HTPC / Fileserver combo, low power a must!

[FartingBob]

Im looking at upgrading/building my fileserver to double as a HTPC in the summer, just want some advice, see if im missing anything.

Firstly i will have at least 4 HDD's and option for more in the future. Its going in a cupboard with little ventiliation, although i can open the door up in summer to let it breathe more. Currently heat isnt an issue, ive monitored my current makeshift fileserver and it doesnt get too toasty and this new setup will use less power.

My plan is to use the new AMD e-350 mobo/CPU/IGP combo. Since its doubling as a HTPC this fileserver will need to run 1080p video when called upon, and all reviews ive read suggest this will do so fine. Not bothered about 1080p flash since my internet connection is borderline dialup so viewing anything other than the lowest possible quality streaming is out of the question.

(incidently, my current setup cannot handle 1080p, also the IGP only has VGA output so i would need a new video card and CPU at least to turn my fileserver into a HTPC/FS, hence the upgrade. And the e-350 isnt badly priced for what it is).

I'll chuck a 2GB stick of DDR3 in there, whatever low voltage is cheapest at the time of purchase.
Case i will reuse the cheap one i have now. Its not the greatest for airflow or noise reduction, but in the cupboard its the same as any other case. It might get an upgrade at a later date if i feel its worthy of one.

HDD's will probably be 3TB green monsters, maybe samsung if they have 3TB 5400rpm drives out soon. I know its more expensive than 2TB drives but i currently have about 6TB of ones and zeros spread over 5 drives of varying size and it does hum a bit, so the plan is to take out all the current drives and move everything onto new ones then sell the old drives.
Boot drive will be a small, probably 2.5" drive i have lying around to avoid the headache of 3TB boot drives.

All of that is mostly decided already, but i could do with advice on PSU and to RAID or not to RAID.

Firstly, PSU. Would a PicoPSU be able to power such a system with 4 (maybe more) low power HDD's?
Techreport.com measured the e-350 with an SDD and 2 DIMMS at just 23w peak using a brick PSU (cant find which). A 3.5 green drive uses around 7w each at load.
So providing i can get extra connectors would it all run off one of the higher spec picopsu's? Wattage will be fine on a 100w Pico, but im not knowledgable about other things i need to keep an eye on when buying a PSU. How about using 1 PicoPSU for just the drives and one for the rest of the system? Would that be safer?

Second question is should i RAID? If so i would probably go RAID5, but is the chipset capable of doing that or will it bring my low power CPU to a crawl whenever i try to use the drives? Would a cheap 4 port RAID card offer anything much over onboard RAID, since they both use the CPU for all the work?

Sorry for rambling.

[ces]

Most of its time will be spent idling. The Sandy Bridge chips idle at about 4 watts.

Consider using a Sandy Bridge. If you are worried about upper end power utilization use the Windows power management to limit the Sandy Bridge to 80% or 40%. Using an IBM h61 motherboard should keep the motherboard draw low as well.

..... or wait for Ivy Bridge in 9 months. IB is reputed to be twice as energy efficient at the Sandy Bridge chips.... effectively already running at 50% but without the loss in performance.

Also see this thread:
Sandy Bridge + i3-2100T -- why can't I get under 22w idle?
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=61966
(PS a 2400 with windows power management will generate the same identical result at less cost and with more horsepower in reserve)

[HFat]

i would need a new video card and CPU at least to turn my fileserver into a HTPC/FS, hence the upgrade. And the e-350 isnt badly priced for what it is).

Are you sure you'd need a new CPU? I doubt it. But the cheapest Zacates are priced low enough so yeah, why not?
Note that there is a low-power version of that (named Ontario) but availability and pricing was terrible last time I looked.

Would a PicoPSU be able to power such a system with 4 (maybe more) low power HDD's?

In principe, yes. But I've never tried. Do your research carefully and figure in your expansion plans when deciding with pico and PSU you want to buy. It's the power available at the right voltage and needed to spin the drives up you should worry about.
There are other brands of similar PSUs (not recommending, just mentionning it). I think there are a few fairly efficient regular PSUs on the market as well.

Second question is should i RAID? If so i would probably go RAID5, but is the chipset capable of doing that or will it bring my low power CPU to a crawl whenever i try to use the drives?

Don't worry about CPU power.
I definitely don't recommend hardware RAID for a single small server.
I also generally do not recommend RAID5 and similar variants. Maybe if it provides a really compelling benefit.
Finally, I would strongly recommend against RAID if you don't have good backups. In that case, you'd better have twice the number of drives you'd need without RAID (or with RAID0). Then have a script or a utility backup from one set of drives to the other, on schedule or manually (but in that case make sure you don't forget about it). I'd not ideal but it's better than no backups. The redundancy RAID gives you only protects you against drive failures (at best) and there are many other causes of data loss. Another advantage as compared to RAID is that you can automatically keep the files you modified or deleted for a while on the second set of drives (in case you made a mistake). You can even keep parrallel snapshots of your whole directory tree(s) on your second set of drives if you're not already using some kind of "time machine" software.

