now.

[mgiammarco]

I have searched net. There are some industrial motherboards but I cannot find prices. There is amd geode with sis eagle II platform but it seems it is not sold now.

I am considering msi 915gm with pentium M as you said (it has dual pci-express gigabit)

But I would like to know if pentium M can be undervolted or if athlon undervolted can draw less currente than intel pentium M.

Terastation would be good but I would like to install an unofficial bios.

Thanks again.

[smilingcrow]

But I would like to know if pentium M can be undervolted or if athlon undervolted can draw less currente than intel pentium M.

Pentium M is easy to under-volt with RMClock; according to the SPCR desktop review, at idle when under-volted it consumes ~1W. At these power levels the choice of motherboard and power supply are where the energy savings can be made.

[mgiammarco]

Sorry, I forgot to say that I will use linux so I cannot use RMClock. I hope to find some motherboards with bios undervolting, anyway I have found that also linux with a kernel patch can undervolt.

But now I do not understand a thing: I am currently using via c3 nemehiah and I am able to cool it fanless (with 14 cm psu fan). I have seen on spcr reviews that pentium M cannot be cooled passively, why? (It draws only a watt as you said)

Thanks again for patience!

[smilingcrow]

Sorry, I forgot to say that I will use linux so I cannot use RMClock. I hope to find some motherboards with bios undervolting, anyway I have found that also linux with a kernel patch can undervolt.

That’s good to hear; if you could give a link for info on this it would be useful, as I’m not sure how generally known this is.

But now I do not understand a thing: I am currently using via c3 nemehiah and I am able to cool it fanless (with 14 cm psu fan). I have seen on spcr reviews that pentium M cannot be cooled passively, why? (It draws only a watt as you said)

The 1W figure is for power consumption at idle; the issue is how much power it consumes at load. In this case it still consumes very little at load so it shouldn’t be a problem. But there is a catch with cooling mobile CPUs on desktop boards; some of them use proprietary heat-sink mounting mechanisms which precludes the use of typical low noise solutions. Some of them are compatible with S478 heat-sinks, but the problem is that mobile CPU’s have no heat-spreader which can be a problem in two areas:
Firstly, the lack of a heat-spreader means that the CPUs are at a slightly lower height than desktop CPUs, so you may not get enough pressure being applied by the heat-sink to give optimum cooling.
Secondly, the lack of a heat-spreader means that the CPU core is vulnerable to damage when installing a heat-sink.
It’s a bit of a minefield and I was lucky enough to have a Scythe Katana at hand when I needed a heat-sink for a Core Duo system. Its mounting mechanism makes it easy to install it with a very tight fit but without needing to apply undue pressure in the process. I didn’t try using it passively, but I think it should be fine with an under-volted Pentium M. If you slow down its 92mm fan to ~900 RPM, it is going to be noiseless from a distance of 1m anyway.
If you’re interested I can test the Katana passively on a Core 2 Duo (Desktop) to see how it performs. Let me know.

[Tibors]

Sorry, I forgot to say that I will use linux so I cannot use RMClock. I hope to find some motherboards with bios undervolting, anyway I have found that also linux with a kernel patch can undervolt.

That’s good to hear; if you could give a link for info on this it would be useful, as I’m not sure how generally known this is.

There is a lot of this on the net, but it is spread out, often incomplete, hard to find and most is of "cut and paste" quality. Almost all is only for the Pentium M (not a problem for mgiammarco).

The only real good one I have found is: Linux Processor Hardware Control. It works fully for Pentium M processors. It works partially for Core duo/solo processors. But they are working on full support. And (most important for me) they promise to support A64 processors in the next major release. Nothing is mentioned about Core 2 processors. There are probably not enough of them in use by Linux tweakers yet.

[smilingcrow]

Thanks Tibors.
[Off Topic]
Do they still run the Blues Festival in Utrecht? I lived in Zeist briefly in 2004 and went to the Blues festival that summer. I really enjoyed it.

[mgiammarco]

Thanks again for your info and for linux guide.

I will use this guide, is for thinkpad but is well written.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Pentium ... rclocking

Anyway bios support is easier for sure.

I think I will buy msi 915gm, I have read in the forum , I am not sure katana can be used on it.

BTW: I see also a lot of very good industrial motherboards but I cannot find price, any idea of a "industrial shop" ?

Thanks again.

[Tibors]

[Off Topic]
No. They replaced the blues with seventies and eighties disco. Whoever had that plan

[mgiammarco]

Hello,
I am here again.
The reality is I hoped to reach less power level than 35-40 watt (pentium m solution). In addition to this I would like to buy a msi 915gm speedster fa4 with cpu (to recycle my ddr ram) but in Europe/Italy is difficult to find.

So, before buying, I would like to consider also a turion/sempron alternative.

Reading this forum it seems that it is only few watt more than a pentium m.

I am considering a motherboard based on nvidia geforce go 6150+ mcp 430 because of its lower power consumption.

Am I right? Please give me this last help