So you want some hardware suggestions.

[jgreco]

Not to trivialize your discovery, but this has been known for some time. In some deployments, a 12V supply and battery system is used to power several systems, and you actually do get some savings over a conventional AC UPS with servers. In most other cases, savings are marginal or even negative.

 

[cyberjock]

Not to trivialize your discovery, but this has been known for some time. In some deployments, a 12V supply and battery system is used to power several systems, and you actually do get some savings over a conventional AC UPS with servers. In most other cases, savings are marginal or even negative.

Yeah. I questioned that unusually high efficiency value when I saw it. I've done lots of work with power supplies and I'd never seen an AC->DC converter that was that high isn't exactly cheap(especially at low power levels). I've seen power supplies that are the price of some homes that didn't have that kind of efficiency. Through observation I just figured it couldn't possibly be as high as they claimed from input to output.

Just let me be proud that my observations alone lead to the conclusion that the numbers are bogus. ;)

 

[Mr_B]

Check out: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=207

Damn, the 12v variants didn't do that great at all. Something that didn't get tested, and well, is sort of hard to test for i guess... I wonder what happens when your feed current is a none-fixed voltage. Of course this only applies to the "Wide input range" variants. The others would simply shut down.

I'm a little confused as I ordered the "PicoPSU-80 and 60W adapter KIT". My 12v adapter is an EDAC. Not quite the same as the one in the review but this one is mine based on the model number in the picture. About all the official information I can find is that it is a "high efficiency Level V" device with "87.0% average at normal line input and 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of max output current". So if you have an 87%-ish PSU and then a 93+%-ish PSU you're still going to be far lower than they claim.

looks like for all intents and purposes they are interchangeable. The 87% linear efficiency is whats going to determine the power-bill at the end of the day, and since it seams to still be running, quality must be good enough. At least it should put my ballpark figure in the same ballpark as your hardware is playing in, hey, i take what i can get. ;- )

Since they effectively claim it as an accessory they can dismiss its inefficiencies since the expectation is that you will use the device in a system that is already on 12VDC(such as a vehicle).

I'm not sure thats entirely true. What happens when the alternator kicks out 14v? After all, the car battery is "perfect" at a near ripple free 12v but a modern alternator kicks out up to 14.4v... Does the magic blue smoke escape from the device at this point? I think the over-voltage protection would cause it to shut down, if nothing else. (13-13.5V. should make it useless in most vehicles.)

If you are very astute you'll notice they only claim 96% efficiency when you look at the DC->DC converters. The kits (they contain the AC->DC and DC->DC adapters) don't say any efficiency at all or even that they are "high efficiency". Very very sneaky if you ask me.

It is indeed a bit sneaky. I guess you could justify it with something that actually outputs 12v, but i'm not sure i can think of anything. 12v solar cells is the only thing i can come up with, but it's flawed, i actually think they output 13.8v-14-4v when in optimal light conditions for the same reason the alternator does it.

I'm sure it won't be the last time people are duped by semi-false advertising.

I find my self getting caught in that trap ever so often. Almost on a daily basis really.

Just let me be proud that my observations alone lead to the conclusion that the numbers are bogus. ;)

Yeah. Good boy. Here. Have a candy. *Pats Cyberdog on the head, keeping a careful eye on him so he doesn't take the offending hand clean of* ;- )
Were sort of way of topic here, but i think i like the environment so much better for it.

In most other cases, savings are marginal or even negative.

Wait. You lost me. This is a linguistic problem, and on my part. I'm just asking for clarification, knowing i'll look dumb, but rather a little foolish now, or completely stupid later. This is about your text, and not about the content. I'm just trying to make sure i actually understood what your saying.
"Savings are marginal" Near break even, generally over a given time-frame. It's the next bit thats the kicker.
"or even negative." Savings that are actually costing you?
Sorry, i THINK i got it right, but hell, better ask.

B!

Edit
Bloody hell. That post grew way out of proportion...
/Edit

 

[jonnn]

Yeah. I questioned that unusually high efficiency value when I saw it. I've done lots of work with power supplies and I'd never seen an AC->DC converter that was that high isn't exactly cheap(especially at low power levels). I've seen power supplies that are the price of some homes that didn't have that kind of efficiency. Through observation I just figured it couldn't possibly be as high as they claimed from input to output.

Just let me be proud that my observations alone lead to the conclusion that the numbers are bogus. ;)

Exactly right. The pico psu is actually not all that efficient, the Dell RM112 beats out the 150w version quite handily (http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57238p=578861) Straight up cheating not to include the power brick efficiency.

And the Dell can handle much higher loads.

