Hi, Just wanted some help form all the knowledgeable people here. Ive tried searching around the forums and the net but its a difficult thing to find.

I currently have a server that I use mainly as a file store. jpg's, mp3's, avi's and HD mkv's which i run to 4 VMC's. I also run MyMovies SQL on it and download using uTorrent.

My current server is a beast: Q6600 G0, Asus P5K Dual gigabit, 2GB RAM etc etc. I have a 160GB system drive, 2x400GB, 2x500GB, 2x750GB & 2x1TB drives. 3 of those are external with 6 active in the Sever. OS is currently XP Pro but considering WHS.

My dilemma is this, I want to improve the power consumption, cos im guessing that its pretty high. considering its on 24/7 now (wasnt before) I want to change the MoBo and CPU to something more conservative, but its proving difficult to find.

Ideally, I'd like an atom CPU and a Mobo with at least 6 Sata ports (or a nice solution to add them) and at least 1xGigabit LAN port. Can anyone help with a suggestion for hardware and how i should go about it? Is this a suitable hardware config for what I want to use it for?

Please Help.

Thanks

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HTPC: Silverstone LC04 Damptek'd, E4300, Zalman 7000Cu+Nexus, Abit F-I90 HD, 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair, mCubed External Fanless 280W, Fujitsu 5400 2.5 100GB, Hauppauge Nova-T 500
Sony Bravia 46" KDW2000U, Sony HTSS1100

Dik1985:

Hi, Just wanted some help form all the knowledgeable people here. Ive tried searching around the forums and the net but its a difficult thing to find.

I currently have a server that I use mainly as a file store. jpg's, mp3's, avi's and HD mkv's which i run to 4 VMC's. I also run MyMovies SQL on it and download using uTorrent.

My current server is a beast: Q6600 G0, Asus P5K Dual gigabit, 2GB RAM etc etc. I have a 160GB system drive, 2x400GB, 2x500GB, 2x750GB & 2x1TB drives. 3 of those are external with 6 active in the Sever. OS is currently XP Pro but considering WHS.

My dilemma is this, I want to improve the power consumption, cos im guessing that its pretty high. considering its on 24/7 now (wasnt before) I want to change the MoBo and CPU to something more conservative, but its proving difficult to find.

Ideally, I'd like an atom CPU and a Mobo with at least 6 Sata ports (or a nice solution to add them) and at least 1xGigabit LAN port. Can anyone help with a suggestion for hardware and how i should go about it? Is this a suitable hardware config for what I want to use it for?

Please Help.

Thanks

I was wanting to do this but the Atom platform does not natively support enough SATA ports.  You can expand it via a PCI expansion card which I'm sure you can plug plenty of extra HDs into.  However, I was concerned about performance and wanted a minimum of PCI-E 1x.

In the end I went for an AMD 780G motherboard and a low power single core CPU.  My server does everything that you list and I have no problems with it whatsoever.  Costs for me in the UK were £45 for the motherboard and about £25 for the CPU.  I sold the old parts on Ebay for more than I paid on the new ones (only just though)!  (old S939 motherboard and X2 3800+ CPU)

I would still switch to an Atom solution if two criteria could be met:

• PCI-E expansion
• Someone else confirming WHS performance is ok!

Keep an eye out for a CPU from VIA called Nano which is a bit more powerful than the Atom but also uses a bit more power.  However, it does have PCI-E.  Not sure if this is available yet but if it was when I was setting up my WHS I would've been very tempted to go down that path.  Here's a good article to read:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Athlon-Atom-Nano-power,2036.html

Hope that helps.

 

As an update it looks as if ECS have made an Atom motherboard with PCI-E...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Athlon-Atom-Nano-power,2036-5.html

I think performance should be fine for WHS presuming you're not doing anything intensive on it.  Would be interesting to know how it performs.

 

Thanks for the tips.

I really would like to stick with intel (just one of those things thats always stuck) and as you say, Im unsure on the performance of an add-on card with that many drives on. Does anyone know of an intel board with at least 6 sata ports that would be good for low power? Or if an ATX Atom board is set for release? Is the Atom only going to be available when buyin the board aswell or are there plans to buy seperatly like normal CPUs?
whats would be a recomended lowest GHz CPU for what i use it for? As you can see I went way over the top with the 2.4GHz Quad.

