# Low power Home Server/HTPC.. Suggestions WANTED!!!



## Firedomain (Aug 14, 2011)

EDITED:

Ok... Basically I wanted

Mini-itx
USB 3.0
5 SATA ports
RAID if possible
Gigabit
XBMC &...
HDMI (pref 1.4a)
Low power consumption

As I'm wanting to use it for:


HTPC - XBMC
File server (for other XBMC clients inc iPad2)
Vuze (torrents)
USB-UIRT (ir receiver/transmitter for universal control)
File storage (my collection of everything)
HTTP/FTP server
General remote desktop use Through iPad.

After having a look around I'm starting to think I'm gonna want more power than what I was planning....

So looks like I may get the ZOTAC H67-ITX WiFi & a i3 2100t 35w.
Will probably under clock some components & drop voltages to bring that value down a little.

Am looking at the Lian Li PC-Q08 case for the good HDD cooling & ventilation. Will probably cut some of the side of the HDD trays out to increase airflow. Will also be covering up the PSU slot as I'm going to buy a PicoPSU as I mention VVV

My other consideration was a dual core i5 or a dual core i3 both 35w, my 1st choice is the lowest power quad core 45w... Even tho the dual might cope just fine (especially with hyper threading)... Let's just hope I can keep the power down just a little.....

I probably going to buy a PicoPSU, not sure what capacity. Was thinking 120w but a 90w might almost do me. 4x 2TB drives use 5.3w each while active. So hoping I can keep low.

Any other opinions are greatly appreciated.


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## kiddagoat (Aug 14, 2011)

If you are looking for a low-power HTPC/Media box and are doing NO GAMING....

I would look at the AMD E350 boards with the chips already built into them.

Depending on manufacturer, you can get 5 SATA ports, USB 3.0, and HDMI.  I think the APUs here only use like 50W or something small like that.  They are wonderful HTPCs.  

I personally would look at the MSI and Gigabyte options.  These are mITX

If you don't mind a mATX then ASUS makes a E350 in this form factor.  Also in this form factor there is the new A6 and A8 APUs.  Awesome graphics performance and a decent CPU for all under 100W.


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## digibucc (Aug 14, 2011)

i wouldn't recommend mixing a server and an htpc.
htpc you want to be quiet & small.  server you want to have space , stay on, and stay cool.

those are opposing goals.  to fit hdds in and power them, will require a bigger psu, and will create more heat.  htpc's are not designed to radiate heat well, as they are not meant to create a lot.  you also do not want to leave your htpc on all the time. it should have an ssd or similar, be quick to sleep and wake, and do that often.  power creates heat.  if it's a small box with little ventilation stuck in a media cabinet with even less ventilation, it'll die faster.

i think you will get much better results if you don't try to combine the two. imo of course.


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## Firedomain (Aug 14, 2011)

I did have a look at the E350. Won't b gaming, my sig is my gaming system.

I don't think they are opposing goals... I want a quiet server & HTPC, why have multiple systems when I can combine them. As for the heat it won't be much different whether I'm using it as a client or server as when the media has stopped the 4x 2tb drives will spin down. Also they are WD Green drives.
I'll probably have the system set up to sleep & wake on LAN when clients are started, no point burning it 24/7.
Won't be boxed up, case will have at least 1 fan & will b in the open.

Thanks for your opinion


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## freaksavior (Aug 14, 2011)

I went with this for a itx htpc.

GIGABYTE GA-E350N-USB3 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual...
It's got 4, but no raid. You could always add a raid card but if you do that then you can't get a pci-e tv card.
Antec ISK 300-150 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel Mi...
Good case, you can fit 2 x 2.5" hard drives
SAMSUNG Spinpoint MP4 HM320HJ 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB ...
Quite, fast and good drive.
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ...
Good ram, enough said.

I think for everything your asking though, you will have to go with something like a itx 1155 -- ZOTAC H67ITX-C-E LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/... which will be more powerful. 

The E350 isn't very strong, it works to watch blu-rays and that's about the most power it can handle.


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## Firedomain (Aug 15, 2011)

Thanks for pointing out that zotac... Weakest CPU I can put in is 35-45w (i3 2100t 2c4t & i5 2500t 4c8t)... Not to bad I guess. I woulda liked a bit less power consumption but when I wanna use it for more I don't really have an option. Apart from probably under clocking a little to save more power.

I read up my 2TB drives draw an average of 5.3w during read/write, so a total of 21.2w for average drive use. Puts me at 56.2w-66.2w so I'll say 70w.

