RobJ Posted May 1, 2009 Share Posted May 1, 2009 Very good find, that article has a good balanced view. Facts trump marketing again! Quote Link to comment
spinbot Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 This appears to be the official PSU thread, although their has been no talk for over 4 months I was looking for some feedback as I am an ultra-newbie! ( this is actually post #1 for me ) I've been doing a lot of reading and have convinced myself I am going to setup an UnRaid server and I am researching what components to get. (all prices referenced below are in Canadian Dollars, which are almost at par with the U.S. dollar right now) I'm pretty sure I will be going with the Coolermaster Centurion 590 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119152. It costs $70. I've read through the posts and many of you seem to like Corsair power supplies, so that is where I have focused my search around. I'd like to build my server with appropriate components so that 6 months later I don't need to upgrade them ( aside from the hard-drives as bigger one's come out for a better price ). The two under consideration are below. The 750W is net $20 more than the 650W model. Considering the case I am going to get, would you suggest one over the other? I don't want to overkill things, although its only $20 difference, so if it might be necessary, then its cheaper to pay the $20 now than to have to remove the 650 and buy the 750 later. CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail Next...I need to find the discussion on motherboards and CPU's ( trying to find a decent board with hopefully 8-SATA connections ) Thanks everyone! I'm really looking forward to getting all the parts and getting this baby up and going. Quote Link to comment
BryantD Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 This appears to be the official PSU thread, although their has been no talk for over 4 months I was looking for some feedback as I am an ultra-newbie! ( this is actually post #1 for me ) I've been doing a lot of reading and have convinced myself I am going to setup an UnRaid server and I am researching what components to get. (all prices referenced below are in Canadian Dollars, which are almost at par with the U.S. dollar right now) I'm pretty sure I will be going with the Coolermaster Centurion 590 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119152. It costs $70. I've read through the posts and many of you seem to like Corsair power supplies, so that is where I have focused my search around. I'd like to build my server with appropriate components so that 6 months later I don't need to upgrade them ( aside from the hard-drives as bigger one's come out for a better price ). The two under consideration are below. The 750W is net $20 more than the 650W model. Considering the case I am going to get, would you suggest one over the other? I don't want to overkill things, although its only $20 difference, so if it might be necessary, then its cheaper to pay the $20 now than to have to remove the 650 and buy the 750 later. CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail Next...I need to find the discussion on motherboards and CPU's ( trying to find a decent board with hopefully 8-SATA connections ) Thanks everyone! I'm really looking forward to getting all the parts and getting this baby up and going. The TX650 is more than enough to power 17 drives. Save yourself $20. Quote Link to comment
spinbot Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 The TX650 is more than enough to power 17 drives. Save yourself $20. Considering the case I am looking at can't hold that many drives, then I guess the 650W will do the job Thanks Quote Link to comment
hellbringer Posted September 13, 2009 Share Posted September 13, 2009 Tagan has the 2Force (U33) & Piperock (BZ) series with a "Turbo" function, a small switch on the back to combine all the 12V rails to one. All 120mm fan, all active PFC, all 80% efficient, all high quality (Edit: the Piperock has 135mm fan, the 2Force has 2x80mm) TG400-U33 - (2x12V) combined: 28A TG500-U33 & TG500-BZ - (2x12V) combined: 36A TG600-U33 & TG600-BZ - (4x12V) combined: 48A TG700-U33 & TG700-BZ - (4x12V) combined: 56A TG800-U33 & TG800-BZ - (6x12V) combined: 64A TG900-U33 & TG900-BZ - (6x12V) combined: 70A TG1100-BZ - (6x12V) combined: 80A TG1300-BZ - (6x12V) combined: 92A Holy shit WTF: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2008/12/03/tagan_bz_1300w_psu/3 (The TG1100-U33 and TG1300-U33 don't have the "Turbo" function) I'm now powering a 11 disk system with a Pentium Dualcore E5200@2,9Ghz and 4Gigs of ram on a Tagan TG580-U15, that a 580W powersupply with the same "Turbo" function combing the 2 x 12V (20A) rails to one at 35A Just check out the box some of these things come in: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/topower-psu-roundup.html This PSU has been running from 2006 on my old system and since January 2009 in my server, never had a more stable PSU. Oh just a note: be aware of Qtec power supply's, a friend of mine bought one and nearly burned his house down, trying to power anything but a small light bulb is all they are good for. I did some checking: they have a '650W' PSU, these are the specs: 30A 3.3V rail, 45A 5V rail and a 30A 12V rail and they can't even deliver that amount of power, efficiency is about 68% and at 75% of maximum load it fails. see also: http://www.bit-tech.net/custompc/labs/79286/q-tec-650w-triple-fan-24p.html I also found this handy list: Power supplies to avoid/generics (jup Q-Tec is on there, but also a Tagan, see above) Quote Link to comment
