• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Power for 10 hard drives.

C

cowbell

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
68
I'm building a budget file server and I need a reliable power source that can handle 10 x 160gig drives. Should I just go with two small cheaper power supplies is there a good inexpensive case that can hold two power supplies? or should I go with aone big one. will a 500watt power supply do it. please recommend a good decent psu I know some are over rated. I plan on running just the 10 harddrives and a 2 port sata connector on the pci bus. no optical drives or anything. thanks.
 
The load your drives are going to put on the PSU could be minimal in the grand scheme of things. I've got computers running 8 drives off of 350 and 400W power supplies. :D

The big question is, what ELSE is going to be in this file server that's going to stress out a PSU? What mobo, what CPU, what kind of video card?
 
You will need around .6A on +12 for each drive under normal operation, although spinup requirements will be quite a bit higher, Seagate says to allow 2.4A :eek: for spinup on a 7200.7. Anyone know how to do staggered spinup on ATA drives? If you are on a PIII era system that does not pull power on +12 for the CPU(s), then most any quality PSU that is P4 ready will have plenty of power. If you get a K7/K8/P4 that pulls CPU current on +12, a dual +12 rail ATX 12V 2.0 PSU is highly recommended. Even then, you are most likely going to want a second PSU to handle spinup current demands. Probably a dual +12 main PSU, and then a secodnary PSU with the biggest +12 line you can afford, as dual +12 is wasted on a 'drive only' PSU - one of the rails is reserved for connectors to the mobo.

As for the case, the CoolerMaster Stacker looks like a great choice. You can buy enclosures for it with 120mm fans that convert 3 5.25" bays to 4 hard drive bays. The case has room for three of those, or 12 drives. Even with that 12 hard drive arrangement, it still has room for two CD/DVD drives, and IIRC, a floppy. It has provisions for two PSUs, and comes with a mobo power connector merger thingee to allow one master power switch on the mobo to control both PSUs.

You may actually be near the limit on +5 draw as well on a single PSU. Off to PCP&C for you ;)
 
thanks guys. the cooler stacker is way beyond my limit for a case and those cool stacker drive cooler things that they sell for 30 bucks can be made easily with some sheet metal and a 5 dollar 120mm fan :D anyway I will not be running a video card or anything like that just the 10 drives no optical drives just the 160gig hard drives. A Soyo socket A motherboard (KT880 dragon 2). lol most of that post is latin :( to me so just point me in the direction of a psu on newegg.com or chiefvalue.com or somewhere at a good price that's reliable and I'll be extremely grateful. thanks guys :D

I'm thinking about using that case Ams Genesis Full Tower ATX
and was thinking about this power supply till I saw the powmax power supplies were on the no no list in the sticky thread.
 
Anything with 30A or more on the 12V rail.
 
Are you serious?

+12V.

I don't think you should even care if there's 1A on the -12V.
 
lol I never looked past watage b4 ive never built a system that really used up alot of power. using that power supply calculator in the how to buy thread I got it up to 13A using 8 drives will. 2 more drives push it to 30A. Anyway here is my set up.

Soyo KT880 Dragon 2 VIA Socket A ATX Motherboard
AMD Sempron 2500+
a stick of kingston 256mb ram.
10x160gig hard drives.
A sata controller in the pci slot and thats it :D if anyone can recommend a decent supply for a budget home server I'd appreciate it.
 
That doesn't add up.

13A for 8 drives and 30A for 10?

How is it that the drives use less than 1.625A each if you only use 8 (less than because other items are using 12V and not just the drives,) but use 3A each if you use 10 drives? :p

Or....

How is it that drives 9 and 10 use 8.5A each? ;)

Look.. Like Doug said... 2.5A on spin up is a very liberal number. Even at 10 drives your only talking about a 25A load when the PC first starts up and everything else is idle. You still have 5A left on the 12V rail for anything else during that time. I'm betting that you're probably only going to pull just under 2A per drive on initial spin up and with a minimal or no video card, the Socket A CPU and whatever fans you're going to use, you probably STILL won't use up that remaining 5A. ;)

So get a PSU with at least 30A on the 12V rail and you'll be more than fine.
 
