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Recommendation for File Server PSU?

H

ha_sjo

n00b
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
14
Hi all

I'm about to build a new file server and would appreciate some suggestions with regards to PSU choice.

The server may end up with as many as 20 SATA HD's installed, which unfortunately will not feature staggered spin-up. I assume this will tax the 12v rail the most at switch-on (motor 12v, logic 5v IIRC?).

CPU will be a single E7200, RAM will be 4 or 8 GB DDR-2, no fancy video cards or other high-drain components.

I'm hoping I can get away with something around the 500W mark, but this may not be possible due to the inrush current of the disks.

I am particularly looking for something as quiet as possible and with a practical selection of power outlets (eg, nothing modular that requires me to spend megabux on additional bespoke cables to power the HDD's). I don't mind extending the rails with additional power connectors myself.

Thanks in advance :D
 
Corsair VX450 or VX550 might be fine if you want some thing more the TX650 or 750
 
Elios said:
Corsair VX450 or VX550 might be fine if you want some thing more the TX650 or 750
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Thanks for that, seems a possible option. It has the 8 pin CPU connector which is one thing I will need (i'd rather not use adapters/splitters etc for this).
 
Honestly, I don't see why you would need a high end psu for a file server. My file server is a socket A athlon system running 24/7 on a generic 300w psu. It's been running for about 10 months now without even a single hiccup. I'd say any psu that has enough juice for your components is good enough.
 
Cschill1290 said:
Honestly, I don't see why you would need a high end psu for a file server. My file server is a socket A athlon system running 24/7 on a generic 300w psu. It's been running for about 10 months now without even a single hiccup. I'd say any psu that has enough juice for your components is good enough.
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Well not of us are as callous with our data as you are. Most of us know that a PSU is the most important part of a PC. Considering that file servers usually have important data, most of us don't want to lose that data because they cheaped out and used a crappy or insufficient PSU. In addition, many of us have file servers that uses significantly more power than your socket A file server.

Just because you used a generic PSU and it worked fine (or so we know), doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so.
 
Danny Bui said:
Well not of us are as callous with our data as you are. Most of us know that a PSU is the most important part of a PC. Considering that file servers usually have important data, most of us don't want to lose that data because they cheaped out and used a crappy or insufficient PSU. In addition, many of us have file servers that uses significantly more power than your socket A file server.

Just because you used a generic PSU and it worked fine (or so we know), doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so.
Click to expand...

Well, most of us have a decent backup strategy
 
Danny Bui said:
Well not of us are as callous with our data as you are. Most of us know that a PSU is the most important part of a PC. Considering that file servers usually have important data, most of us don't want to lose that data because they cheaped out and used a crappy or insufficient PSU. In addition, many of us have file servers that uses significantly more power than your socket A file server.

Just because you used a generic PSU and it worked fine (or so we know), doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so.
Click to expand...

Umm...if you keep data that has that much value on a file server and have no back up of it...obviously you are "callous" with data. I always have an external drive that supplements my file server. The only files on the server that I don't backup on the external are music and movies. And seriously with the "or so we know" bullshit? If it didn't work fine, I wouldn't have said it.

Why don't you get off your high horse and stop talking down to people about what "most of us know" are the most important components.
 
Easy guys, try not to get too off-track on this thread please :)

What is relevant is my requirements. Somehow I don't think a 300W PSU is going to be happy spinning up 20 HDD's at the same time (assuming approx. 1.5A/drive peak). Looks like I need to factor in at least 30 amp on the 12v rail to accomodate just the disks.
 
ha_sjo said:
Easy guys, try not to get too off-track on this thread please :)

What is relevant is my requirements. Somehow I don't think a 300W PSU is going to be happy spinning up 20 HDD's at the same time (assuming approx. 1.5A/drive peak). Looks like I need to factor in at least 30 amp on the 12v rail to accomodate just the disks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, don't get me wrong. I wasn't saying a 300 watt psu would do the same for you what it does for me. I'm just saying that if I were in your position, I would sooner buy a lower range PSU than something from one of the more expensive makers like OCZ or Corsair etc...

I guess what I'm saying is this...if there's one component that I would let take a backseat to the others in price, it would be the psu. (for a file server at least, since it won't be taxed like one in a gaming rig, the system will probably be just sitting at idle most of its life) Seems like you have some nice recommendations above though. Good luck with the build.
 
