Cupcake
Dabbler
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2014
- Messages
- 42
Are there any Micro ITX boards in the sub 20W idle consumption region, other than the Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F?
This board came out 5 years ago. Is there really no better option with a more up-to-date processor, but at the same TDP level? Is MicroITX just too much of a niche? Are there any other manufacturers of mainboards with embedded CPU that I should look into? I checked out Asrock's products, but couldn't find anything interesting that is small and power-efficient.
I have been running an older dual core AMD system for almost 10 years now.
- 6x 4TB WD Red drives
- 16 GB Ram with dubious ECC support (AMD)
This machine uses around 70W-80W when idling, which in my opinion is just too much for a system that sits around doing nothing 99% of the time.
I'm now looking to build something small. I saw the Synology DS620Slim, which has to be the smallest NAS supporting 6 drives, albeit only 2.5 inch drives which is why it's so small. Synology claims that the power consumption goes down to 8 Watts with hibernating harddisks. This got me thinking. I don't want to switch from TrueNAS to Synology. Besides that, the DS620Slim comes with a lousy 2GB or SO-DIMM RAM. But the form factor and the low power consumption of this product are quite interesting nonetheless.
I have been on a mission in the past few weeks now.
- Looking for a MicroATX board, so I can shove it into a smallish Fracal Node 304 case
- Ideally server-grade of course
- Looking for a good ratio of processing power to power consumption
My search keeps ending with the Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F:
- Quadcore Atom C3558 processor, "up to" 16W TDP. It's not blazing fast, but will for sure be an upgrade from my 10 year old dual core.
- 8 SATA ports, meaning I can connect my existing 6 drives, plus perhaps an SSD for the logs
- DDR4, which is readily available
I hope that by disabling all peripherals I don't need, that I can get the power consumption of the board down to 15W in idle, which would be on par with an intel NUC that I use as a micro server at home. But maybe I'm wrong, because the specified 20W TDP is for the CPU only, not the entire board. Also the fact, that this board came out in 2018 and is now 5 years old irritates me... I find it hard to believe, that there has been no innovation since then.
Should I be looking at newer non-embedded boards with Xeon processors instead? I have no idea how much power these CPUs consume in idle. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem after all.
I hope we will see ARM server mainboards in 5-6 years from now, which would be more power-efficient. I'm not a fan of Apple, but they are currently paving the way for ARM64 in desktop computing with their current Mac Mini, whose performance is absolutely stellar given the small form factor and low power consumption.
This board came out 5 years ago. Is there really no better option with a more up-to-date processor, but at the same TDP level? Is MicroITX just too much of a niche? Are there any other manufacturers of mainboards with embedded CPU that I should look into? I checked out Asrock's products, but couldn't find anything interesting that is small and power-efficient.
I have been running an older dual core AMD system for almost 10 years now.
- 6x 4TB WD Red drives
- 16 GB Ram with dubious ECC support (AMD)
This machine uses around 70W-80W when idling, which in my opinion is just too much for a system that sits around doing nothing 99% of the time.
I'm now looking to build something small. I saw the Synology DS620Slim, which has to be the smallest NAS supporting 6 drives, albeit only 2.5 inch drives which is why it's so small. Synology claims that the power consumption goes down to 8 Watts with hibernating harddisks. This got me thinking. I don't want to switch from TrueNAS to Synology. Besides that, the DS620Slim comes with a lousy 2GB or SO-DIMM RAM. But the form factor and the low power consumption of this product are quite interesting nonetheless.
I have been on a mission in the past few weeks now.
- Looking for a MicroATX board, so I can shove it into a smallish Fracal Node 304 case
- Ideally server-grade of course
- Looking for a good ratio of processing power to power consumption
My search keeps ending with the Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F:
- Quadcore Atom C3558 processor, "up to" 16W TDP. It's not blazing fast, but will for sure be an upgrade from my 10 year old dual core.
- 8 SATA ports, meaning I can connect my existing 6 drives, plus perhaps an SSD for the logs
- DDR4, which is readily available
I hope that by disabling all peripherals I don't need, that I can get the power consumption of the board down to 15W in idle, which would be on par with an intel NUC that I use as a micro server at home. But maybe I'm wrong, because the specified 20W TDP is for the CPU only, not the entire board. Also the fact, that this board came out in 2018 and is now 5 years old irritates me... I find it hard to believe, that there has been no innovation since then.
Should I be looking at newer non-embedded boards with Xeon processors instead? I have no idea how much power these CPUs consume in idle. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem after all.
I hope we will see ARM server mainboards in 5-6 years from now, which would be more power-efficient. I'm not a fan of Apple, but they are currently paving the way for ARM64 in desktop computing with their current Mac Mini, whose performance is absolutely stellar given the small form factor and low power consumption.
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