I must have read it wrong. :D

If anyone finds a good deal on one please post a link thanks.
the best I could do was this its 28A. but costs more then my case :p
 
DougLite said:
Anyone know how to do staggered spinup on ATA drives?
Click to expand...

many a IDE RAID5 will do it these days, of course you already knew that :p
sort of blows the budget to hell

manufacturers are quite good at documenting the draw through the operation cycle of a HDD
so Id take the spinup and idle spin and seek draws to heart
another point not specifiically addressed is the difference in independent drives and arrays
arrays will have synchronous concurrent seeks with all the armetures moving and drawing more at the same time, whereas independents will be far more random, in a system where the CPU is powered off the +12V synchronous seeks should be employed as the worse case post spinup draw if an array is employed, if the CPU is powered off the +5V the spinup draw is all youd need to worry about


considering the budget restraints
dual PSUs hardwired
http://www.picard.demon.co.uk/atx/dual_atx.pdf
might be the way to go

a single would be perferable, but Id only feel truely comfortable recommending some rather expensive supplies
like a PCP&C 510

but I would add this point
HDD have no "buffer" for the power and are often the victims of power events
considering the sheckels you have tied up in those drives, a single high quality supply affords considerable peice of mind


may actual recommendation would be dependent of the full config, which I dont see listed
 
well Im going to award you a buttload of fans to go with that :p (0,5A CPU fan, 4x 80mm fans at .37A per, you need more or less adjust that)
and fans do impact spinup draws they are also on the +12V rail
as JonnyGURU pointed out 30+ Amp +12V supplies, ideally an older ATX12V v1.3 hybrid with a single +12V rail

mobo has a 4 pin auxillary +12V connector and the CPU is powered off the +12V rail
no AGP in these calcs, at some point youd likely need it but you might setup first with one and then control it remotely via the network (VNC) and add the drives in after youve removed the AGP

theoretical maximum (no AGP)
http://takaman.jp/D/?M=PbQKQbe@cSAg85DKHWh85DKHWlG5HnZAZavXCMZ&english
(used a barton) PCI Videocad is the other HDDs, also added an optical
+12V @ 32A


spinup draw
drives & fans 100% CPU 25%, optical removed from the boot order and not spinning up
+12V @ 27A

worse runtime draw
(CPU 100% drives & fans at 25% no optical)
+12V @ 14A

Id recommend a single ATX12V v1.3 PSU (single +12V rail) rated at 40C with at least 30A on the +12V
OCZ Powerstreams, older Sesonics that load is actually pushing a FSP 530 on the +12V at spinup (rated 28A) and Im not sure what its temp rating is but maybe

If you can figure out a way to stagger the draw like DougLite pointed out youd be much better off, in the past stuffing that much storage in a box was SCSI land, and staggered spinup the norm, Id check and see if there is an option for that in your SATA controller

either that or Dual PSUs, I ran my RAID array & HDDs like that for 3 years (12 HDDs)
Good Luck ;)

as a note some AGP are solely +3.3V & +5V, adding those wouldnt be impacting the +12V obviously
Opticals are basically another HDD and would hit you for an additional 2A at spinup if they are in the bootorder
play with the calculator a bit ;)
 
thanks alot iceczar, I think I might have to go with dual power supplies. thanks for all the information man I really appreciate it.
 
nope not per se and not as a class (PATA vs SATA vs SCSI vs FC)
but you should look up exactly what draws the drives your using are

I used 2.3A per DougLites post in the calcs
 
on the drives it says +12v 960mA does that help any? iceczar can you do me a favor and please go down the list on newegg.com or chiefvalue.com and pick out a drive that will work for me. It won't be supporting a floppy or any optical drives. just the hard drives thank you. 8 of my drives have arrived I might just end up going with 8 instead of 10. I'll still have over 1TB after raid 5 :)
 
cowbell said:
on the drives it says +12v 960mA...
Click to expand...

Wow. That's not much at all! That's less than 1A each (1000mA = 1A.)

What kind of drive is this? My Barracuda's say 2.8A!
 
cowbell said:
this Is the full config. In this case
Click to expand...

Well you have the $25 full tower, wooptyfuckingdoo.

you -DO- realize that that tower does not have provisions for mounting 10 hdds, right?

So, how do you plan on securing all 10 hdds in that case?


your "best" option would be to find a cheap Antec SX1000 style case -not the new kind- that allowed 3 3x3.5 cages to be put in it. It'll only come with 2, but I'm sure you can find a 3rd for sale here (or you used to be able to buy direct from Antec)

And certainly don't skimp on the PSU. 10 hdds + optical + system on a single PSU can be done...I did it. 10 hdds (8x 80gb in RAID, 80gb + 30gb in Vantec EZ-Swap enclosures, 2x DVD-ROMs, floppy (had nothing better to do with that area, and it had a molded front), + P3 733mhz/512mb RAM/ATI Rage/Gigabit NIC/2x100mb NICs/WiFi/RAID5 card). PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 450W, the biggest they made back in 2001 when I ordered it.

You'd be a fool to invest $800+ worth of hdds (assuming $80 per drive) on less than $40 worth of case & PSU. If you're not going to take the time and money to invest in the safety and security of your system, you really need to rethink how you're building your file server.



Also, while I'm critiquing your setup, why are you going with that Soyo board?