dougnliz Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Hi guys, I have an original UnRaid system from the early days in the Coolermaster Stacker case with 2 power supplies. Will the Corsair 750 you guys are recommending replace both of those power supplies and work with my current IDE setup? Then in the future hopefully I can upgrade the system to SATA. I'm asking because it looks like one of my power supplies is dying on me. Thanks for the input, Doug Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Yes it should work, but you may have to buy some splitters so you have enough molex connects for your setup. As long as the motherboard being used is a 24pin setup you should be good to go. Quote Link to comment
dougnliz Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 I have the Intel D865GLCLK which was specced for the original UnRaid boxes. I think that just means I have a 20 pin connector and a 4 pin connector. I assume that will work. Quote Link to comment
dougnliz Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 I got the new Corsair 750 today and my server is now humming along nicely again. It took me a bit to figure out that I had to take the 8-pin power connector apart to get the 4 pin 12V power connector I needed, but it's all good now. Thanks for the help guys. Doug Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 I thought i would resurect this old thread. On re-reading it we seem to be suggesting to new users that 750W or there abouts is the sweet spot for PSU choice. I would suggest that since most peoples drives will be high efficiency Eco greens/ green power etc that this figure could be far to high for many users. For instance if we have WD15EARS according to the spec sheet: Power Dissipation Read/Write 6.00 Watts Idle 3.70 Watts Standby 0.80 Watts Sleep 0.80 Watts this means that we only need approximately: 120W on boot up and parity creation 74W on idle 16W on sleep Obviously IRL these figures will be too low but if we budget 50% error margin the most we will ever need for the HDDs on 180W It is totally realistic that a well designed system could be easily run with a very cheap 80Plus rated 400W PSU. For instance a Corsair 400W CX PSU has a single rail, 6 sata connections and is more than half the price of the 750W PSU Quote Link to comment
terrastrife Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 i ran 12 hdds off a 'bundled' 400W psu (this includes and older 90W X2 and 150W pcie video card) Enlight brand which just means its an FSP most ppl overspec PSU. my current unRAID box runs a 300W PSU, with once again a power hungry 65W X2 and nforce mobo. Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 There are assumptions there. Not everyone is using ECO/GREEN Drives. If they are mixed and matched, issues could arise. The 120W may be a bit conservative. consideration is required for surge which could be 2x that. Add to that, consideration for CPU, controller cards and fans. Corsair's calculator recommends the 450W for 20 drives. I would consider the Corsair 400W CX for a small 9-12 drive system. Anything more, I would go higher. I'm using a 500W Seasonic on a 9 drive capable system. I'm at 8 drives now, when I add the 9th drive, The system becomes unstable. Granted I'm not using a single rail CPU, Which is why I purchased the Corsair 400W CX. With 8 drives, mixed types at 18A. I'm having stability issues when going to the 9th drive. Most of the issue arises during spin up while the array has put drives to sleep. For example Array has drives spun down. I do something on one drive, and it is spun up. There is a chance the spin up will not be successful, the drive goes off line and the array kicks into redundancy mode. Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 That's really interesting. Theres definite scope that the PSU would be too small for many users as you pointed out they would HAVE to use green drives and have a system design for low power usage. So whilst these are hard and fast criteria they are not unreasonable ones. Best guess though theres $50-70 saving to be made going for this 400W over the 750W so thats a good proportion of an entry level system cost. But what I dont get is the jump from CPU + MB = 100W approx Calculated from specs 20 green drives = 120W If we double the drive figure (which is really probably going OTT) to 240W and add 50% to the MB figure were still under 400W and this would be at boot up only. Thats a heck of alot of error margin fir a system that will run at 40% of 400W when idle Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 That's really interesting. Theres definite scope that the PSU would be too small for many users as you pointed out they would HAVE to use green drives and have a system design for low power usage. So whilst these are hard and fast criteria they are not unreasonable ones. Best guess though theres $50-70 saving to be made going for this 400W over the 750W so thats a good proportion of an entry level system cost. But what I dont get is the jump from CPU + MB = 100W approx Calculated from specs 20 green drives = 120W If we double the drive figure (which is really probably going OTT) to 240W and add 50% to the MB figure were still under 400W and this would be at boot up only. Thats a heck of alot of error margin fir a system that will run at 40% of 400W when idle Yes, but even though the power supply is rated at 400Watts, that will not all be available on the 12 volt rail... when used in combination with the 5volt rail in the supply. