PSU recommendation for SOHO fileserver/NAS box

[domiel]

Hi

I'm putting together a SOHO fileserver with some new parts I've purchased and some parts I'm recycling, currently it's using a socket 939 athlon64 but the final state of the box will be something like:

dual socket motherboard (undecided between xeon's & opteron's yet)
1x Optical drive (burner)
1x fixed HDD for booting
16x hotswap sata trays
1x 16 port lsilogic sas controller
1x pci-e video (it's a fileserver so I don't need anything fancy, currently using a nVidia6200)
1x pci-e dual port infiniband or 10gig ethernet (when they get a little cheaper)
2x pci-e digital tv tuner/capture cards

I don't need a redundant PSU.

According to the antec power calculator (http://www.extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp) I'll need something that provides 900W-1000W (depending upon amd or intel)

According to the case manufacturer (chenbro) the recommended PSU is a Zippy Unit (http://www.zippy.com/P_PRODUCT_DETAIL.asp?pp_rfnbr=1318&pp_code=M1Z3-6760P3V) which is only 760W.
So which is correct?

The chassis I'm using requires 8x molex connectors for the hotswap trays and I'll need two more for the optical + boot drive, so a minimum of 10 molex connectors:

It seems that the only PSU's that match the above are:

Antec TruePower Quattro 1000W ATX & EPS (only 9 molex's but I could use sata for the boot drive)

COOLER MASTER REAL POWER M1000W QSLI

Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W

It seems like the Enermax would be the best pick as it has 12 molex's and comes higher up jonny's list in hist posting about PSU's for high end gaming rigs (http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103), but the updated review (http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&file=print&reid=15) doesn't sound so promising.

Which one should I choose (or is there another readily available unit that I've missed. ie. models available in Australia)

Any input would really be appreciated.

***edit***
After doing some more digging I've found that the only PSU that has 10+ Molex connectors that also has 2 8-pin 12V EPS connectors is the Enermax unit (prob. need 2x 8-pin EPS if I go the dual xeon route)

Jonny; do the follow-up comments you made on the review negate the "tier 2" recommendation you make in the "PSU Recommendations for High End Gaming PC's" post I linked above?

***edit2***
I notice that Enermax seems to have two different variations now, one for SLI and one for crossfire, and the original model that you reviewed (EGA1000EWL) doesn't seem to even exist on the enermax website anymore....what's the difference between these three?

[domiel]

Bump!

Please someone add their $0.02 worth here....I'm really not sure what to buy, but I need to do it soon.

To summarise....

1) Would the 760W that chenbro recommend really be enough for a dual-proc box and 18 spindles.

2) Jonny, you recommend the Enermax Galaxy in one place, yet state it has problems in another....please clarify this.

[Zap]

Dual procs is a whole lotta CPU power for a NAS/fileserver. You gonna fold with it or something?

You may want to check specs on the SAS drives you'll end up using. Regular SATA drives use up to 15W. Peak would be spinup. If you can do staggered spinup, then power requirements would be lower. Anyways, figure out how much power each drive needs, the power of the processors, and add an extra 50W for misc stuff.

[domiel]

Yes Dual Proc's seems like a lot for a fileserver but I want to leave myself some headroom; I plan on running some form of encryption on the volumes.

Long term I'm either going to leave it single socket and chain a second box (with dual sockets) via infiniband or 10gig ether and use that box as a virtualisation platform (Xen) or go dual socket on the NAS and use the one box for both storage and virtualisation, hence the large CPU budget.

As for drive power usage I did consider that...and I would be guessing that the Antec power calculator is probably correct, but even if I factor in a single socket with 18 spindles the calculator is still showing about 740W, not a lot of headroom in the chenbro recommended PSU (the zippy unit) so I guess I'm not 100% confident that the calculator is being reasonable in its' assumptions.

[Per Hansson]

http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php

You can sort by both 5v and 12v power consumption

[domiel]

Per, thanks - unfortunately that link doesn't seem to have anything wrt power consumption, perhaps it's my browser (safari) that's at fault :(.

In any case my final power budget is a bit of an unknown so I'm going to go for at least 1000W.

So the only question that remains for me is if Jonny could resolve the apparent contradiction in his review of the Enermax Galaxy with the comments he made about it being a "tier 2" unit. (note that I'm not saying Jonny contradicted himself, it's just my brain can't seem to correlate the two)

On that topic; if anyone knows the difference between the unit Jonny reviewed (EGA1000EWL, no longer on the Enermax website) and the two units they sell under the same model name; Galaxy SLI, Galaxy Crossfire. Please, please, please let me know. Perhaps (fingers crossed) they have fixed the ripple problems?

The sad thing is that the Ultra X3 would also seem to be a good fit, but it's not available in Australia (none of the resellers that Ultra provide on their site carry ultra PSUs - I think ultra haven't updated their list in quite a while :( )

[sdbardwick]

Perhaps this is what Per had in mind: Storage Review Database (http://www.storagereview.com/Testbed4Compare.sr)

[Per Hansson]

sdbardwick; ya, that's the one

Dunno where my link came from....
Too many beers I guess :D

[domiel]

Unfortunately none of the drives I own are on that list :-(

I do have the vendor supplied maximum current draw during operation, though not the current draw for spin-up. That's OK as I can stagger the spin-up's anyway.

So whilst I appreciate your efforts (and hopefully someone else searching the forums in 6 months will also :-) ), what I really need to know is an answer to my earlier questions about the Enermax as it seems to be the only PSU that will fit the bill that's readily available to me here in Australia.