Are you planning on using its onboard RAID capabilities? You do know that that'll complicate(or make impossible) migration of those particular arrays in the future, right?

if it were me, I'd not get that motherboard.
I'd get an MSI nForce2 board (the $56 one on newegg), or any other IGP board, that'd take care of video & LAN. I'd get PCI RAID controllers, that way the data could be migrated in the future should a new system have to be built.

And good luck with your IDE RAID....I lost a channel in my old array (Highpoint 404), lost the entire RAID....same day as I got fired. I've since sworn off IDE RAIDs....If I were you, I'd look into SATA RAIDs instead.
 
I'm building a similar system, scaleable up to 14 drives (12 x 300gb raid, 2 x 10k sata).

I'll be using the CM stacker along with two power supplies: the ENERMAX Whisper II EG465P-VE FMA and the ENERMAX EG425P-VE.

The Whisper II will provide power for the raid drives (33A @ 12v) and the EG425P-VE, with it's dual 12v rail, provides power for the other devices and the two 10ks sata drives.
 
jonnyGURU said:
Wow. That's not much at all! That's less than 1A each (1000mA = 1A.)

What kind of drive is this? My Barracuda's say 2.8A!
Click to expand...

they are 160gig Maxtor Diamond max drives. 4sata and 4ata (for now) and they each are 960mA.

(edit: I meant 960mA sorry)
 
NecessaryEvil said:
Well you have the $25 full tower, wooptyfuckingdoo.

you -DO- realize that that tower does not have provisions for mounting 10 hdds, right?

So, how do you plan on securing all 10 hdds in that case?
Click to expand...

hey dumbass don't worry about how I will make that case able to hold 10 drives securely :eek: He asked for my config so I showed it to him. I will not be needing optical drives or dvdrom drives or anything else like I stated before so go wooptyfuckingdo yourself. And since it will be software raid 5 and I'll be using 4 Ide drives one per channel in conjunction with sata drives of the same make. So don't be a smart ass ok.
 
cowbell said:
they are 160gig Maxtor Diamond max drives. 4sata and 4ata (for now) and they each are 9600mA.
Click to expand...

That's not right either.

I'm looking on Maxtor's website right now. The Diamond Max drive uses 502mA (half an amp) at seek time. 425 at idle and 36 at stand by.
 
jonnyGURU said:
That's not right either.

I'm looking on Maxtor's website right now. The Diamond Max drive uses 502mA (half an amp) at seek time. 425 at idle and 36 at stand by.
Click to expand...
I got the figures right off the drive. Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9 oops i meant 960.
 
I was just referring to the fact that just because you have a full tower, that doesn't mean that it'll make a good server case. I've seen too many people thinking that just because they get a big case, it's going to be great for use as a server. Having gone the route of a full tower that was inadequate for multiple hdds(6x5.25 ext, 1x3.5 ext, 1x 5.25 int, but just 2 3.5 int. It was a SuperMicro 760a, certainly of higher quality than your $25, but unsuited to how I would eventually build my systems)...I find it laughable that you're wanting to put 10 hard drives in a system that is woefully unqualified (at stock) to perform the needs you're wanting.

That's not going to be a very good case for what you're looking at doing.

you're using a very cheap, very low quality case.

you were wanting to use a very cheap, very low quality PSU.

It appeared, to me, that you did not have a good plan on how to implement this server.

So, please, tell me: how do you plan on supporting those 10 drives? Prove my opinion to be incorrect.



(and I'll ignore your desire for software RAID. It's obvious you're not planning for any future migrations of the hardware & data.)
 
NecessaryEvil said:
I was just referring to the fact that just because you have a full tower, that doesn't mean that it'll make a good server case. I've seen too many people thinking that just because they get a big case, it's going to be great for use as a server....I find it laughable that you're wanting to put 10 hard drives in a system that is woefully unqualified (at stock) to perform the needs you're wanting.
Click to expand...

Ok so you just assume because I need help with a power supply I have no idea what I'm doing. Yes I am aware that that case "stock" will not support even more then 5 drives. If you wanted to know all you had to do was ask. If you want me to explain it to you, you can im me on aim: ndiicx and I'll be more then happy to. Or you can make a thread in the case modding section. But there is no need for you to try and be a smart ass. I have never had to install more then 4 drives in the computers I have built and so I was just getting help from the knowledgeable people on this forum. :)
 
Get this supply. I have a 4TB fileserver with this cheap guy and it has been going strong for almost a year. Lotsa power on +12v, excellent airflow, only thing i dont like is the stupid LED fan. But hey, it's a champ...
 
cowbell said:
I got the figures right off the drive. Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9 oops i meant 960.
Click to expand...

You're not adding all the numbers up, are you?

