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

[igorfreire]

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!

Hi I recently purchased the AM1H to mount an HTPC. I want to put 1 SSD, 1 HDD and 1 slim Blu-ray drive.
As already commented in the forum, the board comes with a cable to only 2 SATA disks. The cable splits to 4 that you use, it is common, like the photo below?

[dungeon]

Well I think the learned opinion of the engineers who developed the board are more apt to know the power requirements...ASRock is not some fly-by-night manufacturer that doesn't understand the power draw of componentry. I've also confirmed that the strange behavior I was having is NOT related to the 65w power supply. I've run into the same issue with the 120w supply as well.

I have no issues recommending a 90w power supply for this board and neither does ASRock.

Why don't you ask Asrock engineers then what they mean with that 15W per HDD and does that value is the same for all HDDs? . Clearly they estimate low HDDs case there as i elaborate here . That is the case for every components, they are not the exactly the same but in some range... not all components consume the same power .

[Cotay]

Manual states what it states, but i think we elaborate here how they do those estemates. 15W there are not true for all HDD, and your HDDs are not these they are 25W, etc. .

ftp://europe.asrock.com/manual/AM1H-ITX.pdf#17

And no i do not even recommend running two WD Black HDDs on 90W

Well I think the learned opinion of the engineers who developed the board are more apt to know the power requirements...ASRock is not some fly-by-night manufacturer that doesn't understand the power draw of componentry. I've also confirmed that the strange behavior I was having is NOT related to the 65w power supply. I've run into the same issue with the 120w supply as well.

I have no issues recommending a 90w power supply for this board and neither does ASRock.

[dungeon]

If the manual states that 60w is fine for two 3.5" HDDs/2 memory modules, then adding an additional 3.5" HDD is not going to tax a 90w power adapter.

Manual states what it states, but i think we elaborate here how they do those estemates. 15W there are not true for all HDD, and your HDDs are not these they are 25W, etc. .

ftp://europe.asrock.com/manual/AM1H-ITX.pdf#17

And no i do not even recommend running two WD Black HDDs on 90W

[dungeon]

Did I read correctly that you don't actually own this board?

No i don't own it, my neighbour have it so i was playing with it for a few days, i have Asus AM1M-I here

Well, if its between a choice between your recommendation and what the manual (and my experience shows), I am going with the manual and my personal experience.

Of course your experience is yours . But when doing recommendation to the other people, then you can't simply says 90W is enough for three random HDDs, that is simply not true nor good recommendation .

[Cotay]

Those three together are around 70W peak power needed + mb/ one memory and you goes beyond 90W . So no i simply can't recommend using that with 90W power supply .

Well, if its between a choice between your recommendation and what the manual (and my experience shows), I am going with the manual and my personal experience. If the manual states that 60w is fine for two 3.5" HDDs/2 memory modules, then adding an additional 3.5" HDD is not going to tax a 90w power adapter. Did I read correctly that you don't actually own this board?

[dungeon]

The pool drives are a 4TB WD Red, a 2TB Seagate ST2000DL, and a 2TB Samsung FHD203WI.

Those three together are around 70W peak power needed + mb/ one memory and you goes beyond 90W . So no i simply can't recommend using that with 90W power supply .

[Cotay]

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

Just as an update...I finally experienced some odd behavior during file transfers with the transfer hanging on the 65w adapter. I've reverted to using the 120w and seeing if the transfer issue is at all related to the power adapter. I suspect that 65w is just not quite enough for the three HDDs, but at no time did I get a BSOD or experience any other issues in more than 12 hours of up time.

I still certain that a 90w would do the trick with this board with three HDDs.

[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

[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.