Lowest-Power Consumption Nas/HTPC Build

[Diogenes5]

Good information is somewhat hard to find so I would appreciate any good input.

Currently my leading option is:

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 @ 3.0Ghz ($45)
MB: Gigabyte GA-H81M, LGA 1150, 2x240pin, DDR3 1600, PCI Express 2x16 ($55)
RAM: Generic 4 GB 1 stick - $42
HD : Hitachi 4tb Coolspin and Seagate 4TB 7200 drive (already own)
Power: Corsair 430W System Builder - $35
Case: Either Corsair 250D (About $90) or CM Elite 130 Mini ITX Case ($35 at Microcenter)

Total cost: $212 (I live near microcenter so certain prices are relatively low)

My main alternative would be to buy a J2900-based board instead of the Pentium and Giabyte motherboard. There are none out right now except for an ECS version that is about $100 (would rather avoid ECS as a brand). I would probably wait for a more reliable manufacturer such as Gigabyte or MSI to make one.

My main use would to have a home NAS that is running near 24/7. I have an MSDN subscription for work so I could have WHS2012 on it. As a nas it would be for mild backup purposes and a NAS for the various devices and tablets in the house. It would serve as an HTPC (XBMC) as well possibly replacing my WD Live Streaming which is becoming sluggish in use. I would like to use it also as possibly as a web-server for my blog and cloud storage with bitorrent sync.

From what I've read, the Bay Trail Devices out only use 10W at max and generally use around 30W in a system with a Pico power supply.

The Pentium is rated at about 55W TDP and from everything I've read and most pentium/celeron systems seem to take about 50W in a server setting but require active cooling.

My main priority is to have enough compute to do basic Nas tasks and run XBMC in the smallest, quietest form factor possible. Scalability towards running a web server and possibly a steam-streaming client in the future would be nice but not absolutely necessary.

What do people think of using a J2900 board instead of a Pentium? Are the tradeoffs in compute too extreme to be worth the lower carbon footprint and quieter sound profile?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The Haswell Pentium is going to idle very low. Probably almost as low as the Atom, assuming the same other parts. (same number of DIMMs, same number of HDDs, same number of active fans, etc.)

If you're doing anything computationally intensive, it'll be a race-to-idle situation. The Pentium may or may not come out ahead for overall power use depending on your workload.

For HTPC duties, I'd want the Pentium, personally.

 

[Ken g6]

Quietest, smallest, lowest power possible, for NAS and XBMC? Raspberry Pi with an external drive.

And if you don't like that, what about Kabini?

 

[Diogenes5]

Quietest, smallest, lowest power possible, for NAS and XBMC? Raspberry Pi with an external drive.

And if you don't like that, what about Kabini?

I already have a modified e02 pogoplug that has 2 externals on it with archlinux as a NAS. A raspberry pi as a nas is pretty mediocre. It has like a single-digit MBps transfer rate. There are better ARM-based devices out there for the price ... like my E02 pogoplug which has the same processor as some synology NAS'es and costs only 20 bucks. I want to move to an x86 solution for faster transfers and also better app support with torrenting and the like.

I'm not sure what to think about Kabini. In single-threaded, tasks, Intel still wrecks AMD for the pricepoint. And a 25W versus 54W TDP is less of a big deal if idling while the pentium has more upside in terms of much better single-threaded performance. I'm just not comfortable going AMD until tech like mantle is more fleshed out. Like Anand's review said, until we get confirmation next-gen processors will work with AMD motherboards and that they will be a big step up; it's kind of up in the air whether kabini is worth it.

The next generation of haswell and atom chips should offer 30% power savings from the die shrink and should work with 1150 boards so I decided on Intel.

 

[mfenn]

Like Dave said, TDP doesn't matter for light workloads. You're more concerned with minimum platform power. The Bay Trail has the Haswell system beat in that regard at ~4w vs ~10w, but I don't think it matters because you have a relatively large static power load from the memory, fans, and HDDs. The Haswell will certainly race-to-idle faster and is a more flexible machine looking forward.

 

[skankinstein]

Quietest, smallest, lowest power possible, for NAS and XBMC? Raspberry Pi with an external drive.

The Pi was valid last year, the BeagleBone stomps the Pi at every turn.

 

[Knavish]

Power: Corsair 430W System Builder - $35

If you are going for lowest power consumption possible for a NAS, you need to worry about idle power consumption. Unfortunately, the 80+ PSU ratings apply to peak power consumption, not at low loads. From this, it looks like power supplies are somewhere between about 55% and 78% efficient at a low load ~22Watts.

Have you though about trying a PicoPSU instead of a traditional PSU? I believe these will do much better with loads under 100 W.