Storage Solutions Looking for a NAS/custom solution for storing 4-6 HDDS

[amitkher]

1. Power supply : It is not necessary to spin up all the hard disks immediately on boot. Not sure how to do that in windows, but using linux, I have successfully set up a server which spins up drives only when accessed. Useful to limit the total power consumption in multi-disk scenarios on boot - up time. On windows too, this should be possible. Keep that in mind when thinking of upgrading power supply.

2. Motherboard : E-350 (e.g. ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS E35M1-I) should be much better than Atom. Even if you don't use its graphics features. Atom's platform's I/O performance is horrible - last I tried about 1.5 years ago, it gave a pathetic 15-16 MB/s read speed even on a WD 640GB hard disk, capable of at least 60 MB/s. Power consumption would be eclipsed by the disks' power consumption anyway, and idle power consumption of AMD is not too bad either, though Atom is king in that aspect.
Intel is very miserly at SATA ports - Atom platforms give 2 SATA 3gbps ports, 2 more are added by gigabyte in the motherboard you are listing. Compare with 6 AMD SATA 6gbps ports on the E35M1, and it is a no-contest. Assuming you keep this setup for 3+ years, regular hard disks should start saturating SATA 3gbps easily in a few years time. SATA controllers other than Intel / AMD 's have horrible reputation in standard compliance , flakiness and performance. Not sure of this particular gigabyte controller. This also supports 8 GB RAM - something you might appreciate when upgrading to higher capacity.

3. Running power : SATA standard supports spin-down of idle hard disks too. You can use it to lower your overall power consumption, though this feature is different from the startup power consumption which has to be enabled separately.

 

[eternoMind]

Actually even the 350W Saga one is not a CERTIFIED 80+ efficiency PSU. There is also the matter of connectors as has already been pointed out. It has 3 SATA connectors on a single rail (Isn't it recommended to not have more than 2-3 HDDs on a single rail) apart from 3 other molex ones. And the 4-pin processor power cable is fairly short on this PSU, which will hamper you (you'll need to use an additional connector) in case the cabby you are using has a bottom-mounted PSU design.

In the absence of certified 80+ efficient 200-300W PSUs, the CX430v2 does seem to be the best choice. And with such a low power draw of your intended rig, the PSU should serve you well for a few years atleast.

 

[cranky]

1. Power supply : It is not necessary to spin up all the hard disks immediately on boot. Not sure how to do that in windows, but using linux, I have successfully set up a server which spins up drives only when accessed.

The discussion is on system init, not OS init. All drives *will* spin up simultaneously at this time even if you disable the disk detection in BIOS port by port. Even if you only connect the power cable to a hard drive without connecting a data cable to it, it will spin up the moment a +12V supply is provided. You cannot prevent it - however I'm willing to learn how to do this if you can tell me. Yes, it does draw more power while initialising than any other state, but never more than indicated on its label.

2. Atom's platform's I/O performance is horrible - last I tried about 1.5 years ago, it gave a pathetic 15-16 MB/s read speed even on a WD 640GB hard disk, capable of at least 60 MB/s.

Something wrong with that setup. I get over 90MB/S disk to disk across the PCI bus, and over 40MB/S over its internal ports.

3. Running power : SATA standard supports spin-down of idle hard disks too. You can use it to lower your overall power consumption, though this feature is different from the startup power consumption which has to be enabled separately.

Spin down and head parking are both enabled by default in 'Green' drives and are settable through a SMART utility from the respective HDD manufacturers. For WD it is something to the order of 8 seconds idle time.

 

[amitkher]

The discussion is on system init, not OS init.

Obviously.

All drives *will* spin up simultaneously at this time even if you disable the disk detection in BIOS port by port.

Not if you call "hdparm -s" on it using Linux.

Something wrong with that setup. I get over 90MB/S disk to disk across the PCI bus, and over 40MB/S over its internal ports.

Atom? You remember which one? My friend's was a single core one, combo with motherboard, bought around 2.5 years ago, not sure of the model.
Anyway, for NAS kind of box, there is no competition between 6 SATA 6gbps ports and 2 + 2 SATA 3 gbps ports; for less than 5% system power consumption difference. You never know when the 8GB memory option might come handy, given the decreasing DDR3 RAM prices.

Spin down and head parking are both enabled by default in 'Green' drives and are settable through a SMART utility from the respective HDD manufacturers. For WD it is something to the order of 8 seconds idle time.

All the Seagate and WD non-green ones I've seen also work well with "hdparm -B". Even a 6 year old 160 GB Seagate SATA.

 

[cranky]

Not if you call "hdparm -s" on it using Linux.

What happens before Linux loads? When you press the power button?

Atom? You remember which one?

Gigabyte D510, my current fileserver. No issues with bandwidth, and after a PCI card (read the thread) has 8 SATA ports.

