Recommended Settings for Lower Power Server

D

Dark_Falcon

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
67
All,

With a lot of help from members on this board, I finally put together a storage system that has all the requirements I need at the moment and appears to have all the growth potential I will need for sometime to come (Thanks again!).

Now, here is my dilemma. In order to keep the peace in the house (and to keep me out of the poor house) I need to do whatever I can to reduce the heat and / or energy requirements for this beast.

Uses: Currently utilized for storage and as a media server. It may be required/utilized at any time (Day/Night). Therefore, I cannot schedule downtimes (i.e. quiesce during the night) but (if possible) I would like to setup some kind of 'wake on lan' etc.

Below are the 'pertinent' build items (I think). If more information is required, please let me know. BTW - I do have another thread on here with all of the original build information.

Any heavy hitter recommendations (or even not so well known pointers) are appreciated.

Thanks all. As always, your time and assistance is appreciated.

motherboard:
Super MicroX8SIL-F

cpu:
Intel Core i3-530

memory:
KVR1333D3E9SK2/4G

case:
NORCO RPC-4220
with Cavediver custom fan bracket and Scythe Fans

controller card(s):
AOC-SASLP-MV8

power supply:
CMPSU-650HX

OS - WHS
 
Really not much more you can do to lower the power usage of that server. The next step below the i3 would be one of AMD's 45W CPUs. And below that is the Intel Atom.

If you really want to cut down on power, use low RPM or Green drives as much as possible.
 
Ok...silly question. Does anyone know how to enable hibernate on this board. I know about the whole setup in the WHS - Control Panel/Power Options tab etc. However, the Hibernate option is not available there.

It's my understanding (based on google info) that it may need to be enabled in the bios before the proper tabs will show up. I everywhere (I think) in the bios and in the manual but I can't find anything having to do with hibernate.

I figured that if I can get hibernate to work, I can at least utilize a WHS addin such as Lights out for starters.
 
If its just serving media you can drop to an atom just fine. I had a atom with 3x Samsung Eco drives running whs that even transcoded video on the fly fine. So if just serving the media then you would have nothing to worry about. And my system ran fanless other then the psu and no heat issues at all in a full tower atx.
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Dark Falcon: what kind of HDDs do you have now? I don't see them in your post.

Oh and Atoms don't always have lower power consumption; in fact some atom boards use more power than 65W TDP cpus idling. So for a low TDP server i wouldnt look too much at atom. You just limit your cpu to a very low maximum speed and you're not saving any power because the system will work at high capacity longer; until it drops to idle again.

So slower / lower TDP cpu can have higher power consumption. It's the idle power consumption that you should be looking at; TDP can be misleading.
 
@Dark_Falcon

SNAP! You and I have the same mobo /CPU /SASLP-MV8, although I used Crucial memory.

My only suggestion would be to use a PSU more suited to the power draw of the system.
I have a Seasonic X-series PSU, the logic being to use the most efficient PSU I could. (At some point I might even get round to fitting it!)

@bastage

My previous WHS build was based on an atom.
The current X8SIL /i3-530 build uses less (electricity) power, has a SIGNIFICANTLY faster CPU, is more expandability
Though, the X8SIL build did cost more than the atom build.
 
My sig has low power drive info, go with the fewest largest drives required.
 
smaller power supply, if you haven't bought the processor yet, buy an atom, and use JBOD freenas or something like that.

WHS with its fake raid an extra layer of complexity that I don't prefer. I like that if I have a failed computer, I can pull disks from it and put it in another machine, and start it up.
 
Sorry all....I may have been unclear in my original post.

I already have the hardware and I am very please with it's performance (btw - my harddrives are hitachi 2tb).

Anyways, what I am really trying to accomplish is reduce uptime by utilizing such WHS utilities as Lights out, hibernate mode (on the board) etc (primarily software/settings optimizations). Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty implementing these things because I don't know if/how the board/software supports it.

If anyone has this board/cpu/whs combo, I would really like to hear if they are doing anything special with settings etc..

Sorry for the confusion.
 
Is anyone familiar enough with this board to know how to set hibernate mode on it? That would get me a start :)
 
You may need to enable the hibernation feature in WHS via a command prompt first (similar to XP, Win7, etc). I'm just speculating here since I don't really use WHS, but I would assume that Microsoft implemented this the same way they have done it on their other operating systems...
 
Appreciate the feedback.

Unfortunately, simply setting it up in WHS doesn't appear to be sufficient/viable. I know exactly where to go to 'enable hibernation' in WHS but it's not an available option. Every guide I've read implies that if it's not available in the control panel then you may need to enable it in the bios first, then set it up in WHS. Hence, the question about whether this board will even do hibernation.
 
Hence, the question about whether this board will even do hibernation.
Click to expand...

I would say it is unlikely that any board made in the last 5 years would not support hibernation. I have never seen one. Although with windows you may have to have the BIOS option enabled before you do the install not by enabling a bios option after.
 
I'm not sure if this applies to WHS, but have you tried this:

To make hibernation available, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on, and then press ENTER.
5. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

To make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press ENTER.
5. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

The above instructions apply to Windows...

I also found on this (specific to WHS):

Add-In: How to add Suspend and Hibernate to Wake On Lan
 
Bear in mind that you cannot use hibernation with hyper-V. The hypervisor specifically does not allow for using the hibernation feature. Not at all, and there are no workarounds. But this would only apply if you expected to be running Hyper-V and then WHS inside a guest VM. I've got one set up this way and it actually works rather well. The WHS guest has several drives allocated to it directly, hanging off a SATA multiplier in an external chassis. I use the WHS setup primarily for its workstation backup feature, not really for file sharing.
 
Dark_Falcon said:
All,

With a lot of help from members on this board, I finally put together a storage system that has all the requirements I need at the moment and appears to have all the growth potential I will need for sometime to come (Thanks again!).

Now, here is my dilemma. In order to keep the peace in the house (and to keep me out of the poor house) I need to do whatever I can to reduce the heat and / or energy requirements for this beast.

Uses: Currently utilized for storage and as a media server. It may be required/utilized at any time (Day/Night). Therefore, I cannot schedule downtimes (i.e. quiesce during the night) but (if possible) I would like to setup some kind of 'wake on lan' etc.

Below are the 'pertinent' build items (I think). If more information is required, please let me know. BTW - I do have another thread on here with all of the original build information.

Any heavy hitter recommendations (or even not so well known pointers) are appreciated.

Thanks all. As always, your time and assistance is appreciated.

motherboard:
Super MicroX8SIL-F

cpu:
Intel Core i3-530

memory:
KVR1333D3E9SK2/4G

case:
NORCO RPC-4220
with Cavediver custom fan bracket and Scythe Fans

controller card(s):
AOC-SASLP-MV8

power supply:
CMPSU-650HX

OS - WHS
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if Atom would have the spare power or spare PCI slots for software raid at a decent rate. Maybe a mobile CPU based board would be a reasonable coompromise.
 
Shutdown of servers ends up never working well enough. Too much stuff gets done during the overnight hours. That and most wake up schemes don't work reliably enough. Mainly due to integration hassles with the motherboard, the network interface and the network setup. So you juggle between trying to 'save' versus losing functionality. Functionality usually wins.

Another angle to consider is using a timer in the motherboard BIOS. Some have the ability to schedule when the machine will wake up. You'd then have to schedule a task in the OS to handle the shutdown. But few motherboards clearly document how well, or even if, they support this.
 
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