[mythtv-users] WD Green drives (was "complete system meltdown")

[Raymond Wagner]

On 2/11/2014 10:24 AM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Feb 2014 16:05:58 +0100, you wrote:
>
>> On 11 Feb 2014, at 08:11, Ian Evans <dheianevans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's a drive/power question:
>>>
>>> My FE/BE Coolermaster case has a RS-400 PSAR-J3 400 W power supply powering:
>>>
>>> - Gigabyte m68m-s2p MB
>>> - GeForce GT 430
>>> - DVD drive
>>> - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB OS/DB drive
>>> -  WD Caviar Green  WDC WD15EARS-00MVWB0 1.5TB storage drive
>>> - until today the WD Green 2TB drive.
>>>
>>> Only USB devicea plugged in are the mouse and infrared remote sensor,
>>>
>>> Is 400W enough or too little especially as some of the reviews say the power is "noisy" for this brand,
>> If you put a Kill A Watt meter between your PC and AC outlet you’ll probably see that the system uses < 100W
>>
> Steady state, maybe.  But the peak requirements are much higher.

That's an AM3 board, so he might hit 100W on the CPU and motherboard, 
depending on the specific chip. The GPU has a 50W TDP. The drives might 
need 20-25W on spinup, and maybe 15W for the burner. All told, he 
_might_ be able to get the system to push 200W. The initial startup 
surge when you hit the power button might be higher, but any halfway 
decent power supply should have no problem with that transient load.