[FartingBob]

Are you sure you'd need a new CPU? I doubt it. But the cheapest Zacates are priced low enough so yeah, why not?
Note that there is a low-power version of that (named Ontario) but availability and pricing was terrible last time I looked.

My current fileserver CPU and board are well overdue a gold watch and retirement, they were from a time when dual core was seen as a madman's folly.

In principe, yes. But I've never tried. Do your research carefully and figure in your expansion plans when deciding with pico and PSU you want to buy. It's the power available at the right voltage and needed to spin the drives up you should worry about.
There are other brands of similar PSUs (not recommending, just mentionning it). I think there are a few fairly efficient regular PSUs on the market as well.

Yea i feel that voltage and peak load during spin up are the main issues here. But 2 Pico's (or other brand, brick style units) with things balanced as much as possible between them should be ok. Itll cost more to set up but ive always wanted to get things as efficient as possible, and a regular PSU (even a lower power one) is so wasteful at sub 40w.

Don't worry about CPU power.
I definitely don't recommend hardware RAID for a single small server.
I also generally do not recommend RAID5 and similar variants. Maybe if it provides a really compelling benefit.
Finally, I would strongly recommend against RAID if you don't have good backups. In that case, you'd better have twice the number of drives you'd need without RAID (or with RAID0). Then have a script or a utility backup from one set of drives to the other, on schedule or manually (but in that case make sure you don't forget about it). I'd not ideal but it's better than no backups. The redundancy RAID gives you only protects you against drive failures (at best) and there are many other causes of data loss. Another advantage as compared to RAID is that you can automatically keep the files you modified or deleted for a while on the second set of drives (in case you made a mistake). You can even keep parrallel snapshots of your whole directory tree(s) on your second set of drives if you're not already using some kind of "time machine" software.

Thank you. My current setup involves copying over files (mostly large video files, some music) from 1 drive to another manually whenever i remember to, and they tend to get dumped on whatever drive has the most space at the time. Its far from ideal and wastes alot of HDD space.
So i figured if i can do software RAID5 without to much agro then itll save me a job. Its all media files that im not editing or anything so im not to worried about the benefits of backing up v RAIDing. I backup my main PC regularly.

Ces, i hear what your saying about SB and the upcoming IV but for a complete system they idle quite a bit more than zacate/atom type systems do, and even the cheapest SB CPU is hugely overkill for what i want to do. If they made a cut down version and i could get a cheap board for it id be tempted, but it doesnt seem worth the expense for this build. SB does rock my main PC though. IB sounds annoyingly good in comparison though, but 2 CPU upgrades in a year is not in my budget..

[HFat]

I don't think you'd need two picos. But don't quote me on that. Make a thread with a more specific title in the appropriate section if you have doubts after searching the forum's archives.

Its all media files that im not editing or anything so im not to worried about the benefits of backing up v RAIDing.

All the more reason not to use RAID for redundancy. The benefit of RAID is not to lose the work you've done since the last backup if a drive fails. Any number of user errors, software bugs and so on can result in the loss of the data on all the drives. But it's a lot more likely with RAID whan with a well-thought out local backup plan.
What you need is:
a) separate drives for your data and your backups (like 2 and 2)
b) a script or utility that backs up without manual intervention. It can be run automatically on schedule.
RAID5 would give you 50% more capacity with 4 drives but has very serious drawbacks if you don't have good backups outside the server. If you do, there still are drawbacks but in that case they are more commensurate with the cost of an extra drive or two.

[FartingBob]

I don't think you'd need two picos. But don't quote me on that. Make a thread with a more specific title in the appropriate section if you have doubts after searching the forum's archives.

Its all media files that im not editing or anything so im not to worried about the benefits of backing up v RAIDing.

All the more reason not to use RAID for redundancy. The benefit of RAID is not to lose the work you've done since the last backup if a drive fails. Any number of user errors, software bugs and so on can result in the loss of the data on all the drives. But it's a lot more likely with RAID whan with a well-thought out local backup plan.
What you need is:
a) separate drives for your data and your backups (like 2 and 2)
b) a script or utility that backs up without manual intervention. It can be run automatically on schedule.
RAID5 would give you 50% more capacity with 4 drives but has very serious drawbacks if you don't have good backups outside the server. If you do, there still are drawbacks but in that case they are more commensurate with the cost of an extra drive or two.

Hmm, I just checked and all AMD 'Hudson' boards out at the moment (those with the e-350 CPU) do not support onboard RAID (apparently their are other chipsets that do, but they arent out or available to retail).
So if i go down the hudson road i wouldnt have RAID anyway.

So that idea is moot.
Im still not fond of having to half my drive space for backups as it makes things more expensive, but it would appear the easiest way in this case.

[HFat]

You don't need any hardware support to use software RAID, the only kind of RAID I would recommend in your case.
I hear there are performance issues with software RAID5 on Windows and not all versions have it anyway. But if you use a free operating system, you can run RAID5 on any computer to which enough drives can be connected.

One of the advantages of software RAID is that you don't need a separate boot drive because it works at the partition level.