Low powered home server build. Am I missing any other options?

JaSauders

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Hey fellas. First time post here... trying to scout the yard for as many options as possible. I'm looking to replace my nettop as my server. Not entirely because it's a nettop... the Intel Atom works great... but I want to have a more internal setup instead of having hard drives hanging off via USB in external enclosures. I feel as though I've done a good deal of research but I'm still somewhat meh on where to go.

The server is going to be running Linux of some sort... likely a GUI-less variant, such as Ubuntu Server 12.04. It'll be running 24/7. I have video surveillance cameras that are going to record feeds to the system via Samba. I'll also have it available for backups of all of the systems in the house, Subsonic music streaming, ownCloud personal cloud storage, and maybe a few more oddball things such as Irssi, etc. As I said, the Atom has worked great so far, but I really want something that is a singular box without external HDDs all over the place.

I've been largely comparing some motherboard/cpu/gpu combo setups on NewEgg lately. The AMD E350 is continually coming up on the radar, but I'm semi hesitant to go with AMD. Perhaps it's due to their lack of Linux support vs Intel or Nvidia, or the fact I saw an article from last month showing AMD's consistent downward slope of 2012, who knows. I'd just like to stick with Intel if possible, but I'm starting to feel like it's becoming less likely.

Required:
- Low power consumption
- At least 4 SATA ports (SATA III would be an absolutely incredible bonus)
- Gigabit ethernet

Nice, but not needed:
- Mini ITX, but I'll settle for Micro ATX
- An expansion slot for a nicer GPU. This would be nice in case I ever want to re-purpose this system as an HTPC.

There's an ASRock AMD E350 board on NewEgg I can grab for 100 bucks. It supports more than 4GB of RAM (ala Atom board) and have four SATA III ports. The CPU is easily powerful enough for what I need and it's pretty dang green. It's Mini ITX, which is a bonus. It also has a PCIE slot, but it's downclocked to x4 instead of x16. I have no idea how much this effects actual 1080 HD playback, but it's a bit of a "meh" feeling.

The competition is few and far between from what I'm seeing. I can do an Intel Atom board, but they come with SATA II ports (and normally 2 ports) and a regular PCI slot. I'm unsure of the actual speeds of PCI vs PCIE, but I'd be willing to bet PCIE x4 would rock PCI. That said, Intel Atoms for the most part have nothing going for them vs the AMD E350 when comparing spec to spec. There are other Intel options though, such as getting a 1155 board. But then I have a 90 dollar board with a 75 dollar processor... ramping the price up a bit. That said, even these 1155 boards typically (at best) have two SATA III ports... but there again, the E350 is still sporting 4 of them. Not to say that SATA III is absolutely required, but it's a heckuva nice bonus. Plus if I can get 4 of them @ 100 (E350) versus 2 of them @ 90+75 (1155)... eh...

I'm also open to other ideas, even entirely GUI-less ideas if I go the ARM route (not sure how the R-Pi does it, but I understand GPU ARM support in Linux to be non-existent). I have a Raspberry Pi which works wonderfully with Raspbian, however the only thing is with the Pi having both USB ports and the NIC bound under the same USB bus, it makes transferring a massive amount of data over the LAN to the external HDDs borderline impossible. That being said, I'd love to have an ARM powered board, and then I'd easily ignore the bonus with the E350 of having a PCIE x4 slot... the curve ball to that is all of the ARM boards I've found weren't a standard size, such as Mini ITX, Micro ATX, etc.

All in all, I'm curious if there's something I'm missing... some sort of Intel option that I didn't come across yet, or perhaps some sort of Mini ITX sized ARM board that's perfectly priced and SATA equipped. Or... if the E350 is the screaming winner here. What do you guys think?
 
You want more advice, start with a firm budget. For what you pay, those mini-itx boards are a joke; expensive, poor heat transfer, etc. Get a regular micro atx board with low end Intel 1155 and micro atx case if you have the room in your cabinet/desk. They use just a little more energy than those atom/e350 setups, cost about the same, and give you more upgrade options later on.
 

JaSauders

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Thanks for the quick responses everybody. Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think a Micro ATX is going to be the best all around bang/buck, even though I don't necessarily need whatever processing power it can put out. There is something to be said about the versatility of larger cases as well. I'd really like to be able to utilize a PSU I already have handy, which is 280w max. Would that be suitable?

