C2750 vs C2550 vs I3-4130

[chromegelato]

I'm building out a FreeNAS server for a home NAS and media server. Using it to store a media library, and PC backups. I am looking at the Intel Avoton C2750/C2550 platforms and the I3-4130. I'm looking to go as low power and quiet as possible while still being able to do some transcoding. Probably 2 streams max at one time. I plan to store the videos at relatively good quality aka 1080P/High Bit rates when warranted.
It will be a pretty standard build
*Fractal Node 304
*Seasonic 360Watt
*SuperMicro or ASrock ECC board
*16GB (2 x 8GB) 1600/1333 DDR3 ECC memory
* 4, 3TB or 4 TB, WD Red Drives

I've done a lot of searching but haven't a direct comparison except for at http://www.techspot.com/review/826-silverstone-ds380-nas/page6.html . Idle at 58Watts, way above the other mainstream processors seems to be some sort of error.

It seems like the multicore performance of the C2750 and the I3 is similar. The Haswell Lines are supposed to be very efficient at idle. If the power differential for 90% of it's operation is small, I'd probably go I3. The C2550 is tempting mostly from a cost perspective.

Question 1: Does anyone have any notion on the power savings, if there is any, between the Avoton and I3 line at idle? Particularly at idle.

Question 2: Does anyone have any experience with the C2550 Is the C2550 cable of running FreeNAS and transcoding up to 2 (1080P High Bitrate) video streams. This is only a few person household. (Sorry, all I could find was people who were just starting to run it with no reports as to it's viability)

Question 3: SATA III port density. I've read some places that the WD Red and the Seagate NAS do not need the speed of SATA III and SATA II will suffice. Is this true? Mainly the supermicro boards only have 2 SATA III ports. ---ANSWERED

Newegg has an I3-4130 (w/16gb) FreeNAS bundle sans drives at $618
A C2550 build would come in around $600 and a C2770 build would come in around $700. The C2550 board is about $100+ cheaper than a C2750. These are prices without drives.

I apologize if this has already been gone over but I've been searching for the last week about this layout and haven't been able to turn up these last few details.

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, my Server, along with a pfSense router running on late Core 2 hardware and an 8 port gigabit switch together pull a bit over 100W with the server idling. This is with the drives included, so idle power is rather low.

 

[chromegelato]

Thanks. Also, Doh! I found the Answer to #3 in the Read this First... Apparently I didn't catch it on my first RTFM.

"Question 3: SATA III port density. I've read some places that the WD Red and the Seagate NAS do not need the speed of SATA III and SATA II will suffice. Is this true? Mainly the supermicro boards only have 2 SATA III ports."
Answer:
6. SATA2 and SATA3 don't play a big part in your server's performance. Most rotating platter media can't even saturate SATA1 speeds, so don't spend money on that board that has all SATA3 because you think it will matter. Your bottleneck is almost certainly going to be your Gigabit LAN. SATA3 is useful for ZILs and L2ARCs which means large (and expensive) systems will benefit but home users won't.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

 

[nobe]

in this thread, enemy85 said that his core i3 4130 build idles at 45-50W. You can look at his sig to see his whole build.

Edit : i didn't find good information on avoton builds power consumption.
In this freenas mini datasheet (the avoton based system sold by ixsystems), they say 37-47W. Though we don't know details about the build or if 37W means idle or not.

 

[rhdd]

My FreeNAS server takes 42W idle.

Supermicro A1SAi-2750, 16 GB Kingston ECC, 6 x 3TB WD RED, be quiet! System Power 7 300W ATX 2.31