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NAS, Server or something else to do with hdd's

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fohfoh:
AFAIK, WD Green HDDs are low power consumption. However, there were at first some reports of failure rates. I don't know if the newer ones have amended this issue. (Though I myself have one that works perfectly fine)

Pentium100:

--- Quote from: fohfoh on September 02, 2010, 03:37:53 AM ---AFAIK, WD Green HDDs are low power consumption. However, there were at first some reports of failure rates. I don't know if the newer ones have amended this issue. (Though I myself have one that works perfectly fine)

--- End quote ---
The difference is not that big however, since modern drives use less than 10W.

Comparison - 1TB 7200RPM 3.5" drives:

WD Caviar Green - Idle 2.8W, Read/Write 5.4W
WD Caviar Black - Idle 7.8W, Read/Write 8.4W
WD RE4 - Idle 5.9W, Read/Write 7.9W

Difference in Idle power consumption between Green and Black is 5W. In my country, 1kWh of electricity costs ~0.13EUR.

Running the drive 24/7 for a year would save you 5.69 Euros.

Get RE4 (or RE3) drives, they are designed for 24/7 operation and with higher reliability in mind.

Freedom Kira:
You seem to be aiming for the setup I have. I'll describe it. Prices in Canadian dollars.

Intel Atom (don't know exact model) - about $90
Case with integrated PSU - about $50 (switched out the PSU though, with the one in my desktop, when I found it couldn't handle a DVD drive that I put in later)
4x 1.5TB Samsung HDDs 5400rpm - about $600 total at the time, now about $350-400 total
1x 500GB Seagate HDD as boot disk, can't remember speed but it's probably 7200rpm - about $50
Ubuntu 10.04 (started on 9.04 and kept upgrading)
1 PCI SATA RAID card that connects up to 4 SATA devices - about $30?
1GB DDR2 RAM - about $40
IDE DVD writer - I got this free, but they cost about $20
No UPS - actually I had one that blew due to overload when the power died (basically I just plugged everything into it, though "everything" consists of two towers, a monitor, a wireless phone, a printer that wasn't powered on, and speakers that weren't powered on). It cost about $70

The RAID card isn't supported in Linux, but the drives are still readable, so I use mdadm. The system can't boot off of the drives, especially since they are in a RAID 5 array in mdadm, so I have the fifth drive installed, and that's where Linux is installed.
The parts above are a hybrid of things I bought in different places. The 4 Samsung drives came from Newegg, the DVD drive I had lying around, the boot HDD I got from a local supplier, the UPS came from TigerDirect, and everything else came from a second local supplier.

This setup has lasted about a year now (I built it August 2009, but setup of everything took me a few weeks, into September). No problems so far. It was a good way to learn Linux.

Remember you'll have to install lots of stuff, like Samba and Mdadm, to get this functioning properly with Linux. In the end, it's well worth it, especially if you lack Linux experience and want some.

P.S. I've never heard of a PSU integrated onto the mobo. Does that exist? I thought they were usually only included in the case.

Pentium100:
I also never saw a 220V PSU integrated in a motherboard. However, I have one old PC that has a 12V PSU integrated in the motherboard. The PSU in the case takes 220V AC and produces 12V DC only, while the motherboard makes the other voltages. Power to the hard drive is taken from the motherboard.

UPS - You need to use a decent size UPS - I have connected 5 computers, my CRT monitor and network switches to my UPS (total power consumption - 600-1000W), but the UPS is a big 2200VA model (about the size of a mini or midi tower case), the batteries hold for ~30 minutes under 34.8% load (~760VA). This UPS (I bought it used, made in 1998) cost me ~290EUR, including batteries, new batteries (4x 12V/18Ah) cost ~140EUR.

Also, why a huge 500GB drive for system? I'd rather buy a smaller drive and either save money or get a faster and more reliable drive (or two of them for RAID1). Not even Windows 7 needs 500GB system drive.

As for the OS, I recommend Debian - more stable OS and less upgrades (older versions are supported for a long time).

bork:
If you can get the power required under 150 watts more, you can use something like this as the power supply -

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.1097/.f

They look interesting but have not played with one yet.  

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