I'm looking at getting the Lian Li PC-Q08 as it has good cooling, ventilation & dual rear slots etc.
I was also looking at buying a picoPSU to power this system (covering the PSU slot until I decide to buy a ~500w PSU to use 1 of my 6970's for maybe a LAN or trip or whatever. Easier than moving my main water cooled rig)

I was originally looking at a 120w picoPSU but after looking how much power I'll b using at max will I really need that much? Only other real additions are a disc drive & maybe a tv tuner...
Should I settle for a 90w? Or pay more & get the 120w??


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## Firedomain (Aug 16, 2011)

Oh, I have a new question...... Am a bit concerned with....

I have 4x 2tb WD Caviar green drives, have only been using 3 & recently found out the spare is faulty. So I took it back tonight & they said it had to b sent off & the guy thinks that model has been discontinued, so I'd probably get the SATA3 model.

Will I be able to use the new SATA3 with the other 3 SATA2 drives in RAID5?

As far as I'm aware for RAID all drives should be the same.... So what's gonna happen?

Please help.


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## xBruce88x (Aug 16, 2011)

yea it should be fine with the other drives. sata3 is backwards compatible with 2. raid drives don't have to be the same... but its recommended. so long as they are the same size is all that matters, and sometimes you can put a larger and smaller drive together, you just get 2x the smaller available.


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## Firedomain (Aug 16, 2011)

I'm more concerned with different structural design.... I believe raid works best when they are the same so they start & stop operations simultaneously... But I guess if that's the case the SATA3 will just be waiting for new I/Os.. I dunno... Anyone with experience?


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## xBruce88x (Aug 16, 2011)

well i had two sligtly diff model 160gb drives in Raid 0 and they ran fine. both were WD sata2, but one was dual platter and the other single. the dual ran slower and so the array ran at 2x the slower drive. i think worst case with yours would be the new drive waiting for the others, which wouldn't really slow your stuff down. if the 4 drive was slower than the others then you would notice a slight decrease (depending on how much slower). but i think raid 5 is a mix of performance and backup. good thing about raid 5, if for w/e reason that newer drive gets dropped, it won't crash your array. it will still operate off the other 3, but slow since it will have to calculate based of the parity blocks. at least until the 4th is added back and rebuilt

here's some more complete info about raid 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_5#RAID_5

raid 5 should be ok for the htpc, since its fairly quick with random reads, but it will suffer with random writes (downloading torrents, transferring a lot of small files, etc)


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## Firedomain (Aug 16, 2011)

Yer, I noticed a massive impact when I originally RAID5 the 4 drives. There was significant impact on write performance, but a bit less on reads. I had worse performance than with 3 drives that I later discovered is due to RAID5 (on some chipsets) preferring 3 or 5 disks as it's optimized for 2 or 4 disks (after removing the parity).

I'm not to concerned with the performance on the Server/HTPC as once data is there it stays there.

I've been using raid 0 for years & added a raid 5 maybe last year, maybe longer...
so I'm familiar with it's purpose.
Thanks for your advice


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## t_ski (Aug 16, 2011)

I built a similar AMD setup here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141285


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## lilhasselhoffer (Aug 16, 2011)

Firedomain said:


> I was originally looking at a 120w picoPSU but after looking how much power I'll b using at max will I really need that much? Only other real additions are a disc drive & maybe a tv tuner...
> Should I settle for a 90w? Or pay more & get the 120w??



Go 120.

When you do your calculations you don't look at the startup wattage required by the system.  Your constant wattage draw calculations seem reasonable, but the sleeping and waking will require a substantial deal more than the 70 watts you calculated.

I have to point out two other things that have not been cited in power calculations; what do the fans draw constantly and on startup?  They may well be pushing the system much nearer to the 120 watt on startup than the 90 watt.


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## Firedomain (Aug 16, 2011)

Yea, I did consider the electricity today, even adding the disc drive will add a good 15 or so watt.
So I'll definitely be getting the 120w.

Good spot on the startup surge. Hadn't taken that into consideration yet. But intend to get a descent value above what I'm using to cater for that.

Thanks for ur input

Biggest downfall for this system at the moment is the price!
A fusion system will b cheapest for me, but this i3/5 system has RAID5, HDMI 1.4a, USB 3, (maybe) 2x the cores & 4x the threads & about $200 more...
$540 Fusion setup (2 cores 2 threads) 18w
$625 i3 setup (2 cores 4 threads) 35w (CPU)
$715 i5 setup (4 cores 8 threads) 45w (CPU)

Note: These prices are including a picoPSU & a USB-UIRT.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Aug 16, 2011)

Firedomain said:


> Yea, I did consider the electricity today, even adding the disc drive will add a good 15 or so watt.
> So I'll definitely be getting the 120w.
> 
> Good spot on the startup surge. Hadn't taken that into consideration yet. But intend to get a descent value above what I'm using to cater for that.
> ...



