microdrive raid in a micro sized server

[tri-gate trinovant]

I would like to build a computer using a mini-itx motherboard with
a 915gm chipset. I would add an ide to cf adapter to the onboard
ide and add a st1 5gb seagate hardrive. I wanted to use microdrives with enough storage to load all of windows xp with a comfortable amount of room to spare. Later, I would like to add the highpoint rocketraid 2320 with 8 sata ports. Then put 8 sata to cf adapters on that with a seagate st1 5gb hard drive in each adapter. I read that windows will not load to solid state, so that is why I wanted to use
microdrives. I was hoping to keep total power low so that an external
ac-dc adaper style power supply would run the system. Say around
100 watt power supply. So, what I needed to know is, if all of this
is put together, will windowx xp load ok from a cd-rom to the microdrive
on the ide port on the motherboard? Also, with a pentium m processor
and 10 seagate sp1 hard drives, and the rocket raid card, how big of
a power supply is necessary. I know this is such an expensive way to
do this, but if it will work, I would like to try it. Thank you.

 

[Yeti]

I guess my first questions would be why do you want to do this and for what purposes? An HTPC?

a seagate sp1 5bg hard drive in each adapter. I read that windows
will not load to solid state

Do you mean the ST1? Those aren't actaully solid state as far as I know, and I believe they have 8 GB models as well.

Overall I'm not sure how much power 10 microdrives would consume. I would probably just get a 2.5" notebook hard drive - they generally only consume ~10W during seek operations and <2W idle.

What is the whole system that you're planning on putting together? I was thinking about building a small HTPC with a mini ITX now that the they support the Pentium M. Its just a pain in the ass finding a good case and PSU that work and aren't too expensive.

 

[tri-gate trinovant]

First the motherboards that I have seen so far would be: 1. Evalue emb-9680
and 2. Commell lv673ns. Raid card choices would be:1 Areca arc-1220 or 2:
Rocketraid 2320. Addonics makes the sata to cf adapters. the ide to
cf adapters are much more available from many sources. The production case
would be the serener gd-l01. I know seagate makes the 8gb drive, but would
really "drive" up the cost. I have a sheet of magnesium plate that I was going
to use to make my own case from scratch. I would just sheer off the needed dimensions after I got all of the parts in and physically layed all of the parts out. As for your first question, the small capacity of the
cf adapter drives (so far) would not be suitable for much video. For that, the notebook hard drives would
be good enough. But for video, you might as well forget making a small footprint computer and just put
the biggest sata 3.5 inch drives you can find. I just like the idea of the cf drives because it would
still be functional for everything but video storage and would use so little power. Your suggestion to
use the 2.5 inch notebook drives does make me reconsider their merit because the sata to cf converters
are mounted into a 3.5 inch mounting bracket and therefore might take up more space than the notebook
drives.

 

[Yeti]

Yeah, I've been looking at the Commell as well. I know it has a PCIe X16 slot, will you be able to use those RAID cards on that somehow?

The production case would be the serener gd-l01

That's a pretty expensive case, and you don't even get front panel VFD or IrDA. I guess it is fanless... I was thinking about building my own case as well but then I thought about buy a used/broken stereo reciever that I like and gutting it and converting it.

Though the microdrives thing is an interesting idea, I think it would be easier and cheaper to just use a 2.5" hdd. They really are quite small, and with the added RAID card and all the adapters it might be smaller than the 8 microdrives. Most of the mini ITX systems that I've seen have either used compact flash boot (with network storage if needed) or a notebook drive.

 

[tri-gate trinovant]

homebrew itx cases

The worst thing about itx is how expensive the cases can get. On most
atx cases, you cound not build your own cheaper than what you could buy
them for ready made. But the wide ranging hombrew solutions of the itx
crowd is what got me interested.
Checking the toshiba site, their .85 inch 4gb drive consumes .5 watts in writing
mode. So, it would be reasonable to think that the seagate st1 would be close
to that. So the array would only draw 10 watts max. conservatively estimating.
If you can keep the current draw low enough, you could add a battery to it
and beat the notebooks at their own game. But mainly, you would want to stay
within the capacitiy of the small power supply adapters. The 60 watt model does not have a fan. The 80 and 100 watt sizes have a single small fan. They
would still be quiet enough for the living room entertainment system.
The raid cards are designed to go into a pci-express port not a pci slot. And yes,
you are surely right that it would be cheaper and simpler to use the 2.5" notebook drives.
I am still wanting to do it the hard way though. Now that I have found that 8 microdrives take
the same power (or less) as one notebook.

 

[tri-gate trinovant]

Update on a hybrid pc.

Tech support for the microdrives was sceptical about the ability for the
microdrives to work in a raid array. So I will take the safe way out and
build the array with 4 laptop seagate drives and a highpoint 1640 controller.
The controller comes with sata to pata converters.
I will use 4 40gb drives since they are cheaper just to see if this project can
come to life. It would be nice to upgrade to the 160 gb seagate drives with the
perpendicular recording for an upgrade at a later time.
Then I will used the laptop cd-rom and an adaptec 6 port usb 2.0 card.
I have an old dual p3 server board now, so I need the 2.0 card, but I already know I would like to upgrade to a dual sli or crossfire solution later. Most of
the modern motherboards have plenty of usb 2.0 ports already.