Please Recommend Power Supply for 6 hard drive system :-)

[wun911]

Sooo many far-kin HDs why not just get bigger capacity HDs.

Sell the old low capacity HDs use this to buy a couple of 350Gb HDs then you wont have the problem of "what PSU will suport 6 HDs!?"

Honestly 3 x 350Gb HDs should do the trick....

Someone is keeping way too much pron on thier comp.

 

[michaelahess]

I have over three terabytes in my house, almost all full thanks to my wife. Only around 60gig is pron :roll: and lets not bring up how many hd's I have running all day long 8O

edit: 1 terabyte is in a raid 5 and almost half of another is in various raid 1's, lots of hd's

 

[doolittle]

naa, my trusty antec still rocks - runs my dual pIII-1ghz linux workstation / secure gateway to this day. Had to get the 24-pin for the intel STL2 it was funny about not having that and the 6 pin aux AT style connector...
house power is good (although my o-scope probably need calibrating), ups is good (still good after a pair of new batteries).

After I added the 2nd 250w AT unit I only added a dozen hdds then ran out 🙁 was great until my bro needed a game rig I think I got the x-nav around then.

Any psu suggestions for OP?

 

[doolittle]

Sell the old low capacity HDs use this to buy a couple of 350Gb HDs then you wont have the problem of "what PSU will suport 6 HDs!?"

:lol: awesome!

I was forced to do that when my x-nav didn't have the capacity to hold a dozen hdd's and my optical drives the smallest ones got the axe, the limit was 40gb and lower, and got a 300gb.

you know, a very large portion of that are dvdrips to watch on any pc in the house - mostly for the kids!

 

[joemamasmurf]

.....Back to the original question and the best answer.
Just get a good quality PSU. IMO Fortron PSU's are $ for $ the best PSU's in existence, simply because the are so much cheaper(did I mention they are dirt cheap?) than PCP&C. Anyway, I have ran up to 5 HDD's w/ 3 optical drives, a geforce 6800, 5 PCI cards, 11 fans(one of which is a 92mm tornado,3 of which are TT Smartfan 2's), and a power hungry 3.2 Ghz P4 at the same time with no problems at all on a 530 watt Fortron. Most likely unless you run alot of other things in your PC, you could get by with like a 400-450 watt PSU, which at Newegg runs about $60(400 watt).


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104974

 

[tmgcomp]

Hello Again,

Wow I was not sure even if anyone would right back. Thank you all for your responses. I would like to give some other info that may help. I am guessing it is the power supply that is the problem. It all started when i wanted to add another 200 gig drive i bought. I have a ide raid now on a pci card. I went to add in the drive in a generic sata plug i had open. Sense then I have had issues. It could be the CPU but sense i added the other drive i have had the problems. Sense i have pulled it out but it makes no difference. I can't get passed athlon 2200 speed basically or the system reboots. I can run prime 95 for days on 175 fsb. I push to 185 it crashes. Well looks like i will try to replace the power supply. The PSU i bought from bestbuy becuase my wife is a manager there and gets a nice discount 🙂.

 

[tmgcomp]

Hello All,

this morning I opened up my file server and I have the stats for the power supply in question.

Model - Dynex Dx-ps500w

Dc Ouput - +5v=40a +12v1=16a +3.3v=35a +12v2=18a -5v=0.5a 12v=0.5a +5vsb=2.5a

output watts 500w, +5v:180w

I copied this exactly from the sticker on the power supply. Please let me know if this any good. From what I have read the stats on this are strong and at best buy it retails for 130.00 US. Not what i paid with my wifes discount but still 🙂

 

[chunkymonster]

Hello,

I need some help. I have been building systems for several years and decided to build a file server for myself and my friends. I used an athlon xp 300 400fsb i had lying around and a nforce 2 board i had. I have a raid array ide with 4 drives. I have 2 drive also on 1 of the ide channel. I also have a dvd burner and a fx5200 graphics card. I have a generic 500 watt power supply from bestbuy. The computer will not boot at fill athlon xp 3000 speed. I have to lower the fsb to 175 to get it to boot. All my tests tell me the power supply is just maxed out. Does anyone have any recommendations on what I should buy? Are amps the thing to look at? Voltage? Watts ?

