• 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.

PSU for a Large File Server

alphakry

alphakry

Limp Gawd
2FA
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
470
I am running the following configuration:

CPU: W3570 Intel Xeon (130W)
MOBO: Asus P6T7 Supercomputer
RAM: 6x2GB PC1866 Corsair Dominator
RAID: Areca 1280ML + Battery Backup
ARRAY1: (24) 750GB Seagate 7200.11
ARRAY2: (6) 1TB Seagate 7200.11;
ARRAY3: (3) 80GB WD Raptor 10K
GPU: nVidia GTS 240 (120W)
NIC: Intel Pro 1000 PCI-E


I'm fairly sure my 600W Seasonic won't cut it anymore. Would 900W be sufficient for this setup? After doing some reading (such as JohnnyGuru's review) - the PCP&C 910 Silencer seems like an affordable yet powerful choice.

I would really like to try to avoid spending upwards of 300-500 on some 1200W beast. The system will see moderate individual use for various tasks with zero overclocking - and frequent disk use both locally and via LAN.
 
Last edited:
holy crap man 33 hard drives.. Thats pretty insane for a single user.. As far as the question at hand I Think 900w would be more then sufficient.. You would probably be fine with 750 in all honesty. Corsairs power supply configurator only goes up to 20 hard drives but then matching as close as I could to the rest of your system it only recommended a 650 W power supply with 20 drives. But they make a 950 for about 150 bucks that would fit your bill well..
 
i bought both of my 1.2kW psu's, one for 200, and the other i think for that price too or less. Just look in the for sale thread :)
 
haha bastage - ya, it's a beastly file server :) Inspired by Ockie... i may post some pictures for some people to drool over!

I messed with Asus' configurator also and that only let me go up to 10HDDs. I'm guessing the hard drives above take an average of 10-15W each?
 
matrix563 said:
i bought both of my 1.2kW psu's, one for 200, and the other i think for that price too or less. Just look in the for sale thread :)
Click to expand...

Matrix - do you really utilize those 1200Watts? seems like it may be overkill, despite the number of disks i use.

I've got bills to pay.... so 1200W of power will add up! I surely want to supply enough juice to provide some overhead but if I'm never going to require more then 900W, seems silly to spec an extra 300W. or am i missing something?
 
alphakry said:
Matrix - do you really utilize those 1200Watts? seems like it may be overkill, despite the number of disks i use.

I've got bills to pay.... so 1200W of power will add up! I surely want to supply enough juice to provide some overhead but if I'm never going to require more then 900W, seems silly to spec an extra 300W. or am i missing something?
Click to expand...

A 1200W power supply won't pull 1200W unless your components are requiring that much. What IS important is the ratio of your components' power draw compared to the rated wattage of the power supply. Power supplies run most efficiently when they're ran within a certain range of their rated power. I don't have exact numbers so I'll leave you to search for them yourself (I think around 70-80% of rated power? just a guess), but that is one reason you might want to get a larger than needed power supply. On the flip side if you spec it too large you'll waste efficiency.
 
thanks Neb. so what I really need to do is calculate the expected idle/load numbers of the system above and leave about 20-30% overhead (based on your guess).

Looking at the http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine calculator, seems standard SATA HDD's take about 9.8W in their calculator. Adding the additional drives and the components in my configuration, which thankfully this configurator supports many of - that puts me at about 770W of required power.


Sounds like a 1000W PSU should fit the bill nicely, and the 910W may just cut it. I can't imagine ever needing a 1200W-1500W PSU unless i'm looking to overclock.
 
Last edited:
alphakry said:
Would 900W be sufficient for this setup? After doing some reading (such as JohnnyGuru's review) - the PCP&C 910 Silencer seems like an affordable yet powerful choice.
Click to expand...

The PC P&C 910 is good but is currently OOS at most major retailers. In, addition, when it was available for same, it was often overpriced compard to other 900W PSUs like the Corsair 950TX.

According to my math and the assuming that each driveis 15W, that's roughly 800W at full power for taht setup. So I'd recommend the Corsair 950TX at the very least.
 
Danny Bui said:
The PC P&C 910 is good but is currently OOS at most major retailers. In, addition, when it was available for same, it was often overpriced compard to other 900W PSUs like the Corsair 950TX.

According to my math and the assuming that each driveis 15W, that's roughly 800W at full power for taht setup. So I'd recommend the Corsair 950TX at the very least.
Click to expand...

Techreport's test of the 750gb 7200.11 show about 11W for the drive while seeking. Factoring the other drives in I think that 15 is a fairly good assumption so a 950TX or something larger would be a good fit.

Here is the 950TX's 80plus test report: http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_reports/CORSAIR_CMPSU-950TX_ECOS 1690_950W_Report.pdf

Do keep in mind that the test is done at 23°C ± 5°C, so don't expect it to perform as well as it does in the test. Nonetheless it's still good info to have.
 
what would be a better fit for a system like this - one large 12V rail or multiple?
 
Your 600W might cut if your raid card supports staggered startup since that is when you will draw the most power. You don't need 1.2kW....900W would be more than enough and allow reasonable margin.
 
alphakry said:
what would be a better fit for a system like this - one large 12V rail or multiple?
Click to expand...

From what I've seen, read, and researched, probably a large single rail for multi-HDD setups exceeding 12 drives or so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top