Tips for a power efficient web & backup server

epper · Post by **epper** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:08 am

I'm going to say hello to my current home-server just after having measured its power consumption: 95W on Idle.

I'm now looking for some components to build a new server which uses less power (I hope not over 30W on Idle, and less than 60W on Full Load).

What kind of server will it be?
I'll use it as an always-on linux Web & Subversion Server and to backup my other PCs.
These backup and web/subversion servers will be two different VmWare virtual machines, so I think I'll need more than an Atom or every CPU less than 1600 Mhz.

During last week I've read a lot of reviews and articles here at SPCR and now I need to choose a Motherboard, a CPU, an Hard Disk, etc...
I was thinking about a 780G Motherboard plus an undervolted/underclocked X2 4500e CPU.
Am i wrong?

My idea is:
AMD Athlon64 X2 4450E
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
Western Digital 250GB Sata 3Gb/s 7200 rpm 2.5'' (2.5W seeking, 0.85W on Idle... source is western digital... Can I trust these numbers?)
2 x KINGSTON DDR2 1Gb 800MHz PC2-6400

What do you think? Have you other components to suggest?
Do you think that, with this configuration, I could reach power consumption <= 30W on Idle?

Someone also suggested me an 4850e instead of the 4450e... Is there a big difference (even in term of watts on Idle)?
And what about an AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE?

I'm a bit confused: I've seen too much configurations during this week...

Thanks and sorry for my English

austinbike · Post by **austinbike** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:14 am

That is essentially my configuration, but I have not measured the power, only the fan speed/thermals:

I have measured the 690 (which should draw more power than the 780 configs) and the 690 config is ~42w at idle, up into the 60's under load.

epper · Post by **epper** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:29 am

austinbike wrote:I have measured the 690 (which should draw more power than the 780 configs) and the 690 config is ~42w at idle, up into the 60's under load.

Good, but I hope to get around 30W by under{clocking,volting}.

5400 or 7200 rpm HDD?

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 6:04 am

30W range is pretty wide; do you mean 38W or 30W? My machine drew 42W at idle, but I guess you want something more(or less

).

I think 2.5' 5400rpm HDD and PicoPSU is your best friends. Btw, you might consider giving 740G a try.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page5.html

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:39 am

do you really need all that GFX power from the 780G chipset? i'm sure you can cut a few bucks by getting something with fewer premium features (HDMI, 7.1 surround, SPDIF etc... )

i've seen a lot of people use the GA-MA78GM as a server board, but i can't understand why. if anything, a proper server needs fully buffered ECC RAM, no?

epper · Post by **epper** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:26 am

loimlo wrote:30W range is pretty wide; do you mean 38W or 30W? My machine drew 42W at idle, but I guess you want something more(or less ).

I think 2.5' 5400rpm HDD and PicoPSU is your best friends. Btw, you might consider giving 740G a try.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page5.html

I should have probably said less or equal to 30W at Idle

About the need of a 780G...
I've choosen the GA-MA78GM just for its good power consumption on spcr reviews, now loimlo suggested to look at 740G and just some minutes ago I was reading this review which shows that the GeForce 8200 Chipset consumes less watts than AMD 780G.

So what do you suggest for a Mother board?
I'm just waiting for your suggestions, I'm new to low-energy/silent PC

austinbike · Post by **austinbike** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:12 am

epper wrote:
austinbike wrote:I have measured the 690 (which should draw more power than the 780 configs) and the 690 config is ~42w at idle, up into the 60's under load.
Good, but I hope to get around 30W by under{clocking,volting}.

5400 or 7200 rpm HDD?

5400

austinbike · Post by **austinbike** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:14 am

mr. poopyhead wrote:if anything, a proper server needs fully buffered ECC RAM, no?

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Let me say it again NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Fully Buffered DIMMs eat tons of power and provide no additional benefit for customers.

DDR-2 DIMMs are ~4W each

FBD's are ~10W each.

Do NOT go down that path, especially if you are interested in a low power server.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 1:52 am

epper wrote:
loimlo wrote:30W range is pretty wide; do you mean 38W or 30W? My machine drew 42W at idle, but I guess you want something more(or less ).

I think 2.5' 5400rpm HDD and PicoPSU is your best friends. Btw, you might consider giving 740G a try.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page5.html
I should have probably said less or equal to 30W at Idle

About the need of a 780G...
I've choosen the GA-MA78GM just for its good power consumption on spcr reviews, now loimlo suggested to look at 740G and just some minutes ago I was reading this review which shows that the GeForce 8200 Chipset consumes less watts than AMD 780G.

