# Shrinking my media rig



## alucasa (Mar 23, 2016)

I think my media rig is small enough already but I have been thinking of shrinking it further and all parts are finally here.

Spec of my media rig is

i3-4130
8gb
Z87I-DELUXE (because it has 6 sata ports)
1 x 80gb intel HDD
4 x 2TB 3.5 HDDs
Lian Li PC-TU200






The new case will be Wesena HTPC-ITX5-Silver



Even SFX PSU is too big, so... pico PSU. It's rated at 160w and I have 160w brick PSU.





Mobo will be swapped with ...

It's because this mobo has msata. I need to save space.



My plan is to swap the four 3.5 inch HDD with 4 2.5 inch HDD. For now, I just have two 2.5 inch HDD.





Now size comparison with my main rig. (In my system spec)








Will update as I move things over.


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## alucasa (Mar 23, 2016)

Eh, I hit 10 attachment max total.

Anyway, I started to dismantle my current media rig and recalled how painful it was to assemble it back then which was probably why I have never cleaned it.

But I don't see much dust for a rig that hasn't been cleaned for 2 years and some months.

 

 

 

I had a crappy time getting that intel stock cooler off. It would not come off and I had to cut the plastic.

 



 
Looks as good as new and it's gonna go on Ebay if everything goes well.


Now onto the Wesena chassis.


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## alucasa (Mar 23, 2016)

I am going to let the pictures speak themselves.



 




I have had that heatsink for 5+ years. Bought 6 at the time and have only this one left now.



 


 
HUGE brick but it is rated for 160w.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 23, 2016)

Sub'd


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## xvi (Mar 23, 2016)

Sub'd too. That actually raises the question of storage density. I would have thought that 3.5" drives would have more storage per volume than 2.5" drives (from a cost perspective too, I would imagine).

Nice and interesting build though!


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## alucasa (Mar 23, 2016)

While windows 10 was installing and updating, I looked at my storage option.

The wesena website said the chassis was capable of having either 2 2.5 HDDs or 1 2.5 and 1 3.5.

But I knew it had space for more and I knew I had the right tools for it.

I have two choices, four 2.5 HDDs

or two 2.5 and one 3.5

Did I say I have the right tool?



 



 





So, I guess I will go with two 2.5 HDDs and one 3.5.

4TB from the two 2.5 HDDs and I guess I will get 4TB 3.5 HDD.

And finally windows got activated.


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## lonewolf (Mar 23, 2016)

Nice build Have thought of building a media center pc but need to study the concept.


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

It's tight. I mean the clearance between where a 3.5 inch HDD is going to be. I think I need to use a 1U heatsink. I do have one but this means I have to dismantle the whole thing. I will probably do that later when I get the HDD to install. Or I could just use another 2.5 inch HDD. I will see how it goes. 
I deleted a fair amount of stuff I don't watch anymore but ... hmm...



 
Short SATA cable is essential in this kind of build.



 

And I removed the fan. I am not going to need it. I will watch CPU temp though. As long as it is under 80c and - stable -, I won't worry.



 


 


 
The build is done for now. Stability test comes next and watching CPU temp. Once that's done, I will decide whether to order 3.5 HDD or 2.5 HDD.

If 3.5 HDD, I will need to dig into my storage room for a 1U - quiet - cooler. I probably have a few, just don't know where yet.

Thanks for reading. I will update if it needs to be.


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

I had a 1080p movie played.

After an hour or so, I touched the chassis and it was very warm to the touch. Firing up Real temp revealed that cpu temp was around 50 ~ 55.

I assumed that lack of airflow was the cause of fairly high temp at nearly idle. So I decided to open it up and install back the fan I took out initially.
At the same time, I found a 1U cooler.








The clearance is much better now and it cannot get any better unless I go for low profile RAM and even lower profile cpu heatsink. But I am satisfied with this. Even if I do install a 3.5 inch HDD, few mm of clearance will be there. My concern is a HDD can be pretty hot and I can only see negative effects if I get a 3.5 inch HDD there. So, I am leaning toward a 2.5inch HDD.

After getting the fan back, the temp is in comfort zone. It's around 40ish while playing the same 1080p movie. Compared to 55ish, it's much better. The chassis is also cool to touch now. I guess I underestimated airflow.


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## xvi (Mar 24, 2016)

I thought clearance was pretty good on that Thermaltake heatsink, but I like cramming large things in tiny boxes. Looking quite good though!


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## Toothless (Mar 24, 2016)

Whatcha gonna do with the old case?


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## t_ski (Mar 24, 2016)

You could always get an adapter to put two 2.5" drives in the 3.5" slot.  Another idea for the cooling would be to use a larger passive cooler and duct the airflow from the side fan through the cooler.


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

Toothless said:


> Whatcha gonna do with the old case?



Let it rot? I have many cases rotting. Most are SFF cases though. Few are rackmount.



t_ski said:


> You could always get an adapter to put two 2.5" drives in the 3.5" slot.  Another idea for the cooling would be to use a larger passive cooler and duct the airflow from the side fan through the cooler.



I have few adapters. But the clearance is quite tight and I want the heatsink to have some breathing room. Another way is just stock up few more 2.5 HDDs on top of existing HDDs. It has space for it.


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## Toothless (Mar 24, 2016)

alucasa said:


> Let it rot? I have many cases rotting. Most are SFF cases though. Few are rackmount.


I may have to snag one from you.


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

Toothless said:


> I may have to snag one from you.



Not easy to ship cases. Finding a box for it itself is a small ordeal itself. Unless you live in Canada, shipping is going to cost a fair bit as well.