@ 13thmonkey, how much did that system run you? If I can use the PSU, that would be a savings, plus I have a Micro ATX tower already. I'd only get 4GB of RAM and wouldn't get a GPU to start. I'd really just need cpu, mobo, and RAM.
 

JaSauders

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I guess I didn't really give older hardware a thought. With power consumption being one of the most important parameters, how would a board like you recommended fair? I understand that I won't get Intel Atom power consumption, but dangit, I want to certainly get as close as possible. :lol:
 

bjaminnyc

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I run a simple file server / HTPC with a Semperon 145 @45w & 6450. The chip is unlockable to 2 cores but I left it at 1 for power consumption and heat concerns. That little chip stays super cool, and is plenty for XMBC WMC and file server responsibilities.

The board a listed seems to be fairly feature rich and has good reviews. However, I've never had any personal experience with that exact product. The board I have paired with the 145 was $10 with rebate and has been chugging along fine for years.
 


Roughly £260 all in, but that included the case, pico psu and power brick (£93 total)

RAM, CPU and MOBO (given that you are reusing everything else) was £30+£95+£53 (from memory) this is an office machine build however hence i wanted more power. There are 35W GXXX's out there too, but they idle at such low powers that purchases cost should be the consideration not running cost. Having a 2 core + HT or a true quad allows you to consider using the box for something beyond server duty.

My server started out as leftover bits whilst I figured out if I liked the idea and then went for an althlon II x2, 65W model I think.
 

JaSauders

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I have a hard time justifying the purchase of an older board @ 50 bucks along with an older CPU @ 50 bucks, which comes out to 100... the same cost of the ASRock AMD E350 setup I saw... Don't get me wrong, I know Mini ITX and APUs come pre-packaged with their own limitations, but I'm finding it hard to justify that an older board and older proc @ a similar price is going to be a substantial leg up. The only thing it would grant me is the potential capability of adding a better GPU into place for use as a HTPC system. I'm certainly open to it, but I'm just not sure. I think I need to get some specific builds down and begin comparing...
 
whilst the new amd's might be newer, are they better? I'd say ivy is better, yes it might not be as graphically capable but then this is a sever.

as I noted above mine is an office build, my server is running a lower power (rana?) athlonII X2. No reason why a dual core ivy pentium shouldn't work, but i'd go for at least a dual core.

this for instance has 6 sata ports, and unless you are using SSD's then SATA II is the same as SATA III. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-p8b75-m-lx-intel-b75-s-1155-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-micro-atx

note that a matx board will consume a little more juice than an itx board.
 

JaSauders

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I'm on the fence with the SATA II vs III thing. On one hand, I'd love to have SATA III so I can put some higher capacity SSDs into this system, but on the other hand, SATA III SSD on a SATA II port is still dang fast. I guess I'd just hate to be without the full potential in the event that opportunity comes about.

That board looks nice, but the one SATA III and five SATA II thing is pretty irritating.
 

JaSauders

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Wow. That's certainly a surprise, and some substantial food for thought. That's also dated 2011 - I wonder how the IB i3's are in comparison? I would venture to say if anything has changed, it's likely changed in Intel's favor...
 

JaSauders

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They're 35W? All of the i3's I'm seeing on NewEgg say they're 55W... Perhaps I'm not looking at the wrong thing? None of the i3 Ivy Bridge chips have a "T" variant...
 

bjaminnyc

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I hear ya about spending money on hardware that's dated. Although, going the AM3 or + route not only gives you the flexibility to install a superior video subsystem you can also upgrade the CPU relatively inexpensively at some point if you need to.

Oh and even the lowly x2 240 is about 2x faster then the e-350. I bought my mother in-law a prebuilt with an e-350 ($250 out the door w7+500GB, 4GB DDR3) and it's slow as dirt, which was expected at that price point.
 

JaSauders

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This is what I'm looking at now...

