New box for server solution

[smarjan]

Hi!
Since putting together some hardware is found to be a part of DIY process (see: 'Building a quiet Mini-ITX Server') I figured out that some people here might use the following information.

MSI has just released AXIS 700 Lite barebone VIA package.
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=Axis_700_Lite&class=npc

It has a low power 1GHz VIA motherboard and I believe is able to accomodate THREE 3,5" HDDs which gives quite a storage space.
What's more, it retails for $200 only.

I am thinking of getting one for myself, when I only visit US in couple months.

[bergek]

It looks (or sounds) like one big benefit of this box is that it is completely silent - apart from any disks you might put into it. Using 3.5" drives will increase the noise level - in my mind too much. I would go for laptop drives - at least for the system drive.

But that's just me.

[florca]

Looks like a really good solution - pretty much the perfect Slimserver? My only worry is whether it has a multi-voltage PSU - no reference to voltage on the spec sheet so may be 100-110V only??

Think I'll wait until a UK version shows up before serious thought.

[mrfantasy]

It looks (or sounds) like one big benefit of this box is that it is completely silent - apart from any disks you might put into it. Using 3.5" drives will increase the noise level - in my mind too much. I would go for laptop drives - at least for the system drive.

But that's just me.

You might do okay with DVR drives or other rated quiet drives, with the acoustic management turned up all the way.

I keep my server away from my Squeezebox anyway--of course I've got a TiVo in the same cabinet, and it's noisier than the SB would be anyway--although with a Seagate DB35 drive it's reasonably quiet.

[Jitterbug]

I run a similiar box with a pair of Samsung Spinpoint 3.5" drives. These are very quiet indeed.

[smarjan]

I have seen some specs stating, that PSU is multivoltage 110-240V which will serve you fine.

Fanless board will ensure rather quiet runnig. What is more important, VIA will ensure low power consumption.

There is one more thing that raises my concern, when considering low power consumption.

I have read somewhere that not all HDD's will go into sleep/standby (or whatever you call it); that included my favourite SpinPont by Samsung, which is a pity (I have 400GB SpinPoint and it is silent comparing to other 3,5" HDDs).
It has been stated that WD drives (I have one - awfull) will go standby though.

What I am after is some solution that would work 24/7 on one of the drives (for instance to be accessed remotely), while two other drives would not be spinning at that time. Those two other would only run when SlimServer needs them.

Has anyone tried such a thing?

[Schindler]

I guess running 8 Squeezeboxes at the same time is possible with this 1GHz CPU/Board???

Christian

@smarjan
Thanks for your next post... I maybe I should write in German, but you would not understand right - so please understand that English is not my everyday language!

Actually I would like to know if this box can handle 8 Squeezeboxes. Or "Ist es möglich an einem solchen Gerät überhaupt z.B. acht Squeezeboxen zu betreiben?"

[smarjan]

I guess running 8 Squeezeboxes at the same time is possible with this 1GHz CPU/Board...

Christian

Christian, does your post bring anything to SS community?

[tamanaco]

Im a bit confused about the size of the box... from the specs I found on that page: 8 Liters, 170mm X 170mm (millimeters)... did they meam cm?... I doubth it.

[nicketynick]

If I remember correctly, 170mm x 170mm is the dimension of the mini-itx motherboard. The chassis dimension in the spec is:
363mm (D) x 300mm (W) x 72mm (H), Ultra Slim, 7.9 liters

[tamanaco]

If I remember correctly, 170mm x 170mm is the dimension of the mini-itx motherboard. The chassis dimension in the spec is:
363mm (D) x 300mm (W) x 72mm (H), Ultra Slim, 7.9 liters

Thanks... I missed the first line of the specs... I guess I'm used to seeing the dimesion specs towards the end of list.

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

First, thanks are in order to smarjan for bringing this box to my attention. I'd been looking for something to use to replace my "backup" server and I was looking for something small and quiet and hadn't been satisfied with what I'd found so far.

I keep all my music and other files on a server in my home office, and I back up those files to a backup system using a nightly rsync process. Up until now I'd been using a full-size ATX system that was annoyingly loud (it has 6 fans in the case) and since I was out of room for computers in my office, it had been living in a corner of my living room (making it doubly annoying).

If I was just going to use the backup system for storing data, I'd probably have just used something like the NSLU2. But my backup system also does some other duties. It runs an icecast2 server to stream the audio from a police/fire scanner and it also has a modem attached so that I get Caller ID info on my Squeezeboxes. So this little system appeared to be just what I needed. It had room for multiple drives (although I only ended up with one), it had two serial ports (for the scanner and modem) and it's small and quiet.