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## Toothless (Mar 24, 2016)

alucasa said:


> Not easy to ship cases. Finding a box for it itself is a small ordeal itself. Unless you live in Canada, shipping is going to cost a fair bit as well.


Aaannnddd where did you get that CD drive-like HDD holder thingy?


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

Toothless said:


> Aaannnddd where did you get that CD drive-like HDD holder thingy?



I have few of those since I deal with laptops. They are cheap like hell. They come in two flavors though. 7mm height and 9.5mm height. They are used to replace ODD in laptops.

Search for "laptop HDD caddy" on Ebay or Amazon. Can get'em for less than 10 bucks.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2016)

That case seems so much more useful than my little antec ones


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

Managed to find 4TB 2.5 inch SATA on ebay. It goes by model # ST4000LM016. Its thickness is 15mm but that shouldn't be an issue in my case.

Gonna do some research on it before pulling the trigger.


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## Toothless (Mar 24, 2016)

alucasa said:


> Managed to find 4TB 2.5 inch SATA on ebay. It goes by model # ST4000LM016. Its thickness is 15mm but that shouldn't be an issue in my case.
> 
> Gonna do some research on it before pulling the trigger.


Apparently those are fake. 

Look at the 2.5in drives.

http://samsunghdd.seagate.com/


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## Caring1 (Mar 24, 2016)

Toothless said:


> Apparently those are fake.
> 
> Look at the 2.5in drives.
> 
> http://samsunghdd.seagate.com/


Google the part number and it shows the 15mm 4Tb drives.
http://www.seagate.com/au/en/produc...p-internal-drives/laptop-hdd/?sku=ST4000LM016


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## Toothless (Mar 24, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> Google the part number and it shows the 15mm 4Tb drives.
> http://www.seagate.com/au/en/produc...p-internal-drives/laptop-hdd/?sku=ST4000LM016


I stand corrected


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## alucasa (Mar 24, 2016)

Pulled the trigger. One of sellers was in Quebec. So, it should get here by early next week. I will update when I get it. But it looks like I could have two 4TBs + two 2TBs. That's 12TB in a small package. Not a bad deal.


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## t_ski (Mar 25, 2016)

Is the 160W AC adapter required to get 160W for the PC?  I'm building a similar system (less drives though) and did not match mine up.


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## alucasa (Mar 25, 2016)

t_ski said:


> Is the 160W AC adapter required to get 160W for the PC?  I'm building a similar system (less drives though) and did not match mine up.



I got the 160w pico PSU because I was eventually going to get a second-hand 4770T or 4790T with a bigger heatsink to act as my secondary rendering rig.

With i3, I think even 80w pico PSU should be fine. I haven't run it on a watt-a-meter though. I will check how much wattage it uses and upload a screenshot for it.

It is one of reasons I am opting for 2.5 inch HDD as well. 3.5 inch HDD uses a lot of initial power to start spinning.

Edit: Misunderstood your question.
No, you can use 160w pico and 80w power brick and vice versa.


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## Kursah (Mar 25, 2016)

I can say that my 4790k server (see sys specs) runs below 160W...in fact it usually runs closer to 90W at least that's what my UPS tells me. I see around 132-144W average load, that includes my server, cable modem, PFSense box (mITX PC with Celeron N3150 quad core/8GB DDR3/120GB SSD/Intel 2-port NIC/300W SFX PSU), and an 8-port L2 switch. 

I should also add I found measurable power savings with my 4790k by adjusting the CPU cache multi's min and max. Setting min to 8X and max to 40X reduced overall power consumption by around 15W measured at the UPS. Undervolting didn't do as much at idle, but did help noticeably at load. Not sure if you'd be able to adjust cache settings with a T-series, but odds are you wouldn't need to...but I was very surprised by this finding.


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## alucasa (Mar 25, 2016)

Kursah said:


> I can say that my 4790k server (see sys specs) runs below 160W...in fact it usually runs closer to 90W at least that's what my UPS tells me. I see around 132-144W average load, that includes my server, cable modem, PFSense box (mITX PC with Celeron N3150 quad core/8GB DDR3/120GB SSD/Intel 2-port NIC/300W SFX PSU), and an 8-port L2 switch.



My main rig (in system spec) uses around 200w at full load, so I am fully confident that the 160w pico can do the job even with the K version of 4770/90. My concern is the TDP. The case will have 3 or 4 HDDs in the end and it is smaller than normal SFF cases. The case itself is rated for 65w TDP. So, I am going for the T version of i7 which is rated for 45w TDP.


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## Kursah (Mar 25, 2016)

Ya I don't blame you for wanting the overhead there. I'd do the same thing just to make damn sure I had the power needed for current and future needs. 

For what it's worth, I ran out of room on my server's sys specs so it's only partial. In reality I'm running 4 HDD's in a RAID5, then I have 3 more HDD's in a 2012R2 storage space (software RAID5) that acts as a backup pool for my VM's and OS image, and an SSD for the host OS. 

45w TDP is a huge drop, so I imagine that setup will run nice and cool-to-lukewarm when you're done. I feel inspired to build one after seeing this thread!


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## alucasa (Mar 25, 2016)

Okay, here is Kill - a - watt readings.

During booting, it read 40w.

During idle, it read 21w.







During a 1080p movie playback, cpu load was 18%ish. Reading was 31w.







I installed Blender and did a test render. Reading was 60w.


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## alucasa (Mar 30, 2016)

So, finally the drive arrived. Looks genuine.



 


And THICK.






I tried to initialize it via USB3 but it didn't fully spin. So I installed it instead. It was close fit but works perfectly.



 


 
Guess we know where it is from, LOL.


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