Perhaps I'm missing something here.  What exactly will more cores get you on a home setup?

If you were running a server to several computers at once a quad core would be great.  If you're running a media monster over a small home network a dual core processor should be more than enough.

I'm running an atom in my media storage server right now.  It won't run any high definition video, but it streams like a champ and runs a 4 drive Raid 5 array (separate OS drive) very well.

My experience with the APU is mixed to good.  After two builds, I can say that the APU paired with a dedicated GPU (utilizing their hybrid X-fire) gives some great video performance for video (smokes 1080p) and light gaming, while not completely nerfing the processor output (the A-8 3850 is a very awesome budget setup) for streaming.  I will say that the 1866 speed ram is very worth the price for the system though.  It makes a world of difference over 1333, despite the timings necessarily being looser.


There are a lot of options out there now.  The i5 may be aimed at a slightly different target than the one you have in mind.  For the money, it might be worth while to look elsewhere...


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## Firedomain (Aug 16, 2011)

I'm a bit of an overkill kinda person, I keep thinking of all the things I may potentially run on this.

I've got multiple ppl at the house that use all my collection.
It will b hosting 1080p movies, tv shows, games, software, backups, music, etc.
Playing media via XBMC, torrenting, IR controller server, general (remote) desktop use (possibly from multiple users at once), iTunes for wifi sync, FTP server, Virtual Machines, Probably a tv tuner, probably a USB or pci-e CCTV system (will not be saving to raid5 to allow it to sleep) eventually & possibly one day putting a 500w PSU in it so I can use it as a portable media/gaming server when I go inter-state rather than taking my water cooled beast...

I'm thinking I need to go the i3 2100t 35w
I'm just feeling a little blue from the lack of power & raw speed I've been missing out on lately as my comp is on the fritz...

I need to go with less power & I'm sure plenty of grunt.

Edit:
& if not, I'll oveclock it!


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## xBruce88x (Aug 16, 2011)

here's an apu board that supports raid 5

JetWay JNF81-T56N-LF AMD eOntario (G-Series) T56N ...

maybe you can find that at an online store in Aussie

you could go with an itx with a mobile cpu socked , g1, g2, P (479). you can get a 25w p8700 2.53ghz for 215usd and the mobo http://www.directron.com/nc64lf.html?gsear=1 for 145usd that supports raid5. that's $360 for mobo and cpu though. it won't have the best igp though


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## Firedomain (Aug 17, 2011)

Looks like a descent board, love the dual gigabit. except for the lack of USB 3 & pci-e. Thanks for the suggestion tho.

I saw a pretty thorough comparison of the i3 vs D525 vs E350 & some others & i3 did a fantastic job at an awesome idle power, pushed my decision. I had been hesitating buying coz i wanted the i5 but didn't need it... Now I've accepted that, it was easier jumped the gun & buy my loadout:

Zotac H67ITX-C-E
i3 2100t
PicoPSU 120w
1x Corsair 4GB XMS3 DDR3
USB-UIRT

After paying overkill postage mobo & cpu cost me $345.
I coulda gotten it cheaper, but I'm willing to pay for it sooner.

Just gotta buy my case from the city &  get my new drive back from warranty...

Thanks for the comments guys.


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## xBruce88x (Aug 17, 2011)

no prob, hope it all works well for ya


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## Firedomain (Oct 19, 2011)

Server is built, has been for weeks now. 1 problem I didn't realize till it was 2late is that the i3 or maybe even the ifamily's onboard GPU doesn't have Hardware acceleration in XBMC.
So x264 movies are occasionally a little jumpy, & if Hardware Acceleration is on the image is unwatchable.
Apparently a driver update is needed..... But I'm yet to see any news on that.

Other than that slight disappointment it's a fantastic, snappy system that uses sub 40w on idle with 3x 2TB in RAID + 1 non RAID & 1x 500GB 2.5" & sub 60w when the raid is active.

Thanks for the help guys.


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## theeldest (Oct 19, 2011)

Not to beat a dead horse but htpc is kinda one big area where AMD makes more sense than Intel.

Ok, with that out of the way: Are you running Windows or Linux? (I've got XBMC running on a linux box that also acts as my backup server for Win and Mac as well as downloading torrents)

Do you have room for something like this: HIS H657H1G Radeon HD 6570 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Ex...

Passively cooled and XBMC works well on my AMD integrated graphics so I'd assume they're good with ATI GPU acceleration? (now that I think about it, I'm not sure that's actually a logical assumption...)


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