On Friday 29 July 2005 14:58, Chris Frederick wrote: > Hi all, > > I run a gentoo server in my basement that I use for backing up my DVD > collection and nfs mounting it to a MythTV box. I'm getting to the > point that my disk space is going to be an issue soon, but the case I > have won't hold another drive. So I checked out a few cases and found a > Yeong Yang YY-0221 Cube Server Case. This thing can hold 13 drives, > plus my dvd-burner. > > This sounds really cool, and would last me for a very long time, but how > would I power all that on a single ATX Power Supply? > > The server is a dual Xeon, and needs a special power supply (24pin +8pin > connectors), and currently has a 550W unit. It's running 5 drives plus > a dvd burner. > > I know you can buy some Y adapters for the HD power cables, but isn't > there a limit to how many you can hook up, and how can you figure what > it is? There's really no limit on how many you can physically hook up, it's just the power supply that has the problems. Finding out the maximum power is definitely a complicated thing to look into. I have a 550W (a cheap 550W) that was flaking at less 300W load - the temperature was the kicker - the heat exhaust from the CPU was blowing right into the power supply - all I had to do was move the heat exhaust and my power problems went away. Lots of power supplies (like mine) claim 550W, but it's 550W at some rediculously cold temperature, not room temperature or higher. So off the bat you could easily take 33% off of the claimed rating (unless it's a 'TruePower', which I think they measure at room temperature), because you're not going to get any higher unless you're running the thing in a meat freezer. You have to measure devices by the voltage rails - look up your power supply's ratings on each rail, like: 15A - 5V 10A - 12V and after subtracting your motherboard's power (probably in the manual) from the total, subtract for each device for each rail. Dave Carlson