ConnectX-3 is always nice if you are happy with SFP+Talking of Ethernet adapters any suggestions about a low power consumptio 10Gbit Ethernet card that I can install on the tx1320 m3?
ConnectX-3 is always nice if you are happy with SFP+Talking of Ethernet adapters any suggestions about a low power consumptio 10Gbit Ethernet card that I can install on the tx1320 m3?
I have tried to install a Mellanox ConnectX-3 546SFP+ but the power consumption of my server whent from 11.8W to 18.00W.ConnectX-3 is always nice if you are happy with SFP+
I think 6W for a NIC is pretty good - and I doubt any other will be better:I have tried to install a Mellanox ConnectX-3 546SFP+ but the power consumption of my server whent from 11.8W to 18.00W.
I will try a ConnectX-4 that should have lower power consumption....
I have changed the mainboard (now I have all mainboard's ethernet working and active , the CPU (now is a xeon E3-1240 v6 ) and increased the ram (now 64Gb) with the packpanel and 1 ssd disk I get 13.6W mininum.I can save 1.4W if I remove the backpanel that in fact I don't really need considering that the online sata are not hot swap.I think 6W for a NIC is pretty good - and I doubt any other will be better:
The reason I am testing with no connected port is .... that I don't care (!) which is the power consumption when the system is working , I am only concern on the power consumption when the system is in idle , because this machine will be on 24/7, the other machine that I will connect to the high speed network (a workstation and 2 nas) will mainly off and I will switch them on only if I need to use them.You should test your power consumption with ports active - just having 4 ports not doing anything should not cost more power than 2 ports doing nothing - so try to test with activity on both port.
But great that you got it tested and can see that ConnectX-4 is not lower power than ConnectX-3
Thats fine - but network cards use more power when a cable is plugged in - even if very little traffic is sent on the wire, so your tests will be more realistic with cables attached - but whatever makes you happy I guessI am only concern on the power consumption when the system is in idle
With my 7.2K drive and a similar caddy that I got from ebay (a little bit different and maybe with a better air flow) I have not any overheating problems.I recently got one of these nice little machines and printed some of the caddies that da8833 so generously provided. However, I do have a serious problem with drive temperatures: after about 20 minutes idle the four drives I installed to the backplane reached almost 60°C... These are HGST 10K 1.2TB drives with a height of 15mm, so there is practically no space for airflow. I pulled two of the drives for now, leaving one empty slot between them, and they are now idling around 50°C, which still seems a lot.
I was wondering if there is anything I can do about this. Has anyone faced similar issues?
I think most 10K 2.5 inch drives are supposed be running with high airflow since they run very hot.These are HGST 10K 1.2TB drives with a height of 15mm, so there is practically no space for airflow. I pulled two of the drives for now, leaving one empty slot between them, and they are now idling around 50°C, which still seems a lot.
I agree its shame, but to be honest - its a "tiny" server and I don't think its really built for high-powered devices like the 10k drives.I think SSDs are the way to got here, which is a shame since it means that I got eight 10K HDDs that I got for this server sitting around gathering dust.
Possible. One of the drives has a trip temperature of 60°, the others' is 85°. I replaced the one with the lower trip temperature. There is absolutely nothing important on these disks and I got them very cheap (10€ each), so I will see how it goes for a while. They are configured as a mirrored zfs pool, so nothing too bad should happen to all at once... I will have to replace my PLA printed caddies though...so perhaps the temperatures are ok, and you are just used to drive temperature needing to be lower?
for 3d printed caddy go with ABS. Petg is ok, but ABS is better if you are "playing" with so high temperaturesPossible. One of the drives has a trip temperature of 60°, the others' is 85°. I replaced the one with the lower trip temperature. There is absolutely nothing important on these disks and I got them very cheap (10€ each), so I will see how it goes for a while. They are configured as a mirrored zfs pool, so nothing too bad should happen to all at once... I will have to replace my PLA printed caddies though...
I agree that nowdays raid controllers are a NO GO!.If you want to build a NAS, using the RAID controller is a bad, bad idea (in fact using a RAID controller these days is a bad idea, period). There are countless explanations on the internet why, but it basically comes down to this: zfs on a CPU from the last 15 years is much better than anything RAID controllers can do. And zfs needs direct access to the disc, which is impossible with most RAID controllers, even in JBOD mode.
I don't know if the EP400I can be flashed to HBA mode, but a quick Google search did not turn up anything.
As a side note, I think that while these small servers are awesome, they are a bad choice for a NAS. If you want a lot of capacity, you are out of luck without 3.5" drives. And if you want to use SSDs, there are a lot of smaller, quieter, less power hungry options available.
Thanks for confirming this. I might still be skipping the separate controller for my use case, in case I can just connect the 4 x backplate directly to the MB and that works without issues. I think that the MB controller also contains some RAID functionality, do you Albert know any details of that and whether that can be configured to have RAID functionality disabled?I confirm that the ep400 can be flashed in HBA mode , I done it with mine.
The integrated controller is a normal sata II (6gb/sec) with soft raid that can be disable in the bios.Thanks for confirming this. I might still be skipping the separate controller for my use case, in case I can just connect the 4 x backplate directly to the MB and that works without issues. I think that the MB controller also contains some RAID functionality, do you Albert know any details of that and whether that can be configured to have RAID functionality disabled?
Unfortunately I can't really check anything from my server BIOS yet myself, before I get the memory for it (early next month).