Want an opinion on power saving for my machine

[MaxBurn]

Here is the vitals on the computer I am using as a file/web/ftp server:

P4 3.0C Northwood
Supermicro P4SCT
Matrox G400 max
PCP&C TURBO-COOL 510w
3ware 7500-8
Four Samsung SP1614N - Archive
Two WD600LB - OS
One WD800JB - Scratch drive
Liteon CDRW
Sony DVDRW

Calculator says 363/384 (80%/100%) watts.

At first I throwing around the NAS device idea, but threw that out in favor of flexibility. Then I was going to do a complete overhaul on the server with a A64 CPU to gain Cool N Quiet for its power saving (not a lot of CPU load on this machine) but after my less than stellar experience with my gaming computer I decided I will keep my current setup as it has been absolutely trouble free.

Now I am thinking of keeping it simple and drastically reducing the number of hard drives in the server. If I use the on board Adaptec/Intel RAID I could easily move everything that's on the OS and Archive volumes on to a pair of mirrored 500gb drives. Say 10gb partition for the OS and the rest for the archive which would leave me with a little more space than I have now. New configuration would look like this:

P4 3.0C Northwood
Supermicro P4SCT
Matrox G400 max
PCP&C TURBO-COOL 510w
Two Seagate ST3500641AS - OS/Archive
One Samsung SP1614N - Scratch drive
Sony DVDRW - deleted CDRW, don't need both

Calculator says 258/279 (80%/100%) watts.


Your opinions please:
-Think I am crazy, is it worth it?
-Move to a smaller power supply as well with a better efficiency and the listed 70% of the PCP&C unit?

 

[LunarMist]

Have you actually measured the power consumption? I tested a system a few years ago and the actual watts were much less than the values obtained from the online calculator. How many years will it take to recoup the costs of hardwawre upgrades, not to mention your time?

 

[Bozo]

If it's a file server, why a scratch drive??

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[CougTek]

Read this article, it should help you. There's no way your current system draws 350W. According to SR's benchmarks, each of your SP1614 suck 7.7W when iddle and peak at 10.2W. Your two Western Digital, while they haven't been measured, should also consume around 7W iddle, 10W while seeking. So let's say that your 7 drives add a maximum of 70W when they are all active. The rest of your system is similar in power to SilentPCReview's 2.8GHz s478 Pentium 4. That computer only had one hard drive (a Seagate 40GB Barracuda), a slower processor but a more powerful graphic card (Radeon 9600XT). Well, their system sucked a meager 38W when iddle and topped at 96W when the CPU load was at 100%. Add max 15W each for your two optical drives, another 15W for your 3Ware controller and 60W for your 6 additional hard drives compared to the single one they've used and you end up with an absolute maximum power draw of ...201W. And that's only if you succeed in stressing ALL of your components, a situation I can't think how can happen.

So forget that 350W crap. Your box will never top 200W. I'd even be surprised if you reach 175W.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm agreeing with Lunar and Coug on this one, your power draw is much less than that. Considering you can get an AntecNEO HE power supply (80%+ efficiency) and a power meter to get a better idea of your consumption for less than one of the drives.

 

[MaxBurn]

The scratch drive is for doing video editing and other stuff that uses a lot of space.

Very interesting, I will give that article a read. I have an AC clamp some where so in the interests of science I could butcher an electrical cord and see what the thing draws. My UPS says it's drawing three amps.

Thanks for the reality check, I will probably not do anything and stop worrying about it.

 

[P5-133XL]

Just as an incidental P=VI = (120V) (3A) = 360W and that is well within the 510W PS you have (Which is a very high quality unit).

Also, there is some reliability gains by picking mirrored 500GB drives over multiple smaller drives. But, without some indication of a problem, there is nothing to worry over either.