I ordered the unit along with 512MB of RAM from NewEgg ($225 without shipping) late last week and it arrived on Tuesday. I already had a hard drive (320GB Maxtor) and I decided to pull the wireless card from the old backup system to use in the new one.

Opening the case wasn't too difficult, and the instructions were sufficient to the task, although it's obvious that the authors of the manual were not native English speakers. I was pleasantly surprised to find all of the cables already in place inside: two SATA (with locking connectors) and one IDE. The IDE cable was very short and lined up directly with the 5.25" optical drive bay. Since I had a 3.5" IDE HD, I decided to go ahead and use the 3.5" bay. The IDE cable supplied was almost too short for this purpose, but I managed to make it fit. If I were to build one of these again, I'd probably go ahead and use an SATA drive (I only chose IDE because I already had a drive so there was no additional cost).

I decided not to install a CD or DVD drive, since I wouldn't be using one except potentially for OS installation.

I chose to use Debian Etch on this system in an attempt to get a minimum installation (i.e. it was going to be run headless and didn't need Gnome, KDE, etc). I first attempted to install from a USB flash drive, but the system wouldn't boot from it. The boot options in the BIOS allow for USB devices, but don't list USB flash (the options were USB HDD, USB CD, or USB Floppy). So I burned the Debian Netinst ISO to a CD and used an external USB DVD drive.

Installation was fast and painless, with Debian correctly detecting and using all of the hardware. After getting it installed and configured using the built-in ethernet adapter, I shut it down and installed the wireless card (Netgear WG311 PCI) in the one supplied PCI slot. The riser card/assembly has to be taken out to install the card, but it's simple (involves only one screw) and it actually makes installing the card easier (you can install the card in the riser and then put the riser back in; so there's less fumbling with the screw that holds the card than with most "standard" cases I've used).

The new system is up and running and the old one has been relegated to the spare bedroom until I've run the new one for a day or two. The Axis 700 isn't completely silent. It has a fan on the power supply and the hard drive makes a little noise. But it's far, far better than the old system and I wouldn't have a problem with the Axis 700 in my bedroom at night (it's only slightly louder than the Motorola DVR that Verizon supplies). If anything, the big, bright, blue power light on the front would probably bother me more than the sound (it's surprisingly bright).

System performance has been quite good, although I don't think I'm particularly taxing the processor. Just running icecast2 and ices2 the load average stays at about 0.29. I'll probably install Slimserver on it at some point just out of curiosity to see how it performs (my main server is where I run Slimserver right now). But I don't expect any performance problems, given the 1GHz processor and 512MB of memory.

Power usage is as good as I'd expected. The UPS that's attached is capable of 450 Watts and it's currently showing only 3% of load capacity (which is approximately 13.5 Watts).

For those who were interested in the physical size of the unit, I've attached a picture of the Axis 700 next to a paperback book that was conveniently nearby, along with a picture of my old system (with the same book).

[smarjan]

Thanx Aubrey for that great first test! I am happy that my post has been useful to someone!
You seem to be happy with it.
I guess I will too :-) Probably will order one as soon as opportunty comes.

How loud do you find the psu fan in the box? Is it kind of regular psu noise (from any no-name psu or computer case) or some more quiet solution?

[byKnight]

Thanks for the report. I'm almost ready to order one myself. Going to test it with WHS beta as a backup solution and Slimserver host.

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

The sound shares some similarity to that of a standard PSU. There's the sound of moving air (what you might call the "whoosh" noise) that's typical of any kind of fan, and underneath that is a slight whine.

Still, though, it's far quieter than any of the regular PSU's I've had.

Just before I got the Axis 700 Lite, I'd also replaced my main server with a MiniATX model that I was hoping would be quieter. It's not as quiet as I'd hoped, but better than the old one. However, all of these changes got me curious as to the relative measurements, so about a week ago I ordered an (inexpensive) SPL meter on eBay. When it arrives I'll try to get a reading to determine the actual dB output.

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

I forgot to mention this earlier, but I got around to installing Slimserver on this system recently. I'd been in the process of re-ripping all my music to FLAC and I used Slimserver on this box to check out all my tagging and organization before "flipping the switch" to the FLAC library on the primary server.

