Is it possible to rund two HP micro servers off ONE standard ATX PSU? Am thinking about it. have the PSU external and use the 24 pin in one. Then get a pico 120 watt PSU in the other and power it from one of the 12v lanes. I would need a PSU with two or more lanes for stability right? This in theory should be: A) More effiecent B) Less noisy if you get a good PSU So is this insanity or does it make any sense? quick raid question: If I use raid 1+0 or raid 10 and I install 4 2TB drives I would have only 2TB useable space right? Where as if I use just raid 1 I would have 4TB usable space. IS this correct? Note: At this point this is all theory.
Why not just use a pico psu with external (laptop style) power brick for each? As you say they go up to 120watts which should be enough. I have never seen one of these microservers pull more than 60watts, and that was under full load on the cpu and 4 (or 5) hard drives, no graphics card though.
Not overly sure about the PSU question, I'm guessing it could work if you had enough amperage on your 12V rails to cover it all. As for RAID, raid 1 is the mirror, raid 0 is striping. You'd be better off with 0+1 as you could stripe 2 for the added performance, then mirror to the other 2. I think that'd work anyway.
Erm, I believe my microserver is specced with a 200W power supply, both the supply and single installed fan are very quiet. I have not really studied the power connections but I cannot see the point of going down this route. I believe RAID 1+ 0 or RAID 10 is 2 RAID 0 stripes which are mirrored. Using 2TB drives you would have 2 4TB RAID 0 stripes mirrored for a total of 4TB total. On a single disk failure the array will retain integrity, however the system will be under great risk until the array is rebuilt as a second failure on the other stripe would lead to array failure and data loss. I do not think the microserver supports RAID 10 natively. RAID 1 is mirrored only, 2TB disks all mirrored would have a total storage of 2TB however all 4 disks would have to fail before data is lost. If you had 2 RAID 1 arrays, each made of 2 2TB disks, total storage would be 4TB, you could lose a disk in each array with no data loss, if you lost both in an array you would lose the data on that array.
Those externals are not rated for efficiency and mostly one central power unit is more efficient then two smaller ones.
The efficiency difference is going to be relatively minor, especially when we consider how low the power draw from the system is. Most if not all well known brand power supplies start at around 300watts, so you would essentially be doubling the power available (standard psu is 150w) and doubling the power draw, compared to 1 machine in a standard configuration, thus not actually moving the power draw into a more efficient range (40-60% for as much of the time as possible without stressing or under using the psu) Also I would be a lot more concerned about the fact your have put the fate of 2 machines in 1 power supplies hands. It is interesting, or maybe ironic that you are looking to add such redundancy to your data, but the things which are storing the data, you are effectively doubling the chances (if not chances, then the impact) of failure
Good points all around. As I said atm it is all theory. I will get one and if I can stretch the money ill get two there are some really good deals going atm. I need to read more on raid 1 vs raid 1+0. if any one has some good links please share
decided to due the Smart thing and get one now and when I need an other then get one more. Thanks for the info guys.
So from what I can find the HP Micro server doesn't support reaid 1+0 or "raid 10." Now I have seen some great mods done to this server. Could some one suggest an inexspensive raid card (SAS connector type) that supports raid 10 and doesnt kill the bank account?
