HDD power requirements.

[VIRII]

I have an Antec Sonata case with the supplied Antec 380 watt power supply in it.
The intention is to use it as a media server / backup solution utilising a bunch of old HDD's.

It currently has 4 HDD in it and no optical drive, I was planning on adding an IDE controller card or two and running 6 HDD and 1 optical drive.

Will the combined power draw be too much for this power supply?

The rest of the system is a stock AMD 3200 Socket A.

 

[VIRII]

For example a Sata Seagate 120gb 7200rmp will use 12 watts while in use

300w would be fine but try maybe;

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

Thanks for that, I added in a couple of extra items on that site (notably a 9800 pro) to give an extra power useage buffer and it recommends 375Watts.

Do check though that your motherboard has an option for staggered spin up of hard drives as that kind of load immediately at startup can really strain the PSU. Startup will have a huge peak, much higher than normal operation but in fairness, I think it should be fine. If your motherboard doesn't have the staggered spin up option, try and get an add on card with that and that way it will not put any more strain on the PSU than it currently receives from 4 drives.

Sorry for rambling - thinking as I type.

I do not think that my motherboard has a staggered start up option, I don't think the PCI card that I bought has either, are there any software options?
Alternatively I could wire a switch into the power lines going to the additional drives and turn them on after boot or will the system have difficulty knowing that they are there if I do that?

If you could recommend a card that can take 4 IDE drives and stagger the boot then that would be great.

 

[VIRII]

2 Questions;

1) How ddid you get 375w? With 3200xp, 2x133sd ram, 6x7200rpm, DVD-RW, PCI-Raid Card and a 9800pro is only 320w!

2) If its just a back up server do you need a 9800? Could just get a 9500 or simular for £5 on MM and that takes it to 289w

1 - I think I had 6 hdd and 2 optical drives a 9800 pro 2 sticks of ram and a 3200 socket A chip as well as a couple of ide cards and so on.

2 - No I don't need a 9800pro, I use the onbaord graphics normally but I was trying to see how much difference it all made.