Anyhow, here's the timing (taken from the log) for a scan of the library on the Axis 700:


2007-03-01 11:32:42.5927 About to look for files in /backup/minilith/data/music/flac
2007-03-01 11:32:42.5965 For files with extensions in: [(?i-xsm:\.(?:ape|wma|shn|wav|wave|mp3|mp2|flc|flac|m4a |mov|m4b|mp4|mp+|mpc|ogg|aif|aiff|cue)$)]
2007-03-01 11:32:55.2989 Found 6411 files in /backup/minilith/data/music/flac
2007-03-01 11:46:48.7582 About to look for files in /backup/minilith/data/music/playlists2
2007-03-01 11:46:48.7624 For files with extensions in: [(?i-xsm:\.(?:asf|wax|asx|lnk|wpl|m3u|pls|xspf|cue)$)]


So it appears to have taken 13 seconds to scan and find the 6411 FLAC files, then another approximately 14 minutes to process them all.

In comparison, my primary server took 6 seconds to scan and find 6411 FLAC files, then another 3 minutes and 15 seconds to process them all.

I suspect the Axis could be made to perform a little better with an SATA 3.0Gbps drive. It's currently running with an ATA/100 drive and the primary server is using SATA. Both are using ext3 (Debian Etch on the Axis and openSUSE 10.2 on the primary). Both are also using Slimserver 6.5.2 (obtained from the Slimserver Debian source around March 1st for the Axis 700 and using the March 2nd nightly RPM on the SUSE primary system).

[Hills]

Hi,
I think you can buy a very similar [looking] box in the Netherlands now, http://www.wifisound.nl.

[anagram]

Well it is in fact based on the Axis 700....

It is sold as a complete solution, with slimserver installed, not as a barebone. Of course you can build it yourself, but a lot of our customers like a out of the box solution.

It works great, we measured 29 Watts in operating mode (scanning the library) and 17 watts when it is in standby mode

Bob (Wifisound.nl)

[nicketynick]

Well it is in fact based on the Axis 700....

It is sold as a complete solution, with slimserver installed, not as a barebone. Of course you can build it yourself, but a lot of our customers like a out of the box solution.

It works great, we measured 29 Watts in operating mode (scanning the library) and 17 watts when it is in standby mode

Bob (Wifisound.nl)

Hi Bob,
I sure hope Wifisound is successful, and others follow suit. I know if there was a similar shop here in Canada I would be a customer - it would be nice to deal with people who have a clue!
(Hmm... I should find myself a techie geek partner.......)

[papaya74]

Hello,

does anybody of you have the RAID 1 mode in Axis 700 lite up & running ?

I would like to setup a server with Debian Etch on the Axis 700 and i am wondering, if you can use the Axis 700 with SATA-RAID 1 & boot Debian Etch of it. Is this a real hardware RAID or fakeraid ?

Does anybody have any experiences with this, also regarding temperature with 2xSATA HD in it ?

@AubreyCTurnerJr: Could you post a 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' here ;-)


Thanks a lot,

Harry

[byKnight]

Does anybody have any experiences with this, also regarding temperature with 2xSATA HD in it ?

Harry

My Axis 700 Lite box has one IDE drive and two SATA drives inside. CPU temp usually ranges 49-52 degrees Centigrade. System temp 40-42 degrees.

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

Here's the output of "cat /proc/cpuinfo":



turnera@scanner2:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : CentaurHauls
cpu family : 6
model : 10
model name : VIA Esther processor 1000MHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 1000.013
cache size : 128 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm nx up pni est tm2 rng rng_en ace ace_en ace2 ace2_en phe phe_en pmm pmm_en
bogomips : 2002.41

[papaya74]

Thanks for the cpuinfos AubreyCTurnerJr !

I just ordered the Axis 700 lite and i will try myself, installing Debian & Co. on an Raid 1. I think, it will be exactly the device i was looking for and that's why i'm very curious ;-)

I will post my results here...

Best Regards,

Harry

[NickP]

Well having read and digested this thread, I've gone and ordered one of these little things.

Added 1GB of PC2-4200 RAM plus a Seagate 750GB SATA drive. (I've already filled up a 320GB USB drive with flacs!)

Hopefully it should arrive tomorrow.

When I get it up and running I'll report back.

I'll be running XP on it! I'd love to run Linux in one of its many guises, but as I'll be using it as general network storage as well, it'll be too much of a learning curve for me at the moment.

Maybe one day!

[NickP]

A quick update!

My Axis 700 Lite arrived safely.

It all it took a couple of hours to get all the bits assembled.

