Low Wattage SageTV Servers?

[Savage1701]

FWIW, I did undervolt/underclock a 900 series Intel and it slashed about 50% off the use on my kill-a-watt meter.

But the hard drive thing seems to be a lock - around 10-12 watts for a 3.5" unit, 5 watts for a 2.5" unit. Spin 'em down and it could be trouble. If they are slower to begin with, it may not matter as much, and they will run cooler.

To my way of thinking, a high end RAID card can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear in this case, to some degree.

[elefante]

You have a few options:

1. Most expensive - by a COTS NAS device. I tested a bunch (I work for storage company), and for SMB space speed/price/software the one that came out on top was Synology 1010+. I have it and a 110j for DR at my mother's house, and mozy to protect in the cloud...bulletproof. Netgear software is kludgy, firmware is ok, but out of the box the synology software rocks and is quite stable. As for virus protection, well you can simply have virus protection on the client, and if it reads the file it will be scanned. So a network drive doesn't matter. I don't use virus scanners anyways, I use custom comodo rules and use common sense. I scan once a week w/ free stuff. Not a virus in 3 years.

If you are psycho about viruses, create a sandbox (some sort or virtual machine), and test incoming files there. If you blow it up, restart. Use non-persistent.

2. Rational - Troll newegg and wait until there is some $90 motherboard and CPU combo. I got a single core AMD (which was really a dually) a board for $90 bucks. Thing idles at 40 watts, and it has way more power if you need it than a weak atom.

If you are at 40-60 watts, a traditional PSU, even if it is 80plus will probably be under 80% efficient at that draw. You have to look at direct DC power supplies like picopsu with a brick. My HTPC runs this setup, 40 watts idle with sage or xbmc. Make sure you don't have to buy new RAM.

So for $150, you should be set and this will last you for years.

[snipeman]

Could I use a picopsu to run my Sage server? It is running a Q9550s CPU at 65w. I'm also running the Gigabyte dynamic energy saving software. I saw there is a 160 watt picopsu. I have 2 WD Caviar Green 2TB hard drives and Nvidia 7600GT fanless video card. The video card does not have a power connector. I sometimes use the system to watch TV - it is not a headless service.

Kill a watt shows around 100W typical draw. it does peak in the 170's when booting up though. I'm using a Seasonic S12-550 active PFC power supply right now. I've had an old power supply fail in another computer. My idea would be to put the picopsu in my server, and move the Seasonic S12 to replace the failed one.

How much improvement do you think I'd see if this worked?

Originally Posted by elefante

You have a few options:

1. Most expensive - by a COTS NAS device. I tested a bunch (I work for storage company), and for SMB space speed/price/software the one that came out on top was Synology 1010+. I have it and a 110j for DR at my mother's house, and mozy to protect in the cloud...bulletproof. Netgear software is kludgy, firmware is ok, but out of the box the synology software rocks and is quite stable. As for virus protection, well you can simply have virus protection on the client, and if it reads the file it will be scanned. So a network drive doesn't matter. I don't use virus scanners anyways, I use custom comodo rules and use common sense. I scan once a week w/ free stuff. Not a virus in 3 years.

If you are psycho about viruses, create a sandbox (some sort or virtual machine), and test incoming files there. If you blow it up, restart. Use non-persistent.

2. Rational - Troll newegg and wait until there is some $90 motherboard and CPU combo. I got a single core AMD (which was really a dually) a board for $90 bucks. Thing idles at 40 watts, and it has way more power if you need it than a weak atom.

If you are at 40-60 watts, a traditional PSU, even if it is 80plus will probably be under 80% efficient at that draw. You have to look at direct DC power supplies like picopsu with a brick. My HTPC runs this setup, 40 watts idle with sage or xbmc. Make sure you don't have to buy new RAM.

So for $150, you should be set and this will last you for years.

[Fuzzy]

using something like the picoPSU and feeding it from a 12V power brick is actually pretty silly. The inefficiencies are simply moved to the power brick (as WELL as the inefficient nature of the PicoPSU, which is designed for tiny size, and not necessarily high efficiency and high quality power). The only time using a picoPSU would make sense, is if you actually HAD a 12V power source (like working in a car/trailer/rv, or off-grid cabin).

[Oats]

picoPSUs can be very effiecent. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article601-page3.html

They try to claim 9X% and not count the power brick effiecency. If you get a decent brick the overall effiecency can be high.

I still wouldn't use one as you can get a decent regular PSU that is 80+ for half the price or less.

[snipeman]

Yes, I saw they claimed 96% efficiency on the 150 watt model, but I figured they weren't calculating the brick's AC to DC conversion.

It didn't look that expensive to me, I was seeing prices for the supply and the brick in the $60 range - did I miss something? It actually seems cheaper than 80+ gold rated Seasonic power supplies. They all run in the $130+ range.

Fuzzy, it just seemed like an elegant solution to me - no fan, no noise, and some of the heat generation of the brick outside my server case.

I wonder what the true efficiency is when you factor the brick in. It would be nice to know if anyone has tested with a meter both ways..

What would you guys buy as a server PS?

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Oats

picoPSUs can be very effiecent. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article601-page3.html

They try to claim 9X% and not count the power brick effiecency. If you get a decent brick the overall effiecency can be high.

I still wouldn't use one as you can get a decent regular PSU that is 80+ for half the price or less.

I've got an old P4 box that I'm pretty sure I have run SageTV on, and it draws 75 watts. Also have an eMachines that I got from Staples on sale that has Vista pre-loaded and draws 60 watts. Both those figures are for the boxes with video cards installed. I'd think a few watts less for headless. Haven't tried SageTV on the eMachines, but I would expect it to work. All my stuff is OTA, no transcoding.

[Nelbert]

I have a picopsu on one of my fanless miniITX boards. Their biggest benefit is silent operation and small form factor, which coupled with a CF/USB stick, fanless board and fanless case gives totally silent operation.

I wouldn't use one in a server unless you have an external disk box. You won't get enough connectors for more than a couple of disks.

The biggest issue I've found with most PSUs is, like cases, the smaller they get the noisier they get. While the form factor may be small they tend to resonate more like the cases, the fan bearings also dry out quicker and get noiser due to higher temperatures in a small well packed case.

[Oats]

Originally Posted by snipeman

Yes, I saw they claimed 96% efficiency on the 150 watt model, but I figured they weren't calculating the brick's AC to DC conversion.

It didn't look that expensive to me, I was seeing prices for the supply and the brick in the $60 range - did I miss something? It actually seems cheaper than 80+ gold rated Seasonic power supplies. They all run in the $130+ range.

Fuzzy, it just seemed like an elegant solution to me - no fan, no noise, and some of the heat generation of the brick outside my server case.

I wonder what the true efficiency is when you factor the brick in. It would be nice to know if anyone has tested with a meter both ways..

What would you guys buy as a server PS?

Seasonic power supplies aren't cheap, but you can find Seasonic built PSUs cheap. I picked up an Antec Neo Eco (built by Seasonic, 80+) for under $30. Corsair's 400w 80+ PSUs are often for sale for under $30 too.

The link in my last post showed a review by SPCR on the picoPSU and they saw efficiency in the mid 80% which is very good. But it depends on how efficient the power brick you use is.