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Iirc, Xbit Labs tested some 1TB drives and found the WD Green drives to use 1.3A on the 12V rail and around 1A from the 5V rail during boot. Other green drives tested didn't fare so well and some use the same amount of current as 7200RPM drives during spin-up. The primary problem with recommending power supplies right at the minimum is there won't be enough current on the 12V rail. For example, the Corsair 400CX only supplies 30A on the 12V rail (360) while the 450VX only supplies 33A (396W). Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 The primary problem with recommending power supplies right at the minimum is there won't be enough current on the 12V rail. For example, the Corsair 400CX only supplies 30A on the 12V rail (360) while the 450VX only supplies 33A (396W). This is the problem I'm hitting with the 500W split rail PSU. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 I would allow for 2A per drive on the 12V rail. Also allow for about 5A with a newer integrated graphics chipset or 10A for an older motherboard or a newer motherboard with a video card and a few expansion boards. Most new integrated graphics motherboards and processors will draw no more than about 60W idle at the wall which means the 12V rail can't be more than 5A. Most likely it's only 2A or 3A. But then, a couple of fans could add a few more amps. The 2A per drive is for the start-up current. So, the Corsair 400W supply is 30A on the 12V rail. Take say 10A for the rest of the components and you have 20A for drives. Divide by 2 and you could use 10 drives. I figure I'm quite safe with a 8 drive system. Most likely, my system is more like 30A subtract 5A for the system leaving 25A for the drives. Take 16A for the 8 drives and I have a 9A safety margin. The 30A @ 12V is 360W. The supply is rated 400W and if the other voltages are taking more than 40W of power then you can't draw 360W off the 12V. But, the supply should be able to still do the 30A for a short period of time even if there is say 100W or 150W being drawn off the other voltages. If it is a quality supply, the current for each voltage is the limit of that section and the total is the thermal limit. ie it will overheat if run over 400W total. Since there are heatsinks involved, you can go over the thermal limit long enough to spin up the drives. Peter Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 As a point of reference (from X-bit labs 1TB drive review) Manufacturer | Model | 5V boot (A) | 12V boot (A) | idle (W) Hitachi | Deskstar 7K1000.B | 0.62 | 1.84 | 7.42 Hitachi | Deskstar 7K1000.C | 0.85 | 1.73 | 4.80 Samsung | Ecogreen F2 | 0.77 | 1.46 | 3.76 Samsung | Spinpoint F1 | 0.84 | 1.85 | 6.63 Samsung | Spinpoint F3 | 0.87 | 1.67 | 5.51 Western Digital | WD10EADS-00M2B0 | 0.92 | 1.21 | 3.19 Western Digital | WD10EADS-00P8B0 | 1.05 | 1.47 | 3.49 Western Digital | WD10EARS-00Y5B1 | 0.98 | 1.27 | 3.26 Western Digital | Caviar Black 00E8B0 | 0.82 | 1.81 | 7.01 Western Digital | Caviar Black 00J7B0 | 0.79 | 1.83 | 7.08 Let's disregard power consumption from the 5V rail. Looking at the green drives, even the WD10EADS-00M2B0 uses 1.21A (14.52W) from the 12V rail during spin-up. That's more than double the power consumption specifications for the WD15EARS during read/write. The most power hungry drive, the Spinpoint F1, uses 1.85A or 22.2W. If you don't have some form of staggered spin-up in place, it's quite possible that you won't be able to boot your unRAID server. We're not saying buy monster 1000W power supplies. We're just saying make sure your power supply has enough juice to power your system. By the way, the 400CX and 450VX vary in quality. The 400CX has a 3-year warranty and can supply its rated 400W at up to 40C. The 450VX has a 5-year warranty and can supply its rated 450W at up to 50C. lionelhutz's system is pretty good. Counting 2A per drive is a pretty good estimate. I play it safe and count 2.5A per drive to account for the whole system. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 According to this article http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/storage/hddpower.html The total "max spinup wattage" drawn by various drives they tested varied from: 16.17 watts (for a Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JD SATA) to 29.44 watts (for a Seagate Barracuds 7200.8 400GB SATA) It is pretty easy to see that you cannot just look at the 2 amp 12 volt rail and determine the total power needs of a drive. It is just that the 12 volt rails in supplies are typically much less capable than the 5 volt rails. The total spinup current needs of 10 drives + 100 watts for a MB/CPU + 50 watts for fans can easily exceed that of a 400 watt supply. 