I looked into Pico PSUs also. They are an interesting niche in the market, primarily for low power builds or mobile applications. They may not be the right answer for most users, however. In particular, I am not a huge fan of a single Molex connector dongle for all SATA / etc. drives.
A potentially better solution for many folk could be this unit from HDPlex - 94% conversion efficiency and modular plugs. See here. But once again, you have to be comfortable hanging all your drives off of one modular connector. Like PicoPSU, it uses a non-standard form factor, but it does it all in one unit. How to get the Power connector mounted is a different question, however.
I agree that many ATX power supplies can offer very good efficiencies at mid capacity (around 50%). With a gold PSU, you get into 90%+ conversion efficiency, platinum and up push 95% efficiency at 50% capacity, see here.
Trouble is, try finding a ATX at gold, platinum or better with an output rating below 500W - it is really difficult to find them. Smaller PSUs exist but then you usually have to consider a non-standard way to get them into your computer - like Pico PSU or whatever the form factor is that MiniXL used.
So far, I am happy with my Titanium Seasonic prime, whose potential output is 6x more than my day to day needs, but with its excellent low power conversion efficiency, this doesn’t hurt as much as it could. When i compared my titanium @ 650w vs. platinum @ 500w, the power draw at idle was lower with the titanium PSU than the platinum unit, even though my NAS power draw (~106w) is closer to the 25% capacity mark with the platinum unit (at 500W) than the titanium PSU (at 650W).
Not to take this too far off topic, but for the X10-SDV boards mentioned you can connect direct to the 12v power jack and only the adapter efficiency is in the mix. Plus the board has its own Molex for the drives. For my main server I’m at 20w idle at the wall with a Pico 80, so efficiency isn’t all that much an issue.
Interesting. IIRC, there also of some Mini-ITX boards featuring just a smaller 12V/GND connector and not the standard 24 pin molex to save space. All 5V, etc. power is made on-board, which makes sense. This might be an interesting path to go down for a low power, low volume PC. Question is packaging and how to handle the PCIe cards that I would like to use…
I just ordered my Pico PSU for my soon-to-be Intel Atom based media player (to get rid of the Android TV spying function in my TV).
It should have arrived today, but it seems it is delayed.
I am curious, how it will function.
(it is OK for my case, since this computer will only have a singe SSd to boot off and no other HW.)
Also, I think the real purpose and taget audience for the Pico PSU is not power saving, but the small footprint. IN the smallest Mini ITX cases, it is quite impossible to install an ATX (or even an SFX) PSU.
Good point. My TV “magically” keeps re-connecting to my IOT WIfi Network, even as I turn off / disable the Wifi settings inside the TV. I finally had enough and assigned its MAC into a IP range that is categorically blocked from the internet - in and out. But bottom line the safer thing may be to change the IOT network password.
I use a Mac Mini as a media player, which is not perfect re: privacy and yet better than most platforms.
Yes, but it also takes the heat out of the case, opens up a lot more room for air in the case, but loses a fan. For the X10 you could do all that without the PIco.
(edited: removed the part about the boot issue as I just fixed it… was a stupid mistake on my side)
The Odroid does support in-band ECC, which is one of the reasons I was drawn to it… not exactly the same as “proper ECC” but much better than not having ECC at all.
So far, I’m very happy with it, however, I only had it for about 2 weeks so I think it is a little bit too early to tell. Other than that, I ran into zero issues… even the 64GB Memory (not officially supported) works just fine. BTW, I noticed that prices