ASRock AM1H-ITX: One Of The Best AM1 Mini-ITX Motherboards

[dungeon]

I have the board and I've plugged three HDDs to the Sata power connector. I purchased two additional splitters and was able to run 4 Sata devices off of the one Sata power port (three hard drives and a sata DVD-Rom for installation. I love this thing!

Do you also use 90w dc as trucabulles asks?

[Cotay]

Do you also use 90w dc as trucabulles asks?

I'm using a 120w Sparkle 19v adapter. Readily available on Amazon.

[dungeon]

I'm using a 120w Sparkle 19v adapter.

Ah thanks , that explain why you can use more devices . I was answering there what one could do with 90 w power supply, of course with more W you can use more devices .

[Cotay]

Ah thanks , that explain why you can use more devices . I was answering there what one could do with 90 w power supply, of course with more W you can use more devices .

I actually think the 90w would work also. The Owners Manual states that with 2 DRAM slots and 2 HDDs, the power adapter should be 60w. Their formula they use lists 4 watts required for each DRAM stick and essentially 15w per physical hard drive.

I only went to 120w to give me a bit more buffer room, but I think 90w could drive an SSD/2 HDD/DVD-ROM system...it certainly is more than enough for a 3 HDD system.

[dungeon]

I actually think the 90w would work also. The Owners Manual states that with 2 DRAM slots and 2 HDDs, the power adapter should be 60w. Their formula they use lists 4 watts required for each DRAM stick and essentially 15w per physical hard drive.

I only went to 120w to give me a bit more buffer room, but I think 90w could drive an SSD/2 HDD/DVD-ROM system...it certainly is more than enough for a 3 HDD system.

Depends what those drives are, they all estemate around 15W but that is for 2.5" HDDs, for 3.5" HDDs estemate is different - so for those that is +25W per device.

So you cant plug 3x3.5" HDD with 90W power supply, keep in mind that for the third/fourth SATA you need to power that ASMedia chip too .

[Cotay]

Depends what those drives are, they all estemate around 15W but that is for 2.5" HDDs, for 3.5" HDDs estemate is different - so for those that is +25W per device.

So you cant plug 3x3.5" HDD with 90W power supply, keep in mind that for the third/fourth SATA you need to power that ASMedia chip too .

Nowhere in the manual does it make a distinction between 2.5" and 3.5" drives. A 2.5" HDD does not come anywhere close to pulling 15w, even under full load.

A 3.5" HDD pulls around 8w-12w under load depending on its vintage, RPMs, etc. If ASRock supports two 3.5" HDDs with a 60w adapter, I see no reason the board couldn't run 3 3.5" HDDs with a 90w power adapter. The ASMedia power requirements are already accounted for in the calculations in the owners manual.

I think I have an ASUS 90w adapter that might also work...I'll give it a try and report back if the connector fits.

[dungeon]

Nowhere in the manual does it make a distinction between 2.5" and 3.5" drives. A 2.5" HDD does not come anywhere close to pulling 15w, even under full load.

It is power needed just to spin up the drives, of course later it will not use that much power .

Lets do some math . For example random One Green and One Blue.

Green has 12VDC:1.78A that is 21.36W, and for the Blue that is missing . But looking at the values Green use 10-30% less power, lets now add lower 10% to the 21.36W... Anyway for both those 3.5" random i choose drives you need (estimated) 25W power requirements .

[Cotay]

It is power needed just to spin up the drives, of course later it will not use that much power .

Lets do some math . For example random One Green and One Blue.

Green has 12VDC:1.78A that is 21.36W, and for the Blue that is missing . But looking at the values Green use 10-30% less power, lets now add lower 10% to the 21.36W... Anyway for both those 3.5" random i choose drives you need (estimated) 25W power requirements .

Your logic is flawed. Both drives don't spin up at exactly the same time and that is peak wattage. Real world power usage is always much lower.

[dungeon]

Your logic is flawed. Both drives don't spin up at exactly the same time and that is peak wattage. Real world power usage is always much lower.

It is lower, but my recomendation is exactly to the point like Asrock doing recommendation . You must always look at the peak wattage when doing recomentation . So lets see again what Asrock recommends there, they recommends 15W per drive... and why? if you ask? That is the range of most low peak HDDs available!!!

Green, Red, Blue and Black

Peak is in range of 1.2-2.8, so that is 14.4-33.6 Watts (for the Black peak is missing, so do not try to do any power savings with those ).

So you have few models (two green and one red) with lower capacity at those 15W level, but most common drives are at 25W and cheap ones are even at 35W level, etc.

[Cotay]

It is lower, but my recomendation is exactly to the point like Asrock doing recommendation . You must always look at the peak wattage when doing recomentation . So lets see again what Asrock recommends there, they recommends 15W per drive... and why? if you ask? That is the range of most low peak HDDs available!!!

Green, Red, Blue and Black

Peak is in range of 1.2-2.8, so that is 14.4-33.6 Watts (for the Black peak is missing, so do not try to do any power savings with those ).

So you have few models (two green and one red) with lower capacity at those 15W level, but most common drives are at 25W and cheap ones are even at 35W level, etc.

I realized that I don't have a 90w adapter that is compatible (I actually think I do, but I don't have the time to go through boxes in the garage). So instead I've tested this motherboard with two separate 65w power adapters (Asus ADP-65JH BB) (FSP Group FSP0065--AAC).

My server is currently running three HDDs in a Drive Pool of 8TB. The pool drives are a 4TB WD Red, a 2TB Seagate ST2000DL, and a 2TB Samsung FHD203WI. I have an externally powered 1.5TB ST315005 transferring 1TB of AVI files via a USB 3.0 interface to the DrivePool and I am experiencing no problems with the server running off of 65w. Now I realize that it is definitely borderline at the 65w level, but it does show that 90w would be perfectly fine for 3 3.5" HDDs and would still give enough juice to run 4th SSD for sure. I only am using the 120w because I believe in redundancy like you likely do. However, if I only had or could find a 90w adapter I wouldn't hesitate to use it with this board.

Two 90w examples that would work are the following:

1. http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-4-74A-...19v+ac+adapter
2. http://www.amazon.com/Charger-Adapte...w+adapter+asus

This 75w one would work fine for 2 HDDs and an SSD IMHO: http://www.amazon.com/ADAPTER-CHARGE...19v+ac+adapter

YMMV with this one, but it is cheap: http://www.amazon.com/Replacement-De...w+adapter+asus

This is the 120w I purchased: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1