• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Small Form Factor Server

W1zzard

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
27,693 (3.70/day)
Processor Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory 48 GB
Video Card(s) RTX 4080
Storage 2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s) 30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software Windows 10 64-bit
Board: AAEON PCM-5896
CPU: AMD K6-2-400 @ 450
Memory: 128 MB SDRAM
Storage: IBM 20GB 2.5" HDD (IDE RAID planned)
PSU: Fortron Sparkle FSP400-60PN
OS: Linux, Fedora Core 3


The CPU fan connected to 5V from the MOSFET's leg - very quiet and cool enough.


HDD is just taped on top of the mobo.


Network plug unsoldered from the mobo and put on a cable (yes i know, no shielding). But it's only 100mbit.




Nice coincidence that two mounting holes of the PSU PCB align with the mobo's mounting holes.



A third hole doesn't align, but it's close, so I used a more "flexible" method of attaching :)


Whole system up and running.
 
Last edited:

W1zzard

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
27,693 (3.70/day)
Processor Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory 48 GB
Video Card(s) RTX 4080
Storage 2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s) 30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software Windows 10 64-bit
RAID controller i'm looking at is HighPoint RocketRAID 464.



8 IDE Disks, RAID 5, Low Profile

BUT not available here in germany yet :(
 

Bastieeeh

New Member
Joined
May 31, 2004
Messages
459 (0.06/day)
Location
Germany
Processor Dual Xeon 2.8GHz
Motherboard Asus PCH-DL
Cooling Alphacool NexXxoS XP and Dual Laing
Memory 4GB Samsung
Video Card(s) Sapphire X800XT
Storage 8x Hitachi 7K250 Raid 5 and 2x WD Raptor74GB Raid 0
Display(s) Eizo 21" FlexScan T966 CRT and S1910 LCD
Case Lian Li PC-V2100B
Audio Device(s) Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS
Power Supply Tagan 480W TG480-U01
Nice work so far. But with all you "customization" it seems a little fragile and sort of "unstable". Where is the cardboard box where all this will be stored in? ;-)

The vrm's are known to get very hot especially with the cpu overclocked. How about yours?
 

wazzledoozle

New Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
5,358 (0.73/day)
Location
Seattle
Processor X2 3800+ @ 2.3 GHz
Motherboard DFI Lanparty SLI-DR
Cooling Zalman CNPS 9500 LED
Memory 2x1 Gb OCZ Plat. @ 3-3-2-8-1t 460 MHz
Video Card(s) HIS IceQ 4670 512Mb
Storage 640Gb & 160Gb western digital sata drives
Display(s) Hanns G 19" widescreen LCD w/ DVI 5ms
Case Thermaltake Soprano
Audio Device(s) Audigy 2 softmod@Audigy 4, Logitech X-530 5:1
Power Supply Coolermaster eXtreme Power Plus 500w
Software XP Pro
Why not use a small form factor PSU? Or is this a parts-from-your-closet only project :D
Looks good so far.
Also, I dont quite understand what you did with teh CPU fans power cable. What is that third cable, temp probe?
 
Last edited:

W1zzard

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
27,693 (3.70/day)
Processor Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory 48 GB
Video Card(s) RTX 4080
Storage 2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s) 30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software Windows 10 64-bit
basti: its kind of an experimental setup so i can get the whole concept together .. after that be assured that proper soldering/connecting/insulation will be done

wazzle: the psu has a footprint of a 3.5" hdd and its height also matches this project pretty good .. the 1u server psu i have doesnt fit as good .. for using a tiny 200w mini psu .. well this might have to power 8 hdds + i dont feel like spending money .. total cost of project so far 0.00 :)
 

ReconCX

New Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2004
Messages
400 (0.05/day)
Location
California
Processor AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard ASUS Crosshair V Formula
Memory G.SKILL Ripjaws 16GB (4x4GB) 1600 DDR3
Video Card(s) NVIDIA GTX 480
Storage Intel 330 Series 180GB SSD x2
Display(s) ASUS VH242H 23.6"
Case COOLER MASTER Storm Trooper
Power Supply COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700W
Software Microsoft® Windows 8 Professional
well, for those that are willing to spend some money...

use a 2.5 half-height laptop hdd and if you really want power, get a centrino mobo, not sure if it's out yet, but they definately exist. then you can cut the size of heatsink as well =)

Since apple has proven this can be done with their mac mini (i'm so gonna get one soon!), i don't see why it can't be done with a PC.