 

[cyberjock]

looks like for all intents and purposes they are interchangeable. The 87% linear efficiency is whats going to determine the power-bill at the end of the day, and since it seams to still be running, quality must be good enough. At least it should put my ballpark figure in the same ballpark as your hardware is playing in, hey, i take what i can get. ;- )

Actually, it's the 87% and the 90-whatever% load for your given voltage. Hypothetical example:

If your load was entire 5v and that was 96% efficiency per the way that the PicoPSU documents their efficiencies, it's actually going to be 83.5%(87% x 90% = 83.52%). Each step in the efficiency is multiplied. 83.5% isn't exactly "great", but its not horrible either.

And even compared to the Dell RM112 that @jonnn mentions, and we assume each is at 50w of real load we're talking about an efficiency of 90.34%. That means that the PicoPSU + brick versus the RM112 provides a "wall wattage" difference of just 4watts. Not exactly something to be upset about. Keep in mind though that my system runs at 13w under maximum throughput. That's far below the 25% mark that the RM112 is rated for. It's quite possible that the PicoPSU is more efficient, but you might save a single watt(or less). In the end, the savings is so low that if you already own one its not worth your time to spend money to get the other. Personally, I'd go with a PicoPSU for a sub-20watt machine such as mine. The RM112 isn't designed for that low of a wattage and that's getting close to the "danger zone" for loading.

I'm not sure thats entirely true. What happens when the alternator kicks out 14v? After all, the car battery is "perfect" at a near ripple free 12v but a modern alternator kicks out up to 14.4v... Does the magic blue smoke escape from the device at this point? I think the over-voltage protection would cause it to shut down, if nothing else. (13-13.5V. should make it useless in most vehicles.)

There's some weird DC theory magic going on here. Your alternator puts out some dirty DC. It'll have ripples and such. The battery also floats the voltage, so although the alternator puts out 13-14v you might not see that in your cigarette lighter socket thanks to the battery floating the voltage.

Wait. You lost me. This is a linguistic problem, and on my part. I'm just asking for clarification, knowing i'll look dumb, but rather a little foolish now, or completely stupid later. This is about your text, and not about the content. I'm just trying to make sure i actually understood what your saying.
"Savings are marginal" Near break even, generally over a given time-frame. It's the next bit thats the kicker.
"or even negative." Savings that are actually costing you?
Sorry, i THINK i got it right, but hell, better ask.

At super low wattages some power supplies become horribly inefficient. That's why the 80+ certifications only give a range that starts at 25% of the PSU. Below that weird magic can make the efficiency drop to 70% or worse. You can also damage a PSU if its too low(typically below 10% is considered the "dangerous" zone). What I think jgreco was alluding to was that if you already have an 80+ bronze power supply and you buy a gold rated it is more efficient so you might save some wattage at the wall(you'd have to compare PSU efficiencies at the wattage you actually operate in) but the cost of the new PSU is more than likely high enough that you'd never actually save money in the long run. Of course, that doesn't stop people from buying a new gold rated $130 PSU just to save 2 watts at the wall.

Remember, FreeNAS servers should be a lower power usage machine. Saving 7% on a 60w machine is only 4 watts.

 

[Mr_B]

but the cost of the new PSU is more than likely high enough that you'd never actually save money in the long run. Of course, that doesn't stop people from buying a new gold rated $130 PSU just to save 2 watts at the wall.

Thats the kind of math that stopped me from buying new stuff in the first place. Damn, it just goes to show i'm not the average member on this forum.
(Not sure if thats good or bad :- ))
B!

 

[jgreco]

What I think jgreco was alluding to was that if you already have an 80+ bronze power supply and you buy a gold rated it is more efficient so you might save some wattage at the wall(you'd have to compare PSU efficiencies at the wattage you actually operate in) but the cost of the new PSU is more than likely high enough that you'd never actually save money in the long run. Of course, that doesn't stop people from buying a new gold rated $130 PSU just to save 2 watts at the wall.

Remember, FreeNAS servers should be a lower power usage machine. Saving 7% on a 60w machine is only 4 watts.

On some SoC based systems, the brick loses more power in the converstion than the system uses... shared power supplies can be a win!

But seriously, the math on this isn't too complex. Let's say you have:

An electric cost of 13c/kWh
A 5 watt savings
An expected lifetime of 5 years

So that works out to be 5 watts * 1 kW / 1000 watts * 24 hours/day * 365 day/year * 5 years = 219 kWh. Multiplied by 13c/kWh is around $28.47. So if the incremental cost to get the better supply is more than that, you may actually be losing money on the purchase ... of course all assuming that you ACTUALLY end up using the system for 5 years, etc.

 

[jonnn]

Actually, it's the 87% and the 90-whatever% load for your given voltage. Hypothetical example:

If your load was entire 5v and that was 96% efficiency per the way that the PicoPSU documents their efficiencies, it's actually going to be 83.5%(87% x 90% = 83.52%). Each step in the efficiency is multiplied. 83.5% isn't exactly "great", but its not horrible either.