 

[Sei]

Sei: I think its a use-case specific thing then. Did you try using the dockstar? How was the experience? I have one too, but media streaming is barely handled. 720p will probably kill it The raspberry Pi seems to e able to do 1080p h264 with xbmc pretty well.

Absolutely Sirjee! The thing is that tomorrow if I come across some feature that required a little more flexibility, then I'll be out of luck. Hooking up a dockstar with HDDs after flashing it, downloading torrents on the router; these are not what these devices are meant to do! Sure, people have been successfully doing them for quite some time but they are limiting.

I want a no-nonsense and simple configuration which even my parents or my sis can handle in my absence.

 

[amitkher]

What happens before Linux loads? When you press the power button?

Hard disk is in standby, that's what happens, which is what I've been saying.

 

[djmykey]

I want a no-nonsense and simple configuration which even my parents or my sis can handle in my absence.

Then I guess you are on the right path. Most ppl feel at home when they see Windows. And GUI meaning sister's can manage em too :bleh: (If anyone offended, pls forgive)
The balance between power saving and practicality is very hard to maintain. Some times we have to give up either of the one. But since u are not looking at power saving practicality wins.

 

[Sei]

Then I guess you are on the right path. Most ppl feel at home when they see Windows. And GUI meaning sister's can manage em too :bleh: (If anyone offended, pls forgive)
The balance between power saving and practicality is very hard to maintain. Some times we have to give up either of the one. But since u are not looking at power saving practicality wins.

In my specific case- cost, power-saving and ease-of-use get equal preference.

Anyway, the government takes care of keeping the bills low by the intermittent power cuts.

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2. Motherboard : E-350 (e.g. ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS E35M1-I) should be much better than Atom. Even if you don't use its graphics features. Atom's platform's I/O performance is horrible - last I tried about 1.5 years ago, it gave a pathetic 15-16 MB/s read speed even on a WD 640GB hard disk, capable of at least 60 MB/s. Power consumption would be eclipsed by the disks' power consumption anyway, and idle power consumption of AMD is not too bad either, though Atom is king in that aspect.
Intel is very miserly at SATA ports - Atom platforms give 2 SATA 3gbps ports, 2 more are added by gigabyte in the motherboard you are listing. Compare with 6 AMD SATA 6gbps ports on the E35M1, and it is a no-contest. Assuming you keep this setup for 3+ years, regular hard disks should start saturating SATA 3gbps easily in a few years time. SATA controllers other than Intel / AMD 's have horrible reputation in standard compliance , flakiness and performance. Not sure of this particular gigabyte controller. This also supports 8 GB RAM - something you might appreciate when upgrading to higher capacity.

I've purchased the Intel D425 processor which comes with the new Intel® 82801 IR I/O Controller which supports 6 SATA 3Gbps and 12 USB ports -
http://www.servethehome.com/intels-atom-d425-d525-announcement/

The new Intel Atom processors (D425 and D525) are paired with the Intel® 82801 IR I/O Controller that delivers the input/output (I/O) connectivity to satisfy the growing throughput demands of leading storage vendors. Both additions to the storage platform offer the flexibility to support Microsoft Windows Home Server* and open source Linux operating systems.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2010/20100816comp.htm

I/O SpecificationsUSB Revision USB 2.0
# of USB Ports 12
# of SATA Ports 6
Integrated LAN 10/100/1000
Integrated IDE 1 Channel

http://ark.intel.com/products/31894/Intel-82801IR-IO-Controller


Is this what you were referring to? The previous generation of Atoms only supported 2 SATA 3Gbps ports

PS: Also, from what I have read, 6Gbps has no real-world advantage over 3Gbps since the HDD itself is the limiting factor.

In terms of everything else, we saw basically no difference from the same single drive being plugged into a SATA 6Gb/s or SATA 3Gb/s port. All of this is obviously due to the hard drive not being able to actually take advantage of the 6Gb/s bus. We will see SATA 6Gb/s start to shine with SATA 6Gb/s SSD drives, but for now it looks as if you would have to configure a fairly big RAID 0 array to push the technology and we do not currently have a motherboard with more than a single Marvell 9128 controller supporting only two drives.
In a RAID 0 2 disk array situation we see that Intel's SATA 3Gb/s ICH10R controller bested the Marvell's SATA 6Gb/s 9128 controller. We triple checked this data and then went and then asked motherboard builders to confirm our results and all had seen the same thing.


When buying your new motherboard there is no performance reason we can point to that suggests you should select a motherboard with SATA 6Gb/s. In fact, if you are running a RAID 0 setup, you are actually better off going with Intel's ICH10R solution. I see a lot of tech editors complaining about Intel's lack of currently having a SATA 6Gb/s controller on the market right now, and I have to ask why that is. The bottom line is that Intel knows there is no advantage to currently bringing the product to market until it has its SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Disk drives for sale. From all the data, that makes perfect sense to us here at HardOCP.

[URL]http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/20/sata_6gbs_on_your_new_motherboard/2[/URL]

 

[cranky]

Hard disk is in standby, that's what happens, which is what I've been saying.

