Power Supply with not enough power connectors

[freenasrast]

Hi there,

Consider a system with 13 3TB drives or 12 3T drives and one DVDROM. Plus a couple of interface cards such as GigE network, and SATA interface card a 2.4 GHZ Intel Celeron chip.

I think this is a plain vanilla type of setup, so I also think it does not need more than a 300W maybe even a 350W. However I can't find any of these PSU with enough SATA power cables or Molex (LP4) Power cables at his power rating. I have to start looking at higher powered supplies.

If I don't want to use a more powerful PSU than I have too, how do I overcome the problem of too little molex/sata power connectors with a lower power 300/350 PSU.

NB: I am not good at soldering. :)

Thanks!

 

[ProtoSD]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400127

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812198015

 

[freenasrast]

Thank you.

 

[joeschmuck]

I hope you are buying a very high quality power supply if you are going to be driving that load. If you put this together I would seriously recommend you run some stability tests on your system before putting any data on your system. I hope you have considered the 12VDC amperage draw if all the drives are powered on (Spun up) at the same time and not staggered which is of course preferred. Some controllers handling this problem whilst other do not. This is really the only concern I'd have based on the general system idea you posted. I know this has nothing to do with what you were asking for but you should take it into consideration when buying the power supply.

 

[freenasrast]

I hope you are buying a very high quality power supply if you are going to be driving that load. If you put this together I would seriously recommend you run some stability tests on your system before putting any data on your system. I hope you have considered the 12VDC amperage draw if all the drives are powered on (Spun up) at the same time and not staggered which is of course preferred. Some controllers handling this problem whilst other do not. This is really the only concern I'd have based on the general system idea you posted. I know this has nothing to do with what you were asking for but you should take it into consideration when buying the power supply.

This has been nagging me.

Can you give me a recommendation on the supply?
The final setup will be a either 10 drive (1 x vdev) raidz2 with 1 spare OR a 12 drive (2 x vdev) raidz2 with 1 spare.

P.S is there something I can do to get the staggering, or is it something like it's there if it's there and not if it's not.

P.S.S This is the PSU I was considering: http://store.antec.com/Product/power_supply-basiq_power/vp450/0-761345-23540-2.aspx

 

[joeschmuck]

The drive controller tells the drives when to spin up. I can't tell you if the MB or controller card you buy will stagger the spin up but I suspect the controller card would support that.

To pick an appropriate power supply you need to look at just the +12VDC since that is really the critical item here with respect to adding a lot of hard drives to a single power supply. And the +5VDC side is very low for current draw (1.4 Watts per drive) and I wouldn't expect any surge on this line during power up beyond normal operating power.

Let's take one of my favorite drives, the WD Red 2TB drive (which is electrically identical to the 3TB drive in all respects), this drive pulls 4.4 watts under normal load but almost 21 watts for spin up. So although this is a low power drive, you can see there is a short heavy pull when spinning up the drives. In my opinion you should factor in the maximum current from all the drives should they be commanded to spin up at once. If you choose a different drive you need to find out the maximum 12VDC current draw (amps X volts = watts). In the drive I selected this is 1.73 Amps maximum X 12VDC = 20.76 Watts.

13 Drives X 21 Watts = 273 Watts.

Now that you know what the power requirements are for the hard drives you will need to know the power draw for your CPU ,mother board and graphics card on the +12VDC Rail.

Recommendations: Any Seasonic 80-Plus Gold rated at 450 Watts or higher. The watt rating on a Seasonic power supply is just slightly higher than the +12VDC current rating for that rail so a 450 Watt Seasonic has a 444 Watt +12VDC rail. Keep in mind that this is the maximum rating. Since I have no idea what MB/CPU/Video you will be using, my personal recommendation is the Seasonic SSR-450RM ($80 @ NewEgg) but if you are either using old MB/CPU/Graphics card with high power consumption, or new items with high power consumption, just go for a 650 Watt flavor and be happy you have room to spare. With the 80-Plus Gold certification you will still use only the power required and you would have the extra overhead in case you add a few more drives down the line to this power supply.