P.S. love your duct tape. it's good for everything! that and wd40.
 

rchandler42

New Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Messages
1 (0.00/day)
More on Highpoint 464

Hey guys.

The Highpoint RAID card seems to be fairly good. I've purchased one and use it in a server to provide RAID 5 on 4 200 GB Maxtor drives. However, I was forced to run Fedora CORE 1 in order to compile the opensource driver Highpoint provides. While their Makefile seems to support 2.6 kernels - like Fedora Core 3 - I could only to get it to compile with a bunch of gymnastics that left me uncomfortable that I had a robust solution. A more skilled linux guru could likely solve some of the issues without jumping through the hoops that I did.

On top of that, you should be aware that the opensource code does not yet support the onboard XOR engine on the 464 card. You basically end up using your board as a 454 and use your CPU to support RAID. On my Sempron 2400 machine that often results in about 10 to 15% CPU being used to support the 464 during disk intensive activities. When I use the Highpoint GUI to verify the RAID 5 array, the CPU usage goes to 100%.

In any event, the Core 1 scenario is acceptable to me for the moment until such time as Highpoint produces full opensource and kernel 2.6 support for the 464. I've installed both Core 1 and Core 3 on the same machine and will use Core 1 as my production machine and keep tinkering with Core 3. By the way, Highpoint support - while fairly responsive - hasn't committed on the availability and/or timing of a 464 opensource driver.

The other issue I've found on Fedora Core 3 is that it seems to have issues with multiple drives on 33 mhz PCI buses. You may find your message log file filling up with various dma error messages. Sadly their is a lot of conflicting information on the web about what the issue may be. That certainly was the case when I used two Silicon Image PCI IDE controller cards and ran Linux Software RAID. For the most part, that problem seems to disappear with the Highpoint card on Core 3. I've done very little checking so far though.

Good luck!
 
Joined
Feb 16, 2005
Messages
599 (0.08/day)
Location
Germany,Hannover
System Name ChaosMoes
Processor Intel® Core™ i5-3570K no OC yet
Motherboard Asrock Z77 Extreme4
Cooling Scythe Ninja 3 Rev. B
Memory 16GB 2xPatriot DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1866 Kit (PV38G186C9KRD, Viper 3 Venom Red)
Video Card(s) ASRock Radeon RX 590 Phantom Gaming X 8GB GDDR5 188€@13.07.19 Amazon Sale
Storage Samsung 840 Pro SSD 256GB, + ST32000645NS Seagate Constellation 109€ reichelt.de 2012
Display(s) 27" Phillips PHL 276E9Q 189€ @ Saturn(Germany) 1.09.2018
Case Zaria A20 !!!THANK YOU TECHPOWERUP.COM!!!
Audio Device(s) onboard Sound
Power Supply SeaSonic Prime Ultra Titanium 750W
Mouse Logitech M705
Keyboard Microsoft SideWinder X4 Keyboard
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Nice work, but looks quite dangerously with these 220V wires fixed with tape.
Stay alife and beware of these HOT Wires :rolleyes:
450 Mhz + 6HDs ?? Performance might be very down (If you keep in mind that you will use these HD over Network)
My experience:
Via Epia Mini itx Board (500Mhz)
20GB 2,5" Notebook HD
ATX PSU 300W
Assembled in an old woodbox for Acid
Today it houses my old Car Radio
I used Suse 8.5 and NXServer from Nomachine
 
Last edited:
Top