That has a P55 chipset.... Do some research in it - I wouldn't touch it.

I just ordered one

Can you give a link?

 

 

Yes, please do post a link.

Perhaps start a new thread in the hardware forum so we can discuss this topic further.

Done

I've read a few articles about them.  The only negative I have seen is the way they hacked the memory controller.  Otherwise, the new board has much of modern power of the x58 chipset but with much lower power consumption.

 

This discussion and specifically the i3 processor was the one that peaked my interest.  The one I am building is for an HTPC for someone using the on package graphics:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=1

I just ordered one

Can you give a link?

 

 

Yes, please do post a link.

Perhaps start a new thread in the hardware forum so we can discuss this topic further.

Done

 

That's a nice little package and the power consumption is going to be great.  That price is really salty for an Atom solution, though.  I'm guessing that they have given up what little power consumption benefit this board has over existing Atom 330 boards ($75) through the additional integrated devices.  Look forward to seeing your test results.

I think the price has to do with the fact it is a serverboard and not a normal ATOM board.  Headless boot, IPMI 2.0, Dual 2x Intel GigE, etc.  It's got everything _I_ am looking for in a board, down to the NICs.

BubbaQ:

 

I may have an opportunity to pickup two of the EARS drives for a customer who needs a 2TB file server.  I've seen them under $80 already. 

 

Here is a new deal from Newegg if anyone is interested:

 

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB $84.98 after Coupon Code: EMCYZNN29 (Exp 1/28)

 

eWiz is also doing a combo deal with this drive and a Super Talent UltraDrive ME 32MB SSD for $184.99 after Coupon Code: LION0415

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-W10EARS&title=Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-WD10EARS-1TB-SATA2-64MB-Power-Saving-Hard-Drive

 

Note this is an MLC drive.  I don't normally have much use for a 32MB MLC SSD, but it seems to me this might be a great option for a Cache disk.

I think the price has to do with the fact it is a serverboard and not a normal ATOM board.  Headless boot, IPMI 2.0, Dual 2x Intel GigE, etc.  It's got everything _I_ am looking for in a board, down to the NICs.

 

May I ask why you are looking for dual NICs?  Does unRAID now support link aggregation with good results or did you have another application in mind?

I think the price has to do with the fact it is a serverboard and not a normal ATOM board.  Headless boot, IPMI 2.0, Dual 2x Intel GigE, etc.  It's got everything _I_ am looking for in a board, down to the NICs.

 

May I ask why you are looking for dual NICs?  Does unRAID now support link aggregation with good results or did you have another application in mind?

 

unRAID does not support link aggregation right now. It has also been discussed that it would not provide much benefit in the normal home environment as each transfer stays connected to only one network adapter.  So two network adapters aggregated will not provide a higher transfer. It only provides throughput in a heavily used environment if your network supports it.

 

For some of us, the extra NIC is for firewall applications, and others for a direct IPMI (KVM over IP) connection.

Note this is an MLC drive.  I don't normally have much use for a 32MB MLC SSD, but it seems to me this might be a great option for a Cache disk.

 

Maybe not for unRAID, but a 32MB SSD is great for an XBMC boot environment. Comes up in around 20 seconds.

... and others for a direct IPMI (KVM over IP) connection.

Bingo.

... and others for a direct IPMI (KVM over IP) connection.

Bingo.

 

That makes perfect sense.  Thanks for clarifying.

Also for me, the more redundancy the better, so if one NIC dies for whatever reason, I will still have a spare running right beside it without having to burn the only slot for a network card.

May I ask why you are looking for dual NICs?  Does unRAID now support link aggregation with good results or did you have another application in mind?

 

For some of us, the extra NIC is for firewall applications, and others for a direct IPMI (KVM over IP) connection.

 

 

And for some of us, unRAID is serving its files to two separate independent networks.

(my house, and my friend's house next door)

 

 

And for some of us, unRAID is serving its files to two separate independent networks.

(my house, and my friend's house next door)

Wow, nice neighbor! 

And for some of us, unRAID is serving its files to two separate independent networks.

(my house, and my friend's house next door)

Wow, nice neighbor! 

That she is.  Want a picture?   

 

 

And for some of us, unRAID is serving its files to two separate independent networks.

(my house, and my friend's house next door)

Wow, nice neighbor! 

That she is.  Want a picture?    

 

 

 

And a number while your at it 

Back off you jackals!