I'd decided to use an old laptop drive for the OS and a Seagate SATA 750GB for storage.

The hard drives sit on top of each other behind the audio jacks so was a bit fiddly get the bottom one in and securing with a very awkwardly placed screw.

The attached IDE cable is ridiculously short and in the end I decided to replace it

a) because it wouldn't reach the laptop drive on the bottom bay and
b) because the USB CDROM I'd borrowed wasn't playing ball.

I had a short round IDE cable which came in handy as I had to "borrow" my Plextor 760 for the installation process.

I formatted the Seagate 750GB using Partition Magic which only took a few seconds, reformatted the laptop drive (it had Tablet XP on) and I was away.

The only unresolved problem was the RAM. I'd ordered 2 x 512MB as per the crucial microsite at dabs.com and found that the motherboard only has one slot!!!

And the one stick of 512 I put in was only recognised as 256MB!

So at the moment, I'm only running on 192MB RAM, because the on board video steals 64MBs.

Still.... Life goes on. New RAM is on the way.

It took around four hours to copy 300GB from an external USB drive to the Seagate and I'm about to put on slimserver/Alien BBC right now so should be up and running in an hour or two!


The box is very quiet compared to the systems I've had. The Seagate is "on the hot side of warm" to the touch, but not unbearably so and chatters away a bit, but the box will always be in another room.

If I spot anything worth reporting - I will!


Best wishes,



Nick.

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

Since I was planning to run headless and didn't need any graphics (I did all the configuration in text mode), I went into the BIOS and reduced the VGA Shared Memory Size. So, if you don't need much video RAM, you can reclaim some of your shared memory by decreasing this setting.

It's under "Advanced Chipset Features" -> "AGP & P2P Bridge Control" -> "VGA Share Memory Size".

Right now, with a 512MB stick, /proc/meminfo shows "499600 kB" for "MemTotal," which seems to work out to about 24MB, which is a strange number. The next time I hook up a monitor and fiddle with the system I'm going to take a look to see if it can be reduced further.

[smarjan]

I finally got my Axis 700 box. Looks neat.
So I went for some more shopping - hdd and memory.

I have put it all together (not the first PC in my hands...) and....! IT DOES NOT START!

Can I ask you all owners for a little assistance?
1) What memory do you have? Please check carefully if it is 533MHz or 400MHz. Mine is 1GB 533.
2) How does the system react when there is no memory, nor hdd connected? Is there anything displayed on the monitor? Mine goes standby as it would receive no signal, the mainboard does long beeps.

[NickP]

Hi,


As I reported above the memory I ordered - Crucial 2 X 512MB CAS Latency CL4 Non-ECC DIMM 240-pin PC2-4200 533 MHz 64 x 64 Unbuffered - wasn't the right one.

The board only has one slot and only 256MB of the one stick I put in is recognised.

So to answer you first question, yes my memory is 533 MHz but not all of it is recognised. Is it something to do with the 64X64 bit? The memory only has components(!) on one side as well!

I've since ordered - DDR2 PC2-4200 • CL=4 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-533 • 1.8V • 128Meg x 64 - which I hope will be the right one!

It's in the post so should have it by Wed/Thurs.


Sorry I can't answer question 2, because mine did boot!

[byKnight]

Can I ask you all owners for a little assistance?
1) What memory do you have? Please check carefully if it is 533MHz or 400MHz. Mine is 1GB 533.


My AXIS 700 Lite is running fine with a 1GB Kingston 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) (Part #KVR533D2N4/1G).

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

I don't think the system will display anything or proceed into POST if there is no memory (hence the beeps).

I'm using a 512MB stick, which is listed at NewEgg as "CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Desktop Memory - Retail" (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145529)

[NickP]

I finally got my Axis 700 box.

I have put it all together (not the first PC in my hands...) and....! IT DOES NOT START!

Can I ask you all owners for a little assistance?
1) What memory do you have? Please check carefully if it is 533MHz or 400MHz. Mine is 1GB 533.



Very strange!

After the RAM debacle as described above, my new RAM arrived today - DDR2 PC2-4200 • CL=4 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-533 • 1.8V • 128Meg x 64 - and the PC does not boot up. No beep, no nothing.

Put the old RAM back in - the 1 stick of 512MB that's only recognised as 256MB - and everything is fine.

All I want is 1 stick of 1GB RAM, surely it can be that hard!!


Something fishy is going on here.

[NickP]

A very helpful guy at Crucial has hopefully sorted it out for me.