And even compared to the Dell RM112 that @jonnn mentions, and we assume each is at 50w of real load we're talking about an efficiency of 90.34%. That means that the PicoPSU + brick versus the RM112 provides a "wall wattage" difference of just 4watts. Not exactly something to be upset about. Keep in mind though that my system runs at 13w under maximum throughput. That's far below the 25% mark that the RM112 is rated for. It's quite possible that the PicoPSU is more efficient, but you might save a single watt(or less). In the end, the savings is so low that if you already own one its not worth your time to spend money to get the other. Personally, I'd go with a PicoPSU for a sub-20watt machine such as mine. The RM112 isn't designed for that low of a wattage and that's getting close to the "danger zone" for loading.



There's some weird DC theory magic going on here. Your alternator puts out some dirty DC. It'll have ripples and such. The battery also floats the voltage, so although the alternator puts out 13-14v you might not see that in your cigarette lighter socket thanks to the battery floating the voltage.



At super low wattages some power supplies become horribly inefficient. That's why the 80+ certifications only give a range that starts at 25% of the PSU. Below that weird magic can make the efficiency drop to 70% or worse. You can also damage a PSU if its too low(typically below 10% is considered the "dangerous" zone). What I think jgreco was alluding to was that if you already have an 80+ bronze power supply and you buy a gold rated it is more efficient so you might save some wattage at the wall(you'd have to compare PSU efficiencies at the wattage you actually operate in) but the cost of the new PSU is more than likely high enough that you'd never actually save money in the long run. Of course, that doesn't stop people from buying a new gold rated $130 PSU just to save 2 watts at the wall.

Remember, FreeNAS servers should be a lower power usage machine. Saving 7% on a 60w machine is only 4 watts.

80+ Standards are rated for 20%, and often rated at 10% on gold PSU's and 10% rating is required for the platinum and titanium.
If you had looked at the link, you would have seen the RM112 outperform the picoPSU @ ~18W system load which is like 8% load for the RM112. Mine also idled just fine @ 16.5W (~14W or less DC load) with my other motherboard.

 

[cyberjock]

I'm less concerned with the efficiency at such a low wattage and far more concerned with the dangers of the voltage regulation circuits. When loading gets very low as components age they have a VERY high propensity to fail in ways that damages everything its attached to suddenly and without any warning. Unless you have an oscilloscope hooked up to it 24x7 it'll be a situation where it works just fine today, but tomorrow you're pricing out components for a whole new system as all of your old components are fried.

Sorry, but when you have to buy a whole new system that typically makes the cost an order of magnitude more than the "savings" you were seeking. Big picture thinking overrules. ;)

 

[Helge]

For my new FreeNas server I decided to go for an Intel Xeon e3 1230 v3 on a Supermicro X10SLM-F. Now I'm looking for a rack mountable chassis with room for at least 6 3.5" HDDs, not neccessarily hot-swapable. Supermicro's recommended chassis (e.g. 113MTQ-330CB)only support 2.5" HDDs which won't work out with Western Digital Red WD20EFRX. Any ideas for a matching chassis or HDD type?

 

[underbara]

For my new FreeNas server I decided to go for an Intel Xeon e3 1230 v3 on a Supermicro X10SLM-F. Now I'm looking for a rack mountable chassis with room for at least 6 3.5" HDDs, not neccessarily hot-swapable. Supermicro's recommended chassis (e.g. 113MTQ-330CB)only support 2.5" HDDs which won't work out with Western Digital Red WD20EFRX. Any ideas for a matching chassis or HDD type?

Hi, what did they cost, please?

Enviado desde mi Nexus 4 mediante Tapatalk

 

[Mr_B]

Now I'm looking for a rack mountable chassis with room for at least 6 3.5" HDDs, not neccessarily hot-swapable.

Well, i guess it all boils down to your idea of whats a manageable size. uATX, is as far as i know the same as mATX, µATX or microATX. Meaning "any" ATX chassi will work fine. I'm quite fond of Chieftec, since they are cheap as they come, and built like tanks. But thats from my experience with unc-410s-b, you might wanna go with unc-410f-b, if space isn't an issue. They got unc-210hl/unc-210hs if space is more at a premium, 5x3.5", and 2x5.25" in a 2U space. But i cant say anything about the build of those, only ever handled the boxes without opening them...

B!

 

[Helge]

Hi, what did they cost, please?

I haven't baught them, yet. I selected them based on the rices at http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/.

 

[Helge]

Meaning "any" ATX chassi will work fine.

Ah, that's great. Then the Supermicro 822T-400LPB would work with "my" mobo as well? Does anybody have any experience with that chassis, esp. in combination with µATX boards?