 

I've been doing some research on power supplies.  It's funny that only a few years ago you couldn't find many power supplies over 300W.  Now you can't find many power supplies UNDER 300W.

 

Based on the data I have gathered, even a relatively powerful unRAID server is going to pull < 150 Watts with 3 high performance drives.  An efficient Atom based server is going to pull < 60 Watts with that same configuration.  Even less with Green drives.  Even less still with a new PineTrail processor.  

 

For those of you with a large number of drives, these numbers will go up around 6 Watts per each active drive for recent "Green" hard drives.  So, even with 20 drives, all active, the total power on an efficient system could be kept well below 200W.

 

Power supplies are generally at their peak efficiency at around 50% load.  This efficiency starts to fall off the cliff when at very low loads.  So, for most people the optimal power supply is going to be somewhere between 120W and 450W.  There aren't many high efficiency power supplies in this size range.

 

Here are some of the best I have found:

 

Seasonic SS-250BT 250W 83.23% efficient at 20% load, 85.78% efficient at 50% load.

Seasonic SS-300ET 300W 82.6% efficient at 20% load, 85.65% efficient at 50% load.

Enermax EPG450AWT 450W 87.44% efficient at 20% load, 90.74% efficient at 50% load.

 

The Enermax is just coming on the market now.  I have found the Seasonics online but they seem to have limited distribution.

 

Here is a good source of comparative data:

http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_join.aspx

 

I would be interested if anyone else knows of other (quality brand) power supplies < 350W with comparable levels of efficiency.

Rotational inertia's a bitch.  Drives can pull 3x their read/write current when spinning up - particularly drives with more platters (i.e heavier spindles to spin up).

 

If you don't do staggered spinup (most mobos do not do staggered spinup), you can easily pull 2x the current when starting up than the system will pull when fully on.

 

Bottom line is that you size the PSU for the greater of power-on surge or peak usage, and select the PSU for efficiency at the typical use range.

 

You also need to pay attention to the 5v rail capacity of the power supply.  A lot of power supplies boast high output, but they are heavily biased towards the 12v power draws of big video cards.

Both good points.  For people with large arrays, it would certainly be advisable to walk the inrush current for the specific drives selected. 

If you looking for some good breakdowns of PSU and efficiency I suggest this article on the Silent PC Review site.

If you looking for some good breakdowns of PSU and efficiency I suggest this article on the Silent PC Review site.

 

Thanks - I actually frequent SPCR quite a bit.  It is where I began using Seasonic power supplies and Noctua fans. 

 

The only new option I am seeing there in my desired size range is the Nexus Value 430.  I'll have to go look up the performance specs on that one since the 80plus website doesn't seem to have it.

Still waiting on some hardware purchases, but will test one new configuration this weekend. 

 

If thewe weren't so rediculously expensive, I would love to include a pair of these in my testing along with a motherboard with two SATA 3 ports, of course:

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2988/seagate_barracuda_xt_2tb_sata_6_gbit_s_hard_drive_performance_review/index5.html

 

They are still selling for about $300 each on newegg, so at this point, not in the mix.  Seagate has also lost a little credibility in recent years with some of the reliability problems - although I have been running a pair of the notorious 1.5TB drives for over a year without incident...

Group:

 

Attached are some of the initial performance results in graphical format.  

 

I have taken a pair of WD VRaptor drives acrost multiple platforms (different I/O controllers and CPUs) and measured over-the-wire transfer performance both in READ and WRITE with file sizes ranging from 1MB to 4GB.

 

All tests were run through a direct connection to the host PC except one where instead I went through a low cost gigabit switch to evaluate the impact of this device on performance (there was none).

 

In my last case, I substituted one of the new WD EARS 1TB drives for the parity drive on the ATOM system and reran the test.  

 

Takeaways:

 

There are significant read and write performance gains with improved peforming I/O controllers and processors (this test doesn't yet distinguish which is causing the benefit). 18% improvement in write and 33% improvement in read.

 

There is a huge write performance hit when using the new EARS drive vs the fast parity drive (78% drop).

 

EDIT:  SEE POST #171 FOR UPDATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS AFTER THE DRIVE IS ALIGNED FOR THE 4K SECTORS - IMPROVES PERFORMANCE TO ONLY A 27% PERFORMANCE DEFECIT TO THE vRAPTOR BASELINE.