The Crucial Memory tool can suggest a two memory stick solution for the Axis 700 Lite!

This is clearly wrong.

The 512MB memory I have (that only registers 256MB) has four blocks on one side - apparently it needs to be "high density" and have eight such blocks.

Similarly, the 1GB stick I received from Crucial this afternoon that doesn't register at all had eight blocks on one side of the RAM and it should have sixteen.

I hope that explains it in layman's terms.

RAM is the only part of a PC that has me completely baffled.

So I'll RMA the old RAM and they'll return the correct one - I hope!

[smarjan]

Very strange!

After the RAM debacle as described above, my new RAM arrived today - DDR2 PC2-4200 • CL=4 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR2-533 • 1.8V • 128Meg x 64 - and the PC does not boot up. No beep, no nothing.


That makes me a little happier. Not that I am happy that you have a problem.
I am happy to know, that there is a possibility that the mainboard is fine - just has a compatibility problem.
There is a little 'computer store valley' here in Warsaw, so I will visit them on Saturday with the gear trying to find a matching memory.

Will let you all know what came out.

[papaya74]

My AXIS 700 lite arrived last week, and i'm impressed of the quietness and the slick design.

BUT i have two things annoying me:

[1.] I wanted to use the RAID1 feature with Debian Etch 4.0.
In the BIOS i choose > IDE Device Configuration > SATA Mode > RAID

While booting the there is a yellow (!) message:
"If you want to Install Linux Default partiton RAID driver, please do not use OPROM creation operation!"

I ignored that, because i don't know, what it means, and build a 500GB Raid1 with the configuration utility.

PROBLEM: Debian won't see the array in the installation process !
I can decide to install on one of the hdds...but that's not, what i want...i want Raid1...

==> Yellow message ?!
==> HOW do i configure that ? What is 'OPROM' ? Any ideas ?


[2.] I started measuring the power consumption:

==> IDLE = 50-55 watt
==> TURNED-OFF = 30 watt !!!

hello, MSI ! Did i missed something ?
Can anybody confirm that ? Do i have a damaged Axis 700 or is this usual ?

I'm excited ;-)

Best regards,

Harry

[smarjan]

Power usage is as good as I'd expected. The UPS that's attached is capable of 450 Watts and it's currently showing only 3% of load capacity (which is approximately 13.5 Watts).

I sorted out memory issue. Some double sided 667MHz DDR2 works.
So I plugged in the power meter... WHOA! Sucks like Vegas!

I wonder if my measuring method is wrong (kind of socket plug-in watt meter you can buy in store) or it works different in 230 volts condiotions...

While turned OFF the meter shows 35,7 Watts. WHOA! Compaq desktop draws 14W in off or standby mode. Other ancient PC sucks 17W when off.
While turned ON the meter shows 38 Watts running only memtest86 (no hdd attached, CDrom powered from external PSU).

Every HDD attached adds 9-10W (which is ok, so says hdd specs), only confirming that the power meter used might be working fine.

If it is all true, why your measurement shows only 13.5W? I think it might be not really accurate.
Is it possible that you could try to turn it on with hdd detached?

Whole clue of this setup was to have it plugged in all the time, to wake up when I turn it on via Squeezebox - I hoped Epia solution would save some power. I am listening only for some 3-4 hours a day!
Sucking 35W when off makes this whole experiment a pure nonsense!
I am kind of dissappointed...
Maybe it costs only $200 because the PSU in the box is some junk worth 10 cents...

[AubreyCTurnerJr]

Is it possible that you could try to turn it on with hdd detached?


I've got another HDD sitting around that I'm going to swap into it once I have time (as well as switching from IDE to SATA). But it runs 24x7 so I won't have a chance to measure it directly until I do that. Until then, all I've got is what the UPS tells me. Interestingly, checking it right now shows it at 10%, which would be approximately 45 watts.

I now have a Watt Meter (actually a device called a Kill-A-Watt) that I'll try with it when I get around to taking it offline for the upgrade. But it'll probably be a while (several weeks) before I get to it with all the other projects that I'm working on right now.