Cschill1290 said:
I guess what I'm saying is this...if there's one component that I would let take a backseat to the others in price, it would be the psu.
Click to expand...

I must disagree with your statement.

The day that your PSU fails to spin up some of your HDDs in your RAID because it's running too close to its capacity is the day when you regret not paying those extra 20$ for a quality PSU that can provide enough amps.

Sure, I keep backup (x2) of alle files, but restoring several tens of TBs from backups is no fun at all.

For a normal home file server it's possible to buy a cheap mobo, GPU, CPU. You probably don't need a lot of RAM, and you can get away with a software based RAID.

But I would never buy a cheap PSU for a system with 20 HDDs. Buy a quality PSU. If you don't have a backplane in your case you also need to make a plan for how to connect the drives to the PSU, your PSU probably won't have enough SATA power connectors.
 
That's fine if you disagree, everyone here is entitled to their opinion. I don't have 20 drives in mine though. Only 3. I'm just throwing my thoughts out there, not trying to convince anyone that my way is better.
 
Silhouette said:
But I would never buy a cheap PSU for a system with 20 HDDs. Buy a quality PSU. If you don't have a backplane in your case you also need to make a plan for how to connect the drives to the PSU, your PSU probably won't have enough SATA power connectors.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the thing. I was looking at the Silverstone Zeus which can do 50 amps on a single 12v rail, which may be ideal for this purpose. As far as wiring goes, i'll most likely make up my own wiring harness that is custom-fit for the application.
 
Cschill1290 said:
That's fine if you disagree, everyone here is entitled to their opinion. I don't have 20 drives in mine though. Only 3. I'm just throwing my thoughts out there, not trying to convince anyone that my way is better.
Click to expand...

For a server with 3 drives I agree with you. As long as you have backup any decent PSU is enough. But when you want to spin up the 20 drives mentioned by the OP you need a good quality PSU.
 
Hi guys,
I have a home-built MS WHS box with an AMD Phenom X4 9550 (Underclocked to 1.6GHz), Asus mobo (780G chipset), 2GB DDR2 RAM and four 1TB Seagate (7200 RPM). I currently have an Antec TruePower 450 PS running everything perfectly fine.

Out of curiosity of what Cschill1290 claims, I went to Antec's PS calculator page (LINK) and plugged in my WHS specs. A ~245W PS is recommended for my application. If I double the number of hard drives to 8, the calculator recommends a ~319W PS.

I only bring this up because I thing we tend to go a lil' crazy with PS ratings when in fact too large of PS just waste money.

ha_sjo, good luck with your build.

(BTW - ~540W is recommended for 20 drives)
 
Cschill1290 said:
And seriously with the "or so we know" bullshit? If it didn't work fine, I wouldn't have said it.

Why don't you get off your high horse and stop talking down to people about what "most of us know" are the most important components.
Click to expand...

Sorry but when you started off with a statement like "Honestly, I don't see why you would need a high end psu for a file server", that just smacks of arrogance and/or ignorance to me. Hence my reply. Especially considering that all of the PSUs that Zero82z recommended are not high-end at all. But I do see your point about not spending too much on a PSU.

Anyway back on topic.

@ blksnake
Well you also want headroom for future upgrades as well stay in the optimal cooling, noise level, and temperature range for a PSU:

Paul_Johnson said:
Yes and a quick search would turn up this topic a million times over. Here is the recap:

1) APFC can fool Kill-A-Watts into giving you abnormally low readings (some times giving better than 100% efficiency)

2) Power supplies derate with temperature anywhere from 2w/c above a nominal rated at value to 10w/c.

3) Kill-A-Watt's and most power meters sample too slowly to catch transient loads (the Transient load from our tests is 117w and is COMPLETELY missed by Kill-A-Watts).

4) Power supplies last longer if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

5) power supplies are quieter if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

6) Power supplies are cooler if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

The power meters in UPS software are just as bad. You have to spend some change before you get anywhere near an accurate power meter when your PSU has APFC.
Click to expand...

As such, yes your system would only draw 245W but if you want the PSU to live longer, stay quieter, and cooler, you spring for a PSU that gets you to that 40% to 60% range. Which means that a quality 450W PSU would be a good choice.