So talking CPU/Graphics/MB, not sure what your plans are but if this will only be used for a NAS, I recommend you buy a MB with built in graphics, which means you may need a CPU with a graphics engine depending on what you buy. Take your time and post what you are thinking of buying. Someone will steer you in the right direction. For instance, I want to upgrade my main computer to 32GB RAM from 24 GB RAM, well someone asked me the question, what does my CPU support. I looked it up and the i7-950 only support 24GB RAM so I cannot upgrade my system simply by changing our the RAM, even if my MB supports it because the CPU doesn't. This is where integrated components into the CPU can hurt because I already ordered the RAM, should be here any day. Looks like a new computer for me is in the future.

And you should also purchase a good UPS. I recommend this one because I've owned one for about 8 years now and replaced the battery once. It's a damn fine unit and protects my investment.

I hope this helps out and doesn't confuse you. Your original guess of 300/350 watts is a bit short in my opinion.

 

[freenasrast]

It's a plain system nothing fancy. I am glad you told me about the RAM cpu connection. Although the cpu i am buying supports up to 32 GB it only supports 1066, and the ram I had in mind seems to only operate at 1600 from what I see on the Newegg page. Vexing. (Edit: Ok it seems the RAM will drop down to the supported speed & voltage of the CPU)

- System chassis
= Antec Nine Hundred (900) Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
= http://store.antec.com/Product/enclosure-gear_for_gamers/nine-hundred/0-761345-15900-5.aspx

- Drive Cage(s) - 2 x Three (3) bay hot-swap internal rack
= KingWin Multi-Bay Internal Rack, 3 Drives for 2 Bay Space for SATA Components Other KF-3002-BK
= http://kingwin.com/products/cate/mobile/racks/kf_3002_bk.asp

- System Board
= Gigabyte LGA 1155 Intel B75 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX DDR3 1600 Motherboards GA-B75M-D3H
= http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4315#ov

- CPU - x64 multi-core
= Intel G530 CPU 2.40 GHZ 2M CACHE 2.4 2 LGA 1155 Processor (BX80623G530)
= http://ark.intel.com/products/53414/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G530-2M-Cache-2_40-GHz

- RAM - 32GB RAM 2 x (2 x 8GB DIMMS)
= Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10)
= http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246

- Power Supply
= Antec VP-450 450 Watt Energy Star Certified Power Supply
= http://store.antec.com/Product/power_supply-basiq_power/vp450/0-761345-23540-2.aspx

- HDD - 6 x 3TB HDD (5400 RPM) [to be upgraded to 12]
= Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX
= http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=927&language=1#top

 

[freenasrast]

Informational post.

Informational post

Let's take one of my favorite drives, the WD Red 2TB drive (which is electrically identical to the 3TB drive in all respects), this drive pulls 4.4 watts under normal load but almost 21 watts for spin up. So although this is a low power drive, you can see there is a short heavy pull when spinning up the drives. In my opinion you should factor in the maximum current from all the drives should they be commanded to spin up at once. If you choose a different drive you need to find out the maximum 12VDC current draw (amps X volts = watts). In the drive I selected this is 1.73 Amps maximum X 12VDC = 20.76 Watts.

13 Drives X 21 Watts = 273 Watts.

Now that you know what the power requirements are for the hard drives you will need to know the power draw for your CPU ,mother board and graphics card on the +12VDC Rail.

Recommendations: Any Seasonic 80-Plus Gold rated at 450 Watts or higher. The watt rating on a Seasonic power supply is just slightly higher than the +12VDC current rating for that rail so a 450 Watt Seasonic has a 444 Watt +12VDC rail. Keep in mind that this is the maximum rating. Since I have no idea what MB/CPU/Video you will be using, my personal recommendation is the Seasonic SSR-450RM ($80 @ NewEgg) but if you are either using old MB/CPU/Graphics card with high power consumption, or new items with high power consumption, just go for a 650 Watt flavor and be happy you have room to spare. With the 80-Plus Gold certification you will still use only the power required and you would have the extra overhead in case you add a few more drives down the line to this power supply.

Since the build I visualize is vanilla,650 would be over kill I think.