 

[Mr_B]

Page 2-12 of the manual seams to indicate that it should fit. Just install the standoff's you need, and leave the rest. I would however, send Supermicro a e-mail just to double check, if you cant live with replacing a standoff with a rubber support stud in some corner.

Generally speaking, it should "always" fit, but i have some faint memories of eATX only cases, that i never looking in to. I think it was simply a matter of permanent standoff's, that interfeered with the ATX/and below standards. This chassi doesn't seam to have any permanent standoff's, and if there is one... Hell, cut it. ;- )

If you like that case, go with it. It's WAY to deep for my cabinet, i cant fit anything over 20".
B!

 

[Helge]

It's WAY to deep for my cabinet, i cant fit anything over 20".

That's a good point. I don't have a cabinet, yet. I thought about the Digitus DN-19 PB-8U for about 50€, but that's way too small. And buying something like a DIGITUS SoHoline 7HE just for a server and a switch seems a little overkill. So I'm at the following configuration right now:

Chassis: Define R4
CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1230 v3
Heatsink: be quiet! BK015
Mobo: Supermicro X10SLM-F
RAM: 2 x Kingston KVR16LE11/8EF
Power: Seasonic Platinum-400FL
HDD: 3 x WD20EFRX
USB: Sandisk Cruzer Fit 4GB

Did I forget anything? Are 400W enough if I plan to extend the server to 32MB and 8 HDDs? Are the two fans supplied with the chassis enough for the start?

 

[Mr_B]

I'd stick a third fan in the rear... But actually, i don't like chassis designed like that, at all.

The PSU intake is at the bottom of the case, and it sucks the air straight from what ever it's standing on. If this "what ever" is anywhere near the floor, it's a stationary vacuum cleaner. Might be good for keeping dust-mites away, but isn't that great for the PSU. I don't think 400w will be a problem when you hit 32MB. If you upgrade past that, and in to, lets say, the 24-32GB area... nah, still not an issue.

Also, i have no idea how your thinking. That DIGITUS SoHoline 7HE is clearly to small. a 12-15U unit makes for a perfect "corner" piece, a 22U or similar would make the TV furniture "pop" a lot, or, if you really want to make a statement, you put a 42U cabinet, on wheels, right in front of the balcony door. (Mine is actually backed in to the corner right now since it's no longer summer, and the risk of over heating is, well, smaller.)
Anyway,think about how much fun you can stack in to that cabinet before loved ones start figuring out that you've been slowly buying more and more toys.

I just haven't found any 90 degree angle adapters for DVI yet, been looking for some of and all for a couple of years. Once i get some, i can slap the back on the cabinet, and get rid of some of the noise to...
B!

 

[Helge]

Anyway,think about how much fun you can stack in to that cabinet before loved ones start figuring out that you've been slowly buying more and more toys.

That's a good point. So then I would need some advice regarding cabinets. I thought about one of the following ones:
- http://www.it-budget.de/19standrahm....html?sessID=1eccca094f5a639ab80db084bbbf4ca1
- http://www.digitus.info/produkte/pr...l-unmontiert-dn-19-42u-d-srv-sw/section/prof/

 

[Mr_B]

Really, if your going to have it anywhere people are. Get a closed unit. Something like the first one you looked at, the DIGITUS SoHoline 7HE. It makes quite a big difference just opening and closing the door on mine, and as i said, i don't actually have the back cover on, since i haven't found any angular connectors for the DVI.

If your just locking the stack away out of sight, and earshot, Then either will probably be fine. As far as i can tell, they are near identical, and the differences are insignificant. I do like the way you went from 7-8U to 42, in one go. Just humoring me, are we?
:- p
B!

Edit
Also, make sure your selected model fits the dept of the chassi you want to use. I knew from the start that i was going to have mine at home, in my livingroom, so i went with a slightly "designed" cabinet, with a small footprint. (Not that they did a whole lot, it's still just a big freaking steel box, with a few cutouts in the steel front door, behind which they put a glass panel. "Wohoo")
/Edit

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

So after reading all of this thread I stopped wondering why my FreeNAS box was so slow over the LAN (35 MB/s max) and am now wondering why I even bothered replacing Ubuntu Linux with FreeNAS on that machine at all. If you wonder why, here are my specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Socket A
RAM: 1,5GB DDR333
MoBo: Some old Asus thing
System HDD: Maxtor 60GB IDE @onboard controller
Data HDD: Hitachi 1TB SATA2 @onboard Silicon Images Sil3112 Raid controller (flashed with modified ROM to support my 1TB drive at all)
NIC1: Some PCI GBit Ethernet chip from Realtek or 3Com (not sure)
NIC2: NVIDIA nForce200 series integrated 100Mbit/s controller (not used)

NOTE: Yes I know this system is old crap, but it's all I have available and I dont have the money to spare to buy some better hardware, let alone server grade stuff