Out of curiosity, do you hear any whine, squeal, or any other odd noise coming from that Antec Truepower 450W PSU?
 
I'd probably go with an Antec EA650. It's $80 w/free shipping on NewEgg.

One of the 550w units mentioned earlier was $76 after rebate, so why not get a bit more power for $4 more?
 
450 said:
why not get a bit more power for $4 more?
Click to expand...

Because it's potentially wasted energy.. efficiency varies depending on load and every PSU has a 'sweet spot' of high efficiency.. so ideally you'd match your typical usage pattern to the sweet spot, if possible. I'm not super fussed about this though.
 
I am not an expert and in fact learned from Zero82z postings.

Please treat this as casual reading from user with minimal knowledge and a lot of unqualified guessings. I may not have correct understanding of drives or even basic electronic calculation skills. :)

1. If you have a theorectical motherboard with 20-onboard SATA and it is very specifically spinning-up disks at once.

2. Hard disk : WD10EARS
2a. Complete 20 drives all disks spin-up maximum will be 420watt.
2b. Complete 20 drives all disks read+write during normal hours about (97.2 - 108 watts)

3. However, in normal situation, I believe it is usually much lower
3a. Because I have not seen motherboard with 20 on-board SATA.
3b. So most of the users must buy Add-In controller card if you need 20-drives.
3c. If you have a controller card that can address mega needs, they are usually also targeting enterprise customers, which will take power issues in consideration while powering up the storage devices. I think all "expensive" cards from LSI/Areca/Dell/HP/Adaptec/Promise/Highpoint/misc either have staggered spinup in play or have firmware tuning that will minimize such problematic issue.
3c-1 to give example ( i have slightly more experience with old stuffs, you can see the old SCSI servers during power-up, the LED in front of the hot-plug disk will light up one by one.)

4. Your only potential issue is if you deployed multiple in-expensive 2-port SATA controller cards. No functional issue with them but I suspect they will likely spin-up at once thus drawing higher power.

5. Some disk models have lower spin-up power demand. The WD10EARS seems to have higher demand in comparison to other green models.

Finally, yes I am looking to similar idea but cannot get Norco and other critical items cheaply, thus forced to research several alternative schemes. :)
 
ha_sjo said:
Thanks for your post. My requirement is specific, not theoretical.
Click to expand...

Well then, what drives and what controllers ? To me that needs to be determined before a good recommendation on a power supply can be made. Along with the considerations of the value of the data and if raid will be used. 24x7x365 operation, is noise a concern (wait, you did tell us that, so no commercial supplies. ) blah blah blah.

assuming approx. 1.5A/drive peak
Click to expand...
thats low for some 1TB drives, enough to make a 10A difference over 20 drives. That should send up a red flare if nothing else in this post does.

Actually the best info in this thread is in the post you apparently are dismissing (perhaps I am reading your comment wrong and if so forgive me. ). lightp2's post is a very intelligent approach to the problem and you would do well to read it again and make the leap to apply that logic to your unique situation since you apparently are not willing to share or even worse, have not yet decided what exactly you are going to power but yet want a power recommendation from a bunch of guys in the dark.

Obviously I agree with lightp2. No MB I know of is going to support 20 drives and thus plug in controllers are going to be needed. Knowing or deciding which one(s) you are going to use would go far in addressing your current question. Frankly I would just get /spend the money on a controller that did allow for staggered spin up. It is why it was developed, so a power supply did not have to be over sized to account for startup surge and could be specified in a power range that more closely matched normal operating power demands.

So far you have told us.
Maybe the load will be on the +12 (you are not sure) and assume 1.5A x 20@12V = 360W surge for the drives.
CPU will be a single E7200, RAM will be 4 or 8 GB DDR-2, no fancy video cards or other high-drain components.

estimating the board ram CPU etc wattage at startup, 42A on the +12 should do. Barely. But I would not. There is no margin.
 
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The drives differ, hence the approximate value.
I'm not changing disk controllers.
The disk controllers are not high consumption.
 
@Danny Bui - No whine at all. I have a total of three Antec TruePower PS (380, 450 and 650W) for several years now with no issues whatsoever (Knock on wood).

I am FAR more fearful of a failed HD affecting me than a under wattage PS.

I'm confident my next media server will use LESS power while providing much better performance and capacity.
 
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