Your number is similar to the number I get if I add up all of the numbers on Maxtor's website.
 
cowbell said:
Ok so you just assume because I need help with a power supply I have no idea what I'm doing. Yes I am aware that that case "stock" will not support even more then 5 drives. If you wanted to know all you had to do was ask. If you want me to explain it to you, you can im me on aim: ndiicx and I'll be more then happy to. Or you can make a thread in the case modding section. But there is no need for you to try and be a smart ass. I have never had to install more then 4 drives in the computers I have built and so I was just getting help from the knowledgeable people on this forum. :)
Click to expand...


I just read through the thread this morning...I saw what you linked to, and I saw issues. So I gave my opinion to try to help prevent you from making a mistake that could take the entire system down. I have a friend that bought a 450W PSU that cost about the same as that 480 you linked to. I have a 120mm fan that weighed more than his PSU. Needless to say, it died very quickly, under a small load.

You're going above and beyond the normal boundaries of the standard computer system. I just don't want you to go with the cheapest chassis & PSU you can find (which is what it looked like when I read this this morning)

at any rate, I'm done derailing this thread. Just, for your own sake, invest in better equipment than what you've linked to. The case I linked you to would cost about $25 more than the chassis you linked to to get set up as I suggested (9x3.5, 4x5.25). It'd be of higher quality, and actually give you room for expansion if you needed it.

These guys will help you out on the PSU...but there's no one here that's will disagree with me when I say that a PC Power & Cooling would be your best bet.
 
jonnyGURU said:
You're not adding all the numbers up, are you?

Your number is similar to the number I get if I add up all of the numbers on Maxtor's website.
Click to expand...
no jonnyguru it says +12v 960mA lol either way its less then an amp :D
 
I go to sleep for a few hours....

we are rather strict when it come to flamebait and flaming (something NecessaryEvil is well aware of. whooptyfuckingdo? :rolleyes: )

so everyone lighten up
cowbell, we hold fire here and let the mods weild the clue by four :p (you can use the report post feature, though Necessary Evil is lucky you didnt, Lethal might have shown up instead of me :p )


while Maxtor is listing seek and idel, they are blowing smoke up your ass and not listing spinup
a more "typical" power spec would be here
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/personal/family/0,1085,577,00.html
(not necessarilly the values, but how its listed(

+12 VDC +/-10% (amps typ operating) 2.8A
+5 VDC +/-5% (amps typ operating) 0A

Power Management (watts)
Seek 12.5W..............................or a little over 1A
Read/Write 12W
Idle 7.5W
Standby 0.9W

for spinup drives average 2A some a bit higher some a bit lower depends on the mass they need to spinup (number of platters) , there is no way to cheat the laws of physics and do it with less energy with the current tech, they need to overcome the inertia for spinup.

all spelling errors are a direct result of caffine deprivation and will not be corrected :p
NecessaryEvil likely is too, or someone stepped on his bunny, hes not generally that cantakerous
 
I don't mind i realise that some people just don't think about what they say or type or how they might come across and some people are just like that because it makes them feel good about themselves for some reason.

anyway Is it possible to get the drives to spin up one by one in a software raid 5 array.
 
not that Im aware of
NecessaryEvil did have a point about the risks involved, same one I made eariler
thats alot of $$$ on the line especially when you consider they are more suceptible to power events than most components.

as a side note, you might want to investigate Linux for software RAID5
it does a much better job from what I understand

your total runtime power requirements are actually pretty low
unfortunately Im not aware of any affordable controllers that would let you stagger the spinup in ATA
Running a RAID5 array myself I understand the advantages of a larger array to storage space efficiency
but some tradeoffs will likely need to be made somewhere
 
I wasn't flaming anyone, at least intentionally. I was being sarcastic, and maybe it came off wrong. I'd just woken up, and 4 hours of sleep certainly isn't enough.

I'd just dealt with someone that was getting a really powerful A64 system, and wanted to put it in a cheap crappy chassis (because it looked cool...nevermind the absolute lack of ventilation it provided). I see a lot of people wanting these powerful systems that end up wanting to skimp on the things that keep them going. I'm very much a function over form person. I have a feeling my frustration from that ended up here as well, especially since the AMS was lacking the necessary function for your system, and you had not provided any information on how you planned on making it work. I had 2 links to go off of, and all I saw were red flags for what you wanted to build.


Again, I'm sorry for coming off so brashly...but, in my defense, I did spend most of my posts trying to give useful information...

I think I should just go back to the laptop forum. I tend to play a bit nicer over there;)
 
see another misunderstanding that could have been avoided by a national caffine subsidy :p


caffine deprivation is evil

Im off to go get some :p
 
that reminds me...the girlfriend has frappuccinos out in the fridge...and I have some Espresso Doubleshots.

yes...more caffienne!
 
Ok I think I have all the info I need thanks guys. I really apreciate it. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top