Here's my recommendation, the ENERMAX EG851AX-VH(W) FM EPS12V 660W. I've got this psu running a dual opty with 6 drives, 2 cdroms, gpu, 3ware raid, 3case fans, etc...nary a stutter, burp, or fart from it....voltages are stable, 4-12v rails, plenty of amps on each leg for whatever you need.

I learned long ago that one component not to cheap out on is the psu...I can appreciate getting the discount from Best Buy, but I've returned more parts I've bought from them than I've kept...PC Power & Cooling are really nice, but way overpriced all things considered, the Enermax suggested above would suit your needs...

Good luck!

 

[tmgcomp]

Wow! Its 235.00! Jesus! Naaa that is a little rich for my blood. I was looking at a PSU for 177.00 and i felt bad. Not sure what I am going to do. I am going to unplug some of the drives tonight and then see if it boots at full athlon xp 3000. That will tell me alot....either PSU or Chip. I am hoping its the PSU, socket A chips are more expensive now!

 

[pengwin]

here u go if that too rich for ur blood u'll be haopoy with these, all have quad 12v rails

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCompare.asp?SubCategory=58&CompareItemList=N82E16817104015%2CN82E16817104014%2CN82E16817104018

 

[michaelahess]

Sorry pengwin but that's overkill, try this, much cheaper and very solid, I've used a couple in my brother's computers cause he's cheap

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182018

You don't need quad rails for an application like this, it's crazy talk.

edit: typo on newegg, 12v rail 1 is 14amp and 12v rail 2 is 15amp not 5amp

 

[tmgcomp]

What is Quad 14v rails anyway??? LOL Sorry guys my power supply knowledge is very limited! I am curious.

 

[michaelahess]

4 independent rails in the ps, this allows you to put one vid card on one rail, the 2nd vid card on second rail, and all other 12v stuff (hd's, opticals, etc) on the third rail, while the rest of the system uses the 4th rail.

Keeps amperage more manageable for high end systems. ABSOLUTELY NOT NEEDED for what you are doing. The dual rail I just suggested is overkill too, but you will feel better knowing all your hd's are on one rail and the 3000 is on the other

 

[doolittle]

Model - Dynex Dx-ps500w

it seems like it should handle it, but I would not trust that brand to have honest power ratings...

Can she return it and exchange it for the Antec TruePower 2.0 480 it appears to be $136 and if she get's a 40% discount at least it should bring it down to "normal" prices... This way you at least have a decent unit and aren't stuck w/ the cheezey "dynex" brand PSU - that is a lot of $ to be lost 🙁

 

[ZOldDude]

Hello,

I need some help. I have been building systems for several years and decided to build a file server for myself and my friends. I used an athlon xp 300 400fsb i had lying around and a nforce 2 board i had. I have a raid array ide with 4 drives. I have 2 drive also on 1 of the ide channel. I also have a dvd burner and a fx5200 graphics card. I have a generic 500 watt power supply from bestbuy. The computer will not boot at fill athlon xp 3000 speed. I have to lower the fsb to 175 to get it to boot. All my tests tell me the power supply is just maxed out. Does anyone have any recommendations on what I should buy? Are amps the thing to look at? Voltage? Watts ?

HD's use an average of 16 Watts after they spin up to speed...untill then they use about 48-50 Watts.

If you system will not run full fsb and your "cheep" PSU is 3 years old then the time has come to replace it.
The best investment you can make is to use a REAL PSU.
PSU's are almost always rated at an inside temp of 25C...unless you live in Alaska these power ratings are a joke.

As the temps go up the real power out goes down.
You should never feel HOT air comming out of your PSU.

PC Power & Cooling are rated at 50C,warrenty is 5 years and they will replace all caps if you send the unit to them for a low price.

Z

 

[ZOldDude]

Hello,

I need some help. I have been building systems for several years and decided to build a file server for myself and my friends. I used an athlon xp 300 400fsb i had lying around and a nforce 2 board i had. I have a raid array ide with 4 drives. I have 2 drive also on 1 of the ide channel. I also have a dvd burner and a fx5200 graphics card. I have a generic 500 watt power supply from bestbuy. The computer will not boot at fill athlon xp 3000 speed. I have to lower the fsb to 175 to get it to boot. All my tests tell me the power supply is just maxed out. Does anyone have any recommendations on what I should buy? Are amps the thing to look at? Voltage? Watts ?