Seasonic SSR-450RM


Antec VP-450


1/
Comparing the above the SSR-450M does take a 444W load whereas the VP-450 takes a 380W load on the +12VCD.

2/
The VP-450 has 2 x12VDC rails at 18A each, and the SSR-450RM has 1 12VDC rail at 37A.

3/
VP-450 is non-modular while the SSR-450M is.

4/
SSR-450M 80 plus rated, antec is not :)

 

[joeschmuck]

Comments to your hardware list:
1) The power supply you listed is manufactured by Delta which as I understand is a reputable unit.
2) The Hard drive you listed is ~$30 cheaper than the WD Red version and also has a 2 year warranty vs. the 3 year on the WD Red. You might consider a mix if funding supports it.
3) At a glance I see no problem with the CPU/MB/RAM combination you selected.
4) The case is a solid case, reviews are positive about it. The down side is the hard drives are not mounted to prohibit vibration mitigation, a common problem when hard mounting 2 or more drives in a case and basically causes early hard drive failure. Again, a real NAS certified drive can handle this because the firmware/drive senses the rotational vibration and adjusts the drive speed to compensate. You might want to consider a case with rubber vibration isolators if you will be using the Green drives. When you mount your drives and they are running, you should not be able to hear any vibration at all, none! If you do then in my opinion you will have an early failure. Also the vibrations could radiate to the electronics (MB) and cause premature connection failures. I'm giving you the horror story version of course but if you sink a lot of money into this, you should know the potential problems.
5) I like the extra drive cage you tossed into the mix but I'm not sure why you would want it over just a few cheaper 5.25 to 3.5" adapters. I guess that would free up one 5.25" bay for a DVD drive. But you don't need to spend the money on that just yet since you are only buying 6 drives right now. Oh, the reviews on this item say the fan noise is loud (that is subjective of course). If you bought two of these, what was the idea behind it? That would take up 4 slots out of 9, gives you 6 drives. This leaves you 5 open slots, guess you could buy two more so you would have 6 more drives, total now up to 12 and leaves 1 5.25" slot open. A drive adapter is included in the 900 case so that makes 13 drives total space. That is one heavy case! And at $66 for each bay that is a lot more money than I'd put into it. If you purchase this item, I recommend you get only one and see if you like it. Some reviews say it's unreliable whilst others praise it.

I would love to see how this works out for you.

Please keep in mind that when you are creating your RAIDZ pool, understand the dynamics and limitation when adding drives to your pool. I suspect you will create a pool with 6 drives, RAIDZ2. Months later you will have a large amount of data on it and will want to add those other 6 drives. When you add these drives you must understand that you can never remove them. CyberJock has a link in his signature that describes how this stuff works. Read it three or four times. Backup important data to another device frequently and especially before you screw with the pool.

Good Luck, let us know what you buy.

EDIT: I didn't catch the power supply wasn't an 80-PLUS Gold certified or active power supply. It is made by a reputable company but you know now that it will be running consuming much more power than the Seasonic does. Even a 650 Watt 80-PLUS Gold certified unit only draws power that is demanded. The call is up to you, I prefer a lower power option of the 80-PLUS variety.

 

[freenasrast]

Comments to your hardware list:
5) I like the extra drive cage you tossed into the mix but I'm not sure why you would want it over just a few cheaper 5.25 to 3.5" adapters. I guess that would free up one 5.25" bay for a DVD drive. But you don't need to spend the money on that just yet since you are only buying 6 drives right now. Oh, the reviews on this item say the fan noise is loud (that is subjective of course). If you bought two of these, what was the idea behind it? That would take up 4 slots out of 9, gives you 6 drives. This leaves you 5 open slots, guess you could buy two more so you would have 6 more drives, total now up to 12 and leaves 1 5.25" slot open. A drive adapter is included in the 900 case so that makes 13 drives total space. That is one heavy case! And at $66 for each bay that is a lot more money than I'd put into it. If you purchase this item, I recommend you get only one and see if you like it. Some reviews say it's unreliable whilst others praise it.

