low power system with many SATA ports

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:32 am

Looking to run a file server with minimal power requirements. Ideally should have 6 or more SATA ports for hard drives. Mainly need advice on the motherboard and CPU. Integrated graphics would be ideal.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:00 pm

Get yourself an AM2 board, based on something like NVIDIA 6XXX or 7XXX chipset, that supports undervolting the CPU and add a Sempron.

stead · Post by **stead** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:38 pm

we recently had a g31 board with 6 sata ports and a e5200 in work, well under 100 watts idle, i think it was under 100watts load too, can't remeber the figures off hand, but we were shocked how little power it used, and we were running it with a 4770 card

guessing that with a e1000 series core 2 chip would use hardly anything, onboard intel gma to boot..

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:26 am

Getting 6 ports on a low power board is tricky. I have this board in my file server:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/ms_9832

It has 4 ports on the board, and I also added a pci card with 3 ports + esata port, gives me 7 ports plus external, and I'm using 6 of those. Of course there are other boards you can use. This one, for instance:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/nas780015lst

It has 8 sata ports, but it's a special custom board, costs a ton if you just want one board. Now if you're looking for something a little bigger or with a lot of add in card expansion for sata ports, you could try this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813153144

The atom on the flex atx board gives you only 2 sata ports on the board, but with 2 pci slots and 1 pci express 1x, you should be able to add a bunch of expansion boards if you want. So there's plenty of possibilities.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:30 pm

The Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H has six SATA ports, has pretty low power consumption (~58w at the wall) and will take a wide variety of CPUs (inc AM3). I've got a Sempron CPU in mine and 4HDDs connected.
I should manage to get that consumption a bit lower with a picoPSU.

limbokiller · Post by **limbokiller** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:03 am

or maybe the new Biostar TA785GE 128M
it's micro-atx and has 6 sata ports, a 4200hd onboard, and it has 1 pci-e x16 and 2 pci slots.
ah well see for your self.

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=28211&catid=2

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:52 am

Firetech wrote:The Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H has six SATA ports, has pretty low power consumption (~58w at the wall) and will take a wide variety of CPUs (inc AM3). I've got a Sempron CPU in mine and 4HDDs connected.
I should manage to get that consumption a bit lower with a picoPSU.

So are you geting 58w for your particular system with 4 HDDs connected?

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:42 pm

shunx wrote:So are you geting 58w for your particular system with 4 HDDs connected?

According to my plug-in power meter - yes.
On start-up it shows a MAX of 73w but I'm advised that the momentary draw will be significantly higher than that but this consumer level meter isn't sophisticated enough to 'catch' it.
I haven't done any tweaking of BIOS settings other than having CnQ engaged so I could probably lower consumption further by playing around with voltages etc.

Hopefully this weekend I'll manage to make up the adaptor leads required to install the picoPSU and mate it to the Dell DA-2....

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:56 pm

I'm using a Biostar A760G motherboard plus a 5050e CPU. See detailed info in this thread.

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:19 pm

I liked the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H but my local retailer no longer carries it. Perhaps it's been replaced by something. Any ideas?

low power system with many SATA ports

low power system with many SATA ports

how many?

Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H?

Re: Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H?

Re: Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2/H?