290.44 + 100 + 50 = 440.44 watts... Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 Very interesting stuff. Far more complicated than it seems on the face of it. There is no doubt then that the only figure that matters on PSU choice is the spin up requirements of the HDDs. However these vary quite a bit but not as much as the said same drives vary in there usage and idle load requirements. So whilst ECO drives will save you money in long term use you still have to use bigger PSUs. However the way I read this is that even the 750W PSU is right on the edge for 20 of the worst drives with a power hungry CPU. Users essentially will have to find independent tests of their drives, get the measured stats and then try to get their head around this... or buy a PSU that potentially is too big for some/all of the servers life (assuming someone doesnt buy 20 disks on day 1 which is likely assumption) EDIT: according to WD spec sheats the maximum 12VDC (A, peak) for any of their 1,1.5 or 2TB EADS or EARS drives is 1.75 Quote Link to comment
Guest Jomp Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Xbitlabs did nice 2TB power consumption (startup/idle, watts/amps) graphs as well. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/2tb-7200rpm_18.html It's partially the reason I went with Seagate LP 2TB's. While they need a lot of amps to start up, they idle at the lowest wattage of the available 2TB drives, which I find to be important for a media server. Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 Xbitlabs did nice 2TB power consumption (startup/idle, watts/amps) graphs as well. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/2tb-7200rpm_18.html lol whats the point in manufacturers quoting figures with such a huge error margin. Measured 1.51, listed 1.75... thats almost 16% of a difference. OK so its not huge but its enough that for every 6 drives you fit your one whole drive out by your calculations... over 3 drives in a 20 disk configuration. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 It is pretty easy to see that you cannot just look at the 2 amp 12 volt rail and determine the total power needs of a drive. It is just that the 12 volt rails in supplies are typically much less capable than the 5 volt rails. True on both counts. Usually, if you get a power supply that can supply enough current on the 12V, you'd have enough for the 5V rail, too. That's why the 12V rail is what I tend to check when sizing power supplies. Needless to say, quality matters. lol whats the point in manufacturers quoting figures with such a huge error margin. Measured 1.51, listed 1.75... thats almost 16% of a difference. OK so its not huge but its enough that for every 6 drives you fit your one whole drive out by your calculations... over 3 drives in a 20 disk configuration. That's the peak current possible. They didn't say that's exactly what your drive will use. Manufacturers need to account for a certain margin of error since some samples may have slightly lower or higher power consumption than others. Iirc, Intel's TDP and TJunction specs has 10~20% margin of error built-in. Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 If you don't have some form of staggered spin-up in place, it's quite possible that you won't be able to boot your unRAID server. We're not saying buy monster 1000W power supplies. We're just saying make sure your power supply has enough juice to power your system. A point that needs to be considered, Even if you have a staggered spin up, unRAID will do a mass spin up if you click the spin up button. This in turn defeats any staggered spin up set by the controller or POWER UP IN STANDBY jumper/hdparm software setting. In addition, if you are on the edge of power ratings, there will be intermittent drive drop outs just spinning up one drive. Quote Link to comment
queeg Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 As a point of reference (from X-bit labs 1TB drive review) Manufacturer | Model | 5V boot (A) | 12V boot (A) | idle (W) Hitachi | Deskstar 7K1000.B | 0.62 | 1.84 | 7.42 Hitachi | Deskstar 7K1000.C | 0.85 | 1.73 | 4.80 Samsung | Ecogreen F2 | 0.77 | 1.46 | 3.76 Samsung | Spinpoint F1 | 0.84 | 1.85 | 6.63 Samsung | Spinpoint F3 | 0.87 | 1.67 | 5.51 Western Digital | WD10EADS-00M2B0 | 0.92 | 1.21 | 3.19 Western Digital | WD10EADS-00P8B0 | 1.05 | 1.47 | 3.49 Western Digital | WD10EARS-00Y5B1 | 0.98 | 1.27 | 3.26 Western Digital | Caviar Black 00E8B0 | 0.82 | 1.81 | 7.01 Western Digital | Caviar Black 00J7B0 | 0.79 | 1.83 | 7.08 Manufacturer | Model | 5V boot (A) | 12V boot (A) | idle (W) Seagate Barracuda | 7200.12 1TB | .77 | 1.72 | 5.75 Seagate Barracuda | 7200.11 1.5TB | .84 | 2.68 | 7.93 I'm using Seagate drives so I added this for reference. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/1tb-2tb-hdds_16.html#sect0 Quote Link to comment
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