The end result for me is to have one chassis with 24TB useable storage, with all drives hot-swappable. That is why I am using the hop-swap drive cases.

It will finally either be a 10 drive raidz2 OR a 12 drive raidz2 broken into 2 vdevs of 6 drives each. This is dependent on the money I can spend when the 2nd phase of expansion comes. But I first want to try it with just the 6 drives for 12TB Usable space. That equates to the usage of 4 of these hot-swap drive cases, providing the initial test of them works out to my liking. That last slot (the top slot, slot) is going to be perpetually empty as I can't think of a reason to use it for as yet, beyond a mirrored zil which would be mad overkill. The machine would just explode at that point. In the first case I would just redo the array with an extra 4 drives, or in the latter, add a second vdev of the extra 6 drives.

2) The Hard drive you listed is ~$30 cheaper than the WD Red version and also has a 2 year warranty vs. the 3 year on the WD Red. You might consider a mix if funding supports it.

I know i won't need TLER as its a software raid in freebsd but I did not think about the vibrations or the REDs other advantages in terms of heat and long hours of operation. My plan was to just increase the intellipark feature above the default for the GREENs and go. Will have to go and look back at the reds again. Thanks for that. I was really trying to avoid the higher cost REDs but will study that a bit more now.

With regards to the antec PSU although not 80 PLUS rated a hardware review put it's efficiency at between 80-85 percent, and basically said it could not be 80 plus certified as it missed something called a "PSF" or PSD or some component like that which is mandatory for a 80+. The downside is that its not by Delta its by FSP.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/Antec-VP450-Power-Supply-Review/1487
I'm looking at the seasonic you recommended as an alternative to get the 80+

I'll post here if it sank or swam.

 

[joeschmuck]

One thing to look at is to see if the hot swap bays have vibration isolation, I doubt it but it's worth a look if you plan to buy the Green WD drives. When I looked up the manufacturer even though I saw it was Fortran/FSP, I guess inside I had wished it were Delta. And let me just say, I read that review and I think the VP450 power supply looks fantastic so I couldn't fault you for choosing that one at all.

Here is a good link to see who makes what: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-oem-manufacturer,2913.html
Here is a good link for power supply reviews in case you are looking at other options: http://www.tomshardware.com/t/power-supplies

As for running a ZIL, don't waste your time or money on a ZIL or L2ARC unless you are going to use the NAS for accessing a lot of small files repeatedly. I did some extensive testing using a SSD ZIL and L2ARC, they did not improve performance at all but they didn't harm it either. Your best bet is that 32GB RAM and you won't need anything else. If you start to think ZIL/L2ARC then you must already have about a dozen 10,000 RPM 300GB drives running and are in a corporate environment. Hey, my test results are at this thread and I wouldn't recommend changing your NIC until after you get things running first: http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?10325-Intel-NIC-vs-RealTek-NIC-Performance-Testing

Later

 

[freenasrast]

One thing to look at is to see if the hot swap bays have vibration isolation, I doubt it but it's worth a look if you plan to buy the Green WD drives. When I looked up the manufacturer even though I saw it was Fortran/FSP, I guess inside I had wished it were Delta. And let me just say, I read that review and I think the VP450 power supply looks fantastic so I couldn't fault you for choosing that one at all.

Lol when I saw fsp my heart sunk lol. The thing is delta has made variants of this particular vp450X PSU, just not this version of it. I would have been golden if they had their hands in this variant. It would have been a no-brainer for me.

As for running a ZIL, don't waste your time or money on a ZIL or L2ARC unless you are going to use the NAS for accessing a lot of small files repeatedly. I did some extensive testing using a SSD ZIL and L2ARC, they did not improve performance at all but they didn't harm it either. Your best bet is that 32GB RAM and you won't need anything else. If you start to think ZIL/L2ARC then you must already have about a dozen 10,000 RPM 300GB drives running and are in a corporate environment. Hey, my test results are at this thread and I wouldn't recommend changing your NIC until after you get things running first: http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?10325-Intel-NIC-vs-RealTek-NIC-Performance-Testing
Later

Very good as I will be 95% working with huge files.
I'll read up on your testings. Thanks!