HD's use an average of 16 Watts after they spin up to speed...untill then they use about 48-50 Watts.

If you system will not run full fsb and your "cheep" PSU is 3 years old then the time has come to replace it.
The best investment you can make is to use a REAL PSU.
PSU's are almost always rated at an inside temp of 25C...unless you live in Alaska these power ratings are a joke.

As the temps go up the real power out goes down.
You should never feel HOT air comming out of your PSU.

PC Power & Cooling are rated at 50C,warrenty is 5 years and they will replace all caps if you send the unit to them for a low price.

Z

 

[tmgcomp]

I am going to try and take off all the drives and see what happens. This way I know for sure its the power supply. I will update you all tonight.

As for dynex, believe it or not they are not as bad as one would think. TO give you example, there blank dvd's are actually Ricoh lol. So I figured I would give it a shot. Well I will know tonight. At this point I am hoping its the power supply. I don't want to buy another athlon xp cpu they are not cheap at all.

 

[clue69less]

Good 300's really can run alot, maybe everyone is just afraid to try with everyone saying "you need 450" or "get a 700 watter" or maybe they don't make good ones anymore

I think that there still are good 300 watt power supplies out there, just like there are lousy 500 watters. It's interesting to look at test data and how different sellers rate their product. All 300 watt power supplies are not created equal. A unit that can survive a big startup draw and operating at a relatively high temp will handle a loaded-up PC with just 300 watts. OTOH, after pushing things too far and getting burned, I've gone the way of providing huge overhead. The additional cost isn't that significant in the big picture. Even the ~$450 PCP&C is not extravagant for some rigs in my opinion. (I don't have one nor plans to build something that would justify one)

 

[clue69less]

TO give you example, there blank dvd's are actually Ricoh lol.

Not sure what you're getting at but over the years, Ricoh has produced exceptional quality goods. Not sure if they still are but around a decade ago, Ricoh was the high quality optical supplier to Sony's premium lines.

 

[clue69less]

HD's use an average of 16 Watts after they spin up to speed...untill then they use about 48-50 Watts.

Our work group had a server maybe 10 years ago that typically ran 24/7 but if you had to restart, it sequentially spun up each drive and the controller software allowed the operator to set up the conditions. I haven't even looked to see if that capability exists in XP???

The best investment you can make is to use a REAL PSU.

Yer talking my language there.

PSU's are almost always rated at an inside temp of 25C...unless you live in Alaska these power ratings are a joke.

You bet. Some makers are considerably more conservative in their wattage/current ratings than others, in part to be certain their unit can deliver in real world conditions. It's worth it to go look at nuts and bolts reviews. Having a PC bite it, like losing the mobo and CPU, for instance, just because your PS puked, is something that you'll remember a while. Trust me on this ye doubters out there (not you ZODude).

 

[michaelahess]

Lots of scsi rigs spin up sequantially (it's acutally a jumperable setting), all of mine do, as do the servers I maintain. Many bios's let you specify startup delays, usually for all HD's not individually, but that can reduce the strain by allowing all other components to level out then startup the disks.

 

[clue69less]

Lots of scsi rigs spin up sequantially (it's acutally a jumperable setting), all of mine do, as do the servers I maintain. Many bios's let you specify startup delays, usually for all HD's not individually, but that can reduce the strain by allowing all other components to level out then startup the disks.

Thanks for that info. I'll check the bios on my video box since it has a bunch of drives. I don't recall seeing it there, but I wasn't looking. I woulda swore our work group server set up the drive spinups in software for their PCI board.

 

[Pain]

If it was setup in software then it wrote it back to the firmware on the controller, because all that takes place before the OS is loaded, obviously. I haven't noticed if my SATA raid controllers do it, but all the scsi's that I have do.

 

[clue69less]

If it was setup in software then it wrote it back to the firmware on the controller, because all that takes place before the OS is loaded, obviously. I haven't noticed if my SATA raid controllers do it, but all the scsi's that I have do.

I believe you are correct.

 

[tmgcomp]

Update: Well i am on right now under FULL athlon xp 3000 FSB is at 200 or 400 quad pumped however you want to say it. SO now it looks like it is the power supply. I disco'd the dvd-rom and 1 hard drive! So lets run Prime 95 all day and see what happens!