Jump to content

300W PSU for 6 Drives?


gamehead200

Recommended Posts

Hey everyone,

Right now I have 6 drives connected to a 300W PSU. The drives are as follows:

hda: Maxtor 91024D4 (Capacity: 9.54 GB)

hdb: WDC AC310200R (Capacity: 9.56 GB)

hdc: Maxtor 91531U3 (Capacity: 14.31 GB)

hdd: Maxtor 91361U3 (Capacity: 12.68 GB)

hde: WDC AC26400B (Capacity: 6.01 GB)

hdf: WDC AC310200R (Capacity: 9.56 GB)

All of the drives, except for hda, run at 5400RPM. hda runs at 7200RPM.

My question to you is this: Am I over-stressing my PSU by having all these drives plus the motherboard and 2 PCI cards connected to it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Unless you are running these on an old AMD K6-2 processor... then YES. I am supprised u haven't fried the thing yet.

If it is a 300W TruePower or PurePower... then you might stand a chance. but if you have a newer processor.. like an Intel P4 or AMD XP chip or above... your system is underpowered

Edited by twig123
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unless you are running these on an old AMD K6-2 processor... then YES.

I am! :P Debian's telling me the processor's an AMD-K6 3D processor, but when I boot up, it clearly says AMD K6-2. It runs at 550MHz and it's equipped with 256MB of SDRAM! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That being said - you're fine. My basic system at home:

PIII 700MHz

3x512MB PC133

40GB Seagate Barracuda

8x CD-RW

32MB GeforceII MX200

USB 2.0 PCI Card

Some random PCI audio card

Draws 63W out of the wall at full load. That means that the system draw is more like 45-50W. If you consider maybe 10W per drive, you'll still have plenty of power left to spare.

People often overestimate the amount of power required for a system. My very first computer - a Dell Dimension 4600C - was a P4 1.8GHz, with one hard drive and one optical drive, and the whole thing ran off a 200W PSU. I miss that system... it was actually very nice...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hard drives take about 10W each. Not sure about your processor, but the two together couldn't possibly take more than 100W load. Even if your PSU works at 50% efficiency, you still have enough juice to stably run that computer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hard drives take about 10W each. Not sure about your processor, but the two together couldn't possibly take more than 100W load. Even if your PSU works at 50% efficiency, you still have enough juice to stably run that computer.

Now comes the question... Can it handle another two drives? :blushing:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I once ran a Dual PIII 450 system with six 7200RPM drives on a 300W PSU. It eventually blew, but it took two years and the system was being leaned on at the time it went...we were in the middle of a LAN party with it hosting the games! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not a matter of wattage when idle or seeking. It's a matter of current @ spin up (just like for any electrical motor being used for any purpose, start current is always the problem). When you get so many drives on a single PSU, you eventually want staggered spin up, or dual PSUs (or at least a decently powerful one - especially the 12v bus). Check how much the 12v bus can handle (and if it's an older PSU, then don't count on it being as good as the specs say, due to capacitor aging and such, and no-name PSUs aren't usually too good either) Just don't be surprised when it gives up when rebooting one day (especially if you try with 8 drives).

But personally, I'd ditch any drives so small. All they do is waste electricity IMO (usually pretty slow too, and not always very reliable). Anything under 200GB has long been re-purposed as a backup device, or "large floppy" of some sort (smallest being 60GB).

You may not realize how much power (hence money) it's wasting (perhaps you're not the one paying the electricity bill? yet?) 100w worth of drives (should be in that ball park for 8 drives), 24h/day, 365 days/year, @ 0.10$/KWh (a pretty reasonable rate) and ~15% tax on top, costs ~100$ a year in electricity -- for what amounts to 18$ worth of storage in the first place (~60GB total * ~0.30$/GB)

When you think of it, you could throw all these HDs straight to the garbage (perhaps the best place for 'em to be -- or perhaps recycling), and buy a newer/better/more reliable/faster/bigger HD for essentially nothing. The savings in electricity (going with a single drive) would pay for it, e.g. a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS 5Yr Warranty is 80$ (everyday's price, rebates/specials can make a even better deal) - nearly 3x the space. And all kinds of bonuses, like less heat in the case, less noise (especially if there's any temp sensitive fans in there), not needing such a large case, more space left for expansion, etc. And won't kill the PSU with spin up current (one less future expense)