So what do you suggest for a Mother board?
I'm just waiting for your suggestions, I'm new to low-energy/silent PC

That's why I recommended a 740G to you since you don't need HD off-loading; Linux console and apache doesn't need any 780G's fancy functions. Gigabyte 740G seems to be a good fit for you.

In fact, I've DIYed a 740G board for my friend, which drew 38W at idle. It's amazing considering I used 4050e, Seasonic 200W, and WD 3.5' HD for whole system.

m^2 · Post by **m^2** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 2:36 am

austinbike wrote:
mr. poopyhead wrote:if anything, a proper server needs fully buffered ECC RAM, no?

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Let me say it again NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Fully Buffered DIMMs eat tons of power and provide no additional benefit for customers.

DDR-2 DIMMs are ~4W each

FBD's are ~10W each.

Do NOT go down that path, especially if you are interested in a low power server.

ECC and FBDIMM are totally different things.
And ECC does provide a benefit.
Corsair says:

But, when you do the math, a soft error is likely to occur in a system with 256 Mbytes of memory about every 750 hours! And, the more memory you have, the more frequently soft errors will occur.

IMO a must for a backup server.

austinbike · Post by **austinbike** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:36 am

ECC is a must, FBD is a "must not".

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:41 am

If you'll be running two virtual machines won't you need more than 2GB of RAM?

I suggest going with the Gigabyte 740G board and Pico-PSU.

Magsy · Post by **Magsy** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:45 pm

I and probably hundreds of thousands of others have run 'home' servers on regular ram for years with no issues. It may not be right and we may have errors but if so I am not detecting them.

In my case I am running Windows 2003 AD, Exchange 2003, HTTP/FTP servers and many other services. I have two RAID 5 arrays, one SCSI and one IDE. I have uptime of 50 days regularly (between updates) and have been like that for about 5 years.

I backup with a Symantec product and test my backups (hot images) once a month - each has always worked fine.

In some places, items like SCSI drives or enterprise class hardware is worth it but I really don't feel ram is one of them. Good quality branded stuff will serve you fine.

As for the 740/780G the lack of working NCQ and generally low SATA performance would sway me to a 8200 board. I'm am looking to build something similar myself and am looking at the XFX 8200 with a X2 4850e.

epper · Post by **epper** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:21 am

I'm sorry if I vanished from here during last days, but the notifications about your replies didn't reach my email

(and are not in the spam folder

)

austinbike wrote:
epper wrote:5400 or 7200 rpm HDD?
5400

I initially thinked that 5400 would have required less power, but I've just read this on the WD website: "this drive delivers 5400 RPM-equivalent power consumption in a 7200 RPM drive.".
So I think I'll go for this 7200 drive

ECC or not ECC ram will be my last problem.
I know about the really high error rate on not ECC Rams, but I didn't have any kind of problems so far... After having choose all other components I'll think about ECC or not ECC ram.

About 780G vs 740G, seems that 740G costs less than 780G and it also seems to be energy efficent as the 780G. Right?
So, yep... why not 740G?

Thanks to who suggested me this chip.

Lawrence Lee wrote:If you'll be running two virtual machines won't you need more than 2GB of RAM?

I suggest going with the Gigabyte 740G board and Pico-PSU.

No, I don't think I'll need more than 2GB of RAM.

Yeah, 740G and pico-PSU will be probably a good choice.

Now my big question is here:
I don't know if it's better to take a GA-MA74GM-S2 (740G) or a 8200 chipset motherboard (for example a Biostar TF8200 A2+, better suggestions?).
I remember that my target is low power consumption.

In this comparsion (with CPU: 4850e) between this two MBs* I see that the Biostar with the 8200 chipset consumes 7W less than the 780G Gigabyte on Idle!

What do you suggest, I'm asking just because I didn't saw many people using 8200 chipsets... What do you think?

*really is 780G vs 8200, but seems 780G ~= 740G on power consumption, so... it should be the same

juamez · Post by **juamez** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:05 am

epper wrote:In this comparsion (with CPU: 4850e) between this two MBs* I see that the Biostar with the 8200 chipset consumes 7W less than the 780G Gigabyte on Idle!

What do you suggest, I'm asking just because I didn't saw many people using 8200 chipsets... What do you think?

*really is 780G vs 8200, but seems 780G ~= 740G on power consumption, so... it should be the same

Before you start jumping to conclusions, keep in mind that the general trend is that Gigabyte motherboards tend to use a significant amount of power extra compared to motherboards with the same chipset but from other manufacturers. This was the case with 690G chipset based motherboads, so it can still be the case with newer AMD chipset based motherboards.