Thanks

P.S. Im also in the UK

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HTPC: Silverstone LC04 Damptek'd, E4300, Zalman 7000Cu+Nexus, Abit F-I90 HD, 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair, mCubed External Fanless 280W, Fujitsu 5400 2.5 100GB, Hauppauge Nova-T 500
Sony Bravia 46" KDW2000U, Sony HTSS1100

Dik1985:

Thanks for the tips.

I really would like to stick with intel (just one of those things thats always stuck) and as you say, Im unsure on the performance of an add-on card with that many drives on. Does anyone know of an intel board with at least 6 sata ports that would be good for low power? Or if an ATX Atom board is set for release? Is the Atom only going to be available when buyin the board aswell or are there plans to buy seperatly like normal CPUs?
whats would be a recomended lowest GHz CPU for what i use it for? As you can see I went way over the top with the 2.4GHz Quad.

Thanks

P.S. Im also in the UK

I think there is almost no chance an ATX Atom board would be produced as there is almost no market for it (other than you it seems)!  The Atom is designed for low power applications which means either laptops/netbooks or very small form factor PCs.  None of those applications requires large numbers of SATA ports.

I would not be put off by using a PCI-E drive controller though.  Even a x1 controller supports up to 250MB/s.  x4 would be 1GB/s.  Your HDDs will not keep up with this amount of bandwidth.  In any case, would you really be putting that much of a demand playing back video files?

Assuming you want to stick with Intel (which I don't necessarily agree with) then I'd go for Atom CPU and PCI-E expansion card.

If you want ATX then find the motherboard with features that you want and get a S775 CPU.  However, from what I've seen the lower power consumption on these (even Celerons) is 65W.  You can get a very good performing dual core Athlon (4850e) which only uses 45W.

 

Thanks so much for the help.

I think ill look into the atom board with a controller card as it cant be too expensive to try.

Is that ECS board available to buy anywhere in the UK yet?

One last thing... where would I find a PCIex4 Sata card?

Thanks

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HTPC: Silverstone LC04 Damptek'd, E4300, Zalman 7000Cu+Nexus, Abit F-I90 HD, 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair, mCubed External Fanless 280W, Fujitsu 5400 2.5 100GB, Hauppauge Nova-T 500
Sony Bravia 46" KDW2000U, Sony HTSS1100

I really would look at a 780G board and 4850e (my 1st amd system), I use that combo as my media centre and it performs magnificently. Mine (sig) has 5 SATA ports and an esata. but you can always stick in an add-on controller if you want to tidy that up. AFAIK you can plug pcie x1 cards into X1, X4, X8 & even X16 slots if you were so inclined.

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http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Vengence_IRL

Hhmmm, thinking about it. What 780G board was that? Does it have dual Gigabit?

Maybe its time to change. Is the 4850e the lowest watt AMD?

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HTPC: Silverstone LC04 Damptek'd, E4300, Zalman 7000Cu+Nexus, Abit F-I90 HD, 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair, mCubed External Fanless 280W, Fujitsu 5400 2.5 100GB, Hauppauge Nova-T 500
Sony Bravia 46" KDW2000U, Sony HTSS1100

mines in my sig GA-MA780GPM-DS2H. no dual ethernet but 2 PCI, 1 PCIE x1, 1 x16. so plenty of expansion capability.

No there is an athlon 64 200+ that draws 8W but I'm not sure about its availability.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Atom-Athlon-Efficient,1997.html

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http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Vengence_IRL

The AMD Athlon 2000+ looks perfect with a 780G. Enough to sway me towards AMD I think.

Any idea when or where to get one?

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HTPC: Silverstone LC04 Damptek'd, E4300, Zalman 7000Cu+Nexus, Abit F-I90 HD, 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair, mCubed External Fanless 280W, Fujitsu 5400 2.5 100GB, Hauppauge Nova-T 500
Sony Bravia 46" KDW2000U, Sony HTSS1100

I just put together a home server with the same thoughts in my mind of how to keep this thing from sucking all the juice up and running the electric bill up. I doubt this is a better configuration especially since i haven't actually tested the wattage intake however i found a very low power celeron chip i think its a 1.6 that uses 65w under full load along with 3 500 gig drives and a WD green caviar terabyte drive. I also installed a handy program called edison that is really good at controlling your machines power habits (it allows you to set a "off-peak and peak" time schedule. 

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media center is king!