Parts:

Processor ($125) - i3 3220T Ivy Bridge
Motherboard ($65 or $70) - Either this ASRock or this EliteGroup ECS. I'm a little confused about the ASRock, because when I googled B75 vs H77, some people indicated that the big difference is the H77 typically comes with a 3rd SATA III port... but this particular ASRock is a B75 and has the higher SATA port count for both II and III.
RAM ($20) - Crucial 4GB
GPU - Will be utilizing Intel's built in functionality for now. If HTPC tasks ever come up I'll test accordingly or utilize the PCIE 3.0 slot on the board.
PSU (already have) - 280w max. It's a brand new PSU I bought a few months ago for a client, but later found their PSU wasn't bad. Instead of returning it I kept it but haven't needed it yet.
Case (already have) - Micro ATX no namer
HDD (already have) - three 500GB for now, looking to upgrade very soon. While the Linux mdadm RAID utility is a solid option, I won't be utilizing RAID in an effort to have some degree of a time based backup. Drive A will be for video surveillance and won't be backed up (it records 100GB a day for 4 days, plus it stores the OS. It's obnoxious to try and back it up when feeds are continually overwritten each night). Drive B will be the main network drive and it'll rsync to drive C every night at midnight.
DVD Drive (none)

I'm really leaning towards the ASRock board since it has an extra SATA II port as well as an extra SATA III port. Overall this would run me $210 USD out of pocket for the proc, mobo, and RAM.

Can I do better? Or would this be a pretty solid punch between horsepower/features/price/power efficiency?
 
I see mention of SATA III for bigger SSD's, you do not need SATA III for large SSD's as SATA III is backwards compatible with SATA II.

Overall, I find the ITX board I have to be very power friendly under light loads. No as much as 13thmonkey's system, but still quite good.

@ 13thmonkey. Nice mini system. I am in the mid sized(by ITX standards) SG05 case :) that affords me a larger video card.

SG05 build Image 1
SG05 build Image 2 <- swapped to 2.5 inch for the hard drive after.
 

JaSauders

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Oh, I know that. But in order to take advantage of SATA III speeds one would need SATA III ports, which is why having it in case that ever comes up is really nice.

I'm certainly open to Mini ITX builds still, but from what I'm seeing, while I'd gain a bit of power savings, I'd be sacrificing quite a bit more in terms of ports etc. The cheapest Mini ITX 1155 board that has at least two SATA III ports and at least two SATA II ports is 100 bucks. 100 + 125 for proc... eh. Especially when I'm utilizing a Micro ATX case and could get significantly more (8 total) SATA ports in the event I want to go HDD crazy, which I suppose isn't out of the realm of possibility since I have a stack of SATA HDDs here I'm not using at the moment.

I do have to wonder what kind of power savings would take place if you had two identical systems... i3 3220T in both... same everything except one is an ASRock Mini ITX and the other is a comparable ASRock Micro ATX. Given that everything else is the same I wonder what would be different via a watt meter, because I just can't see how one would save power vs the other given everything else being identical.
 
I do not have a LGA 1156 board to test my old I5 750(this thing undervolts like a dream) in to check to be honest.

It is just mostly extras like more voltage phases, while nice for overclocking are not as nice for power efficiency(on low powered systems) and the extra chips for more sata and more usb 3 all add up.

I know that my mATX board with an i7 2600K is not too bad coming in at 75-80 watts idle. It dropped a good 7 watts removing the WDC Black 2TB drive(that is how it got to 75-80) and replacing it with 2 256gigabyte SSD's. For an overclocked system with a 5870 video card, those seem to be very good idles to me.

I remember my i7 920 idled about 140-150.

So I think picking up some nice low powered parts and not getting features you NEVER plan to use, an mATX board should still get the job done. I do recommend undervolting if you have the time to stability test it. This saves every single watt(Damn i wish i could undervolt my video card. Seems to only let me mess with load voltage not idle.).

If you are going for a larger system. Check out the fractal Define case :) 8 hard drive bays. sure a mATX board may look strange in it, but as long as it holds what you want.
 

JaSauders

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I apologize if this is a "duh" question, but are you suggesting that having features like USB 3 and SATA 6, even if you aren't using them, will still add up in terms of power consumption? I thought power usage was largely dependent upon what's actively using power as opposed to what features are available on the board. In other words, I didn't expect a motherboard to use more power JUST because it has SATA 6 available, even if no drives are plugged in. If that's the case I can understand how some reports have suggested that ITX boards are lower powered than mATX, especially since in the majority of cases ITX doesn't have as much as mATX does. If that's the reality behind it I'll certainly give this some extra thought, since I surely don't want to future proof myself so much that I end up running a small super computer for what's meant to be a low powered rig.