APC : 001,036,0965
DATE : Tue Jun 05 16:14:00 CDT 2007
HOSTNAME : scanner2
RELEASE : 3.12.4
VERSION : 3.12.4 (19 August 2006) debian
UPSNAME : scanner2
CABLE : USB Cable
MODEL : Back-UPS ES 725
UPSMODE : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: Fri Feb 23 20:55:10 CST 2007
STATUS : ONLINE
LINEV : 120.0 Volts
LOADPCT : 10.0 Percent Load Capacity
BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 47.5 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME : 0 Seconds
LOTRANS : 088.0 Volts
HITRANS : 138.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : Always
BATTV : 13.6 Volts
LASTXFER : Input frequency out of range
NUMXFERS : 19
XONBATT : Sun Jun 03 08:01:47 CDT 2007
TONBATT : 0 seconds
CUMONBATT: 56 seconds
XOFFBATT : Sun Jun 03 08:01:48 CDT 2007
LASTSTEST: Tue Apr 24 03:53:34 CDT 2007
STATFLAG : 0x07000008 Status Flag
MANDATE : 2004-08-20
SERIALNO : 4B0434P37166
BATTDATE : 2000-00-00
NOMBATTV : 12.0
FIRMWARE : 02.n2.D USB FW:n2
APCMODEL : Back-UPS ES 725
END APC : Tue Jun 05 16:14:45 CDT 2007

[koen]

[1.] I wanted to use the RAID1 feature with Debian Etch 4.0.
In the BIOS i choose > IDE Device Configuration > SATA Mode > RAID

While booting the there is a yellow (!) message:
"If you want to Install Linux Default partiton RAID driver, please do not use OPROM creation operation!"

I ignored that, because i don't know, what it means, and build a 500GB Raid1 with the configuration utility.

PROBLEM: Debian won't see the array in the installation process !
I can decide to install on one of the hdds...but that's not, what i want...i want Raid1...

==> Yellow message ?!
==> HOW do i configure that ? What is 'OPROM' ? Any ideas ?


To use the hardware RAID facility of your SATA chipset you need to install the driver that comes with the motherboard. These drivers are windows-only though, but in the end they are just glorified software RAID drivers with only a few hardware operations done in the SATA chipset. If you want proper hardware RAID than you need to get an expensive add-on card.

However software RAID done by Debian is very good, and only uses a fraction of a percentage of the CPU power. It also has the advantage that if your motherboard dies, you can move your whole raid over to another machine and still have it accessible, whereas if that happens with the SATA hardware raid on windows you will need to find a motherboard with exactly the same chipset. The software RAID in debian is chipset independent.

To be able to use the software RAID in Debian you will need to set SATA to normal in the BIOS for the OS to see the two seperate drives and turn them into a RAID 1.

I hope this helps.

Koen.

[fredbloggs]

What did you guys find out about the power usage?

Is it really using 13.5 - 35 - 45 Watts in standby or was this a misreading?
What's it using when you use it?

Are you still pleased with the volume from the Axis?

Is it quiet enough to have sitting around in the living room and not hear?

Thx for any feedback, my previous attempt at a dedicated SS was simply too slow

[smarjan]

Power consumption in standby is strange. My meter shows some 30W AFAIR (I measured some 4 weeks ago).
While running it takes some 60W with three 3,5" HDDs (Samsung Spinpoints). When one of them stops it shows some 8-9W less.

As for volume... It is quiet, however not silent. I would say that in the living room you would hear it, but it would be annoying or noisy.
Mine is in the other room, so noise is not an issue. Whats more, I have added additional fan, just to make sure three hdds won't overheat.

Hope this helps.

[fredbloggs]

Thanks for that, confirms what I want to know.

Just to add, from what i've read by default whwn the box goes into standby it goes into S1 mode (basically keep virtually everything powered on).

You can change the setting in the BIOS to standby in S3 mode(just keep RAM powered up), that may reduce any standby power requirements.

Mark

[smarjan]

Just to add, from what i've read by default whwn the box goes into standby it goes into S1 mode (basically keep virtually everything powered on).

You can change the setting in the BIOS to standby in S3 mode(just keep RAM powered up), that may reduce any standby power requirements.

Well... It sucks power like Vegas when turned off! (I mean powered off by the system - Shutdown, not stanby, nor hibernate).

Anyway your info gives some inspiration for further inquiry into setup... As for now it makes no problem to unplugg it while not in use ;-) (on average 22 hours a day...).

[Micke65]

Hi,
I've ordered an Axis700 and plan to run FreeNAS on it.
I thought it would be a good idea to run the system from a CF-card connected to the IDE slot (via an adapter of course).
Reading the thread FreeNAS thread http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31861&page=14 makes me wonder if this will work?
Can anyone confirm that it will work, and if so with which CF-card and adapter.
Regards
Michael