Helios4 - Open Source DIY NAS

[g_provost]

Hey guys,

What do you think about the DIY NAS following project ?

http://kobol.io/helios4

Using the same Marvell Armada 388 SoC than Synology DS416j and WD EX4100, but with more memory, highest CPU clock, much cheaper and on top of that completely Open Source.

 

[Cake]

I like it, The link says the included AC Adapter is 12V/8A, I assume that is for the spinning disks. 96 watts is a lot for a 24/7 system to me. I hope more people go the DIY too, I imagine it only uses a fraction of that. Can you imagine the cheap arm boards with multiple gigabits NICs for DIY routers in the future! Just bought a small Odroid that seems to be perfect for a colocation in a data center. Anyways that looks awesome and the price seems like a good deal to me.

 

[g_provost]

Hi Cake, no of course it won't drawn 96 watts.
Here some power consumption numbers :
- Board Only : Idle 6W, Active 9-10W
- With 2x HDD : Idle 12W, Active 19W (WD Red 2TB)
- With 4x HDD : Idle 19W, Active 32W (WD Red 2TB)

You still need an 8A AC/DC Adapter to sustain current drain during HDD start-up/spin-up.

 

[System Error Message]

actually its for the old average a hard drive uses which is 10-15W per drive. This way it will not overload the PSU when you stuff many old or performance drives in, try measuring with drives that spin at 15k too.

The power output at PSU is the max, not 24/7 use. It will draw what it needs so if you're worried about power use the best way to measure is with a wattmeter or if you have some EEE skills, a multimeter and a current clamp (or 2 multimeters). Just make sure your wattmeter is accurate or current clamp calibrated.

 

[g_provost]

Just wanted to post an update to announce that we just launched a Helios4 Lucky Draw to help us get some attention.

Simply enlist to WIN one of the following prizes:

1x Helios4 Full Kit 2GB with a bundle of 4 HDD WD Red 4TB
1x Bundle of 2 HDD WD Red 4TB
1x Helios4 Full Kit 2GB
4x USB 3.0 External HDD WD Elements 2TB
4x USB 3.0 Memory Stick Sandisk 128GB

Anyone can register to the competition: http://win.kobol.io/lp/29509/Helios4

 

[sfx2000]

Hi Cake, no of course it won't drawn 96 watts.
Here some power consumption numbers :
- Board Only : Idle 6W, Active 9-10W
- With 2x HDD : Idle 12W, Active 19W (WD Red 2TB)
- With 4x HDD : Idle 19W, Active 32W (WD Red 2TB)

You still need an 8A AC/DC Adapter to sustain current drain during HDD start-up/spin-up.

That's consistent with power consumption on the Armada 38x and drives...

It's the spinup of the drives that takes a fair amount of current...

 

[sfx2000]

@g_provost - wise choice to use the SolidRun Armada 38x SOM - that allows one to focus on the carrier board specifics and brings down costs.

Would have been nice to have one more GBe port on the carrier board - depending on application, could be used for LAG or GW/FW purposes.

Understood that there are only so many GPIO's and SERDES lanes to be had... so this is a good tradeoff considering costs...

(Armada has 3 1GB native ports, but it's complicated)

SolidRun is a good partner to work with - as is GlobalScale, another Marvell development board OEM/ODM...

Sounds like a fun project, and the Armada 38x platform is particularly strong on storage support - and we're seeing early stuff happening inside FreeBSD which expands things beyond just linux...

 

[g_provost]

@sfx2000 yes there was definitely some trade off.

But if we have chance to do a quick respin, might actually trade off one USB 3.0 for an additional GBe port, and then try to add on the bottom size of the board a mini-pcie slot.
Well there always room for improvement ;-)

 

[sfx2000]

@sfx2000 yes there was definitely some trade off.

But if we have chance to do a quick respin, might actually trade off one USB 3.0 for an additional GBe port, and then try to add on the bottom size of the board a mini-pcie slot.
Well there always room for improvement ;-)

I'd suggest leaving it as is - it's a pretty focused product, and while the additional GBe port would be nice, there are other options that would work - adding the mini-PCIe slot adds complexity and not much value to the target audience.