In short, I see no reason to keep the old drives in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not a matter of wattage when idle or seeking. It's a matter of current @ spin up (just like for any electrical motor being used for any purpose, start current is always the problem). When you get so many drives on a single PSU, you eventually want staggered spin up, or dual PSUs (or at least a decently powerful one - especially the 12v bus). Check how much the 12v bus can handle (and if it's an older PSU, then don't count on it being as good as the specs say, due to capacitor aging and such, and no-name PSUs aren't usually too good either) Just don't be surprised when it gives up when rebooting one day (especially if you try with 8 drives).

But personally, I'd ditch any drives so small. All they do is waste electricity IMO (usually pretty slow too, and not always very reliable). Anything under 200GB has long been re-purposed as a backup device, or "large floppy" of some sort (smallest being 60GB).

You may not realize how much power (hence money) it's wasting (perhaps you're not the one paying the electricity bill? yet?) 100w worth of drives (should be in that ball park for 8 drives), 24h/day, 365 days/year, @ 0.10$/KWh (a pretty reasonable rate) and ~15% tax on top, costs ~100$ a year in electricity -- for what amounts to 18$ worth of storage in the first place (~60GB total * ~0.30$/GB)

When you think of it, you could throw all these HDs straight to the garbage (perhaps the best place for 'em to be -- or perhaps recycling), and buy a newer/better/more reliable/faster/bigger HD for essentially nothing. The savings in electricity (going with a single drive) would pay for it, e.g. a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS 5Yr Warranty is 80$ (everyday's price, rebates/specials can make a even better deal) - nearly 3x the space. And all kinds of bonuses, like less heat in the case, less noise (especially if there's any temp sensitive fans in there), not needing such a large case, more space left for expansion, etc. And won't kill the PSU with spin up current (one less future expense)

In short, I see no reason to keep the old drives in the first place.

crahak, you are absolutely right. The only reason I have these hard drives working is because I wanted to put them to use. They were just sitting on my desk collecting dust. I had an extra computer lying around, so I figured, what the heck! Pop Linux on there and RAID them together. However, I haven't really had the chance to check if my BIOS would support disks larger than 137GB, so that will have to be done in the next while. I might just pick up one or two of these tomorrow since they're on sale: http://www.futureshop.ca/marketing/sale_th...=&langid=EN

Link to comment
Share on other sites

e.g. a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS 5Yr Warranty is 80$

NewEgg has the Seagate 7200.10 (perpendicular recording) 250GB/16MB cache drives for $80 plus shipping...just so you know :)

PATA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148143

SATA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148144

Edited by nmX.Memnoch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

e.g. a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS 5Yr Warranty is 80$

NewEgg has the Seagate 7200.10 (perpendicular recording) 250GB/16MB cache drives for $80 plus shipping...just so you know :)

We're talking CDN $ here, and very cheap shipping from (and to) Canada (like 8$ overnight, I can order around 11pm and have it at my doorsteps across Canada by 8am!) 80$ USD (93$CDN) is actually more expensive than what gamehead200 linked to (same drives), which are available locally (no shipping). Personally, the smallest I'd buy is a 320GB (109$CDN or 93$USD), but even then the last batch I bought were 400GB ones (don't want to pay much per GB, but don't want to fill the ports with too many small HDs). With newegg, we'd have to pay super expensive international shipping, customs clearance (pretty annoying to deal with) and all that, and RMA shipping (should anything happen) is international shipping too... I prefer to support local business (especially when they're cheaper!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got the BIOS ID off of the computer, but haven't been able to come up with any useful information as to what maximum capacity my "server's" BIOS supports. If it doesn't support drives larger than 137GB, I always have that PCI IDE card that I just installed in it that should work.

Here is the string: 08/21/1999-VP4-686A-2A5LHM49C-00

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...