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Ghent915

Gawd
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
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Hey guys:
I got to messing around on the 'Egg the other day, and the idea hit me of doing an Intel Atom powered WHS system. Now, I have no clue how feasible this would be, so feel free to point/laugh at me if this falls flat on it's face.

As a comparison, I was looking at the HP WHS box with the 500gb HD for $450 (on Amazon)

So, for my build, I was thinking (Prices rough):
Intel Atom 330 Board: $85
2 Gb Ram: $21
SeaSonic 430w PSU (Overkill, I know, but, I want a good PSU in a server): $65
2x WD 6400aaks HD's:$150
Case: Something cheap with 3x external 5.25" bays
WHS: $100
(Optical drive I have laying around, and would only use for the install)
Total, before shipping: $421 (for 1.2ish tb)

Optional Bits:
Promise SATA300 TX4 Controller (4 more SATA ports): $70
4x HD SATA External Backplane ($80-100)
Total before new Drives: $170 (on outside)

So, for $600, I'd have a WHS rig that would have 1.2tb of storage, and the ability to further scale with 4 free SATA ports on the offboard SATA controller, and hotswap capabilities thanks to the external backplane.

I guess my question is this: Am I wrong for using an Atom based rig for this? It seems to me a dual 1.6ghz proc with 2gb is MORE than enough power for a dedicated WHS system.

Comments/suggestions/pointing & laughing?
Thanks!
-Ghent
 
This past weekend I built a new WHS box for 5x1TB drives using the Intel BOXD945GCLF2 board with an Atom 330 CPU. So far everything seems to be working fine for my modest requirements. Prior to this build I had a Via C7 @ 1.6 GHz and that was plenty to meet my needs.
 
Ghent915 said:
I guess my question is this: Am I wrong for using an Atom based rig for this? It seems to me a dual 1.6ghz proc with 2gb is MORE than enough power for a dedicated WHS system.
Click to expand...

No, you're not wrong considering that HP's EX470 and EX475 WHS MediaSmart Servers uses a Sempron 3400+ 1.8Ghz CPU and 512MB of RAM. Seems to be enough for WHS. So a dual-core Atom with 2G of RAM will be more than enough. TeedOff's experience also proves that you're not wrong

Also, if you're willing to go with Open-Box hardware, you can get this 8 port controller instead:
SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz (PCI Compatible) SATA Controller Card - Open Box - $66

Then again, a new Supermicro card isn't that much more than the Promise card:
SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz (PCI Compatible) SATA Controller Card - $98
 
I'd get a 5x3 hot swap bay setup. Gives you an extra drive bay and they cost the same(hell I have a new one sitting around somewhere if you want a deal).

Other then that I think it would be fine considering that HP uses an amd 1.8.
 
My issue with those Promise cards are that they are PCI-X, which I'm not sure how compatible they would be with that board, which only has a single PCI slot (not PCI-E, PCI-X, etc).
Intel Board/Proc: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359
(I'm going with that as it's roughly $20 more for that second core. Hell yes!)

That's why I went with the 4channel cards, and the 4x hotswap bay at the front. (No need in more bays than slots on the controller and all).

Any ideas?
 
Though I have no personal experience with them, by other accounts the Supermicro SAT2 cards work fine in a PCI slot.
 
Ghent915 said:
My issue with those Promise cards are that they are PCI-X, which I'm not sure how compatible they would be with that board, which only has a single PCI slot (not PCI-E, PCI-X, etc).
Click to expand...

I guess you meant the Supermicro, not the Promise considering that the Promise cards you listed are PCI. Anyway, the Supermicro works just fine in a PCI slot.
 
Ghent915 said:
My issue with those Promise cards are that they are PCI-X, which I'm not sure how compatible they would be with that board, which only has a single PCI slot (not PCI-E, PCI-X, etc).
Intel Board/Proc: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359
(I'm going with that as it's roughly $20 more for that second core. Hell yes!)

That's why I went with the 4channel cards, and the 4x hotswap bay at the front. (No need in more bays than slots on the controller and all).

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Were you counting those 2 640 gigs for the onboard and wanting to add 4 more drives past that?

Even so I'd go with the 5in3 and have one of those drives running in hotswap as well.
 
AFAIK all PCI-X cards will drop down to PCI-bus speeds. The catch is that the PCI bus isn't quite two new SATA drives wide even if nothing else is using it. Doesn't matter much if you're using it for archival storage, but it'll bottleneck a larger raid for performance.
 
Danny Bui said:
I guess you meant the Supermicro, not the Promise considering that the Promise cards you listed are PCI. Anyway, the Supermicro works just fine in a PCI slot.
Click to expand...

I had the Supermicro PCI-X SATA adaptor in my Atom board...worked fine. It was the AOC-SAT2-MV8...I only needed 6 SATA ports so I switched back to a 4 port card I had, so the Supermicro is up for sale in my thread. The other reason for the switch was that the tiny case I am using and the length of the Supermicro caused a bit of interference.
 
Is there any performance difference over a single gigabit ethernet line when running an Atom based system when compared to something like the Biostar MB and 4050e in the Galaxy builds?
 
Ghent915 said:
Intel Atom 330 Board: $85
Promise SATA300 TX4 Controller (4 more SATA ports): $70
Click to expand...

Total = $155

6 port Gigabyte mobo = $80
Cheapo Proc = $40

Total = $120

Soon as you added in that 4 port card...you made the wrong choice IMO. The atom boards are only cheap as long as you don't need to add more hardware to make the do the job you need them to do.
 
Thanks for the input guys!
You are right, I was meaning SuperMicro while I was typing promise. I blame my recent insomnia and test schedule.

Trep: Thanks for the commentary. I was planning on starting small, hence the Atom board. At this point in time, I don't think I'd outgrow the 1.2tb that I'd be capable of storing just using the board's native SATA hearders and 2x 640gb drives, (or 2tb with 2x 1tb drives, but I digress). The Hotswap bays and SATA controller cards are for later expansion when/if I need it.

Atom is nice due to the very small power/heat requirements, at least to me.

Also, I was going Atom to prevent geek-induced feature creep. I KNOW that a bare bones proc would be good enough, but I'm always tempted to throw more power at it...

Thanks so far guys!
 
DanNeely said:
AFAIK all PCI-X cards will drop down to PCI-bus speeds. The catch is that the PCI bus isn't quite two new SATA drives wide even if nothing else is using it. Doesn't matter much if you're using it for archival storage, but it'll bottleneck a larger raid for performance.
Click to expand...

This is not 100% true. Some PCI-X cards are not compatible with 32bit slots. The only way to be sure is to read up in the manual or look at the physical cards contact slots. Backwards compatible cards will have an extra "notch" in the contact slot.

Also, while performance can be an issue with PCI, keep in mind that your performance would be network bottlenecked (gigabit). Unless if you are working directly on the machine, running localized processes, or if you have multiple gigabit nics or 10gbit nic, you are not going to saturate the PCI bus.
 
get tthe 750gb drives the guy is selling in the fs thread for $65

i bought 2 for my WHS
 
Ockie is wise in this. I went with the SAT2 at his suggestion in my WHS (despite saturation problems with the Promise pci card in the past [this was on a DAS though, not a NAS]) and my gig-e chokes way before the sata does.

 
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