Which means the drive will not show up in BIOS, is that correct? Unless the platter spins up at start the drive cannot be recognised.

This is the official command list for hdparm: Linux Command Directory: hdparm

And this is what it says about -s flag:

-S n

Set the amount of time a disk is inactive before it spins down and goes into standby mode. Settings from 1 to 240 represent chunks of five seconds (for timeout values between 5 seconds and 20 minutes); values from 241 to 251 are increments of 30 minutes (for 30 minutes to 5.5 hours). A value of 252 sets the timeout to 21 minutes, 253 to the vendor default, and 255 to 20 minutes and 15 seconds.​

​

It does not seem to influence the spin up behaviour, only spin down. I'll take your word for it, though I'm not sure it's more authentic than the official command directory.

 

[amitkher]

I've purchased the Intel D425 processor which comes with the new Intel® 82801 IR I/O Controller which supports 6 SATA 3Gbps and 12 USB ports -
Intel's Atom D425 and D525 Announcement - Servethehome's Take


Intel® Atom™ Processors Further Expand Into Storage Appliances for Homes, Small Businesses


ARK | Intel® 82801IR I/O Controller


Is this what you were referring to? The previous generation of Atoms only supported 2 SATA 3Gbps ports

PS: Also, from what I have read, 6Gbps has no real-world advantage over 3Gbps since the HDD itself is the limiting factor.



HARDOCP - Performance Testing and Conclusion - SATA 6Gb/s on Your New Motherboard?

Nice, Intel's SATA controllers should be better than Gigabyte's. And yes, so far there is no advantage of SATA 6gbps over 3. For building a throw-away server, Atom is nice today. Intel's profit increases as people want to buy new servers once cheap hard-disk start getting bottlenecked by SATA 3gbps so of course it is a great business decision from Intel.

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Which means the drive will not show up in BIOS, is that correct? Unless the platter spins up at start the drive cannot be recognised.

When data is accessed from the drive set to standby on startup using "hdparm -s", it spins up. But simply enumeration by SATA controller and voltage application on SATA power ports does not.

This is the official command list for hdparm: Linux Command Directory: hdparm

And this is what it says about -s flag:

[/INDENT]It does not seem to influence the spin up behaviour, only spin down. I'll take your word for it, though I'm not sure it's more authentic than the official command directory.

Well, it is a proper operating system. -s is different from -S. And 2005 is 3 civilizations ago for Linux.

 

[cranky]

Well, it is a proper operating system. -s is different from -S. And 2005 is 3 civilizations ago for Linux.

I don't understand what you mean by 'proper', BIOS and DOS operation means a lot to me specially when it comes to borked drives, and drive imaging. A drive that BIOS cannot recognise is useless to me as no command-line recovery tool will work on it.

And yes, BIOS does not recognise the drive: SourceForge.net: hdparm: new -s switch As of two-and-a-quarter civilizations ago. Maybe things have changed, but basically you cannot revive the disk unless you boot into the OS and apply the correct command sequence. And with the increased spin-up count, the load on the platter and bearings is far more than the drive was ever designed for.

Seems like a lot of trouble just to avoid spending on a half-decent power supply, and using quiet drives in the first place. Specially when it's a spanking new build instead of recycling old stuff like I tend to do.

 

[amitkher]

I don't understand what you mean by 'proper', BIOS and DOS operation means a lot to me specially when it comes to borked drives, and drive imaging. A drive that BIOS cannot recognise is useless to me as no command-line recovery tool will work on it.

And yes, BIOS does not recognise the drive: SourceForge.net: hdparm: new -s switch As of two-and-a-quarter civilizations ago. Maybe things have changed, but basically you cannot revive the disk unless you boot into the OS and apply the correct command sequence. And with the increased spin-up count, the load on the platter and bearings is far more than the drive was ever designed for.

Seems like a lot of trouble just to avoid spending on a half-decent power supply, and using quiet drives in the first place. Specially when it's a spanking new build instead of recycling old stuff like I tend to do.

This option anyway doesn't make sense for the drive holding the boot image, so I don't see why you would have trouble booting. And the world has moved on to live CDs for recovery.

Same effect as of idle power savings advertized by the new fangled "Green" drives, multiple times whenever the drive goes idle is good. But startup spin option, which might actually decrease spin-up count for drives holding rarely accessed data is bad. Nice rationalization.

 

[Sei]

So, for the last time -

Corsair CX 430 V2 enough for 4-6 HDDs along with Intel Atom? Yes or No? All of them will boot up together?

 

[cranky]

^^Yes, no problem

 

[djmykey]

^^Yes, no problem

Yup, plus one.
And cranky saar I agree with ur view that the drive needs to spin up to be recognized and the power draw will be maximum while boot up irrespective of which OS one installs. Power might be conserved once the OS is loaded and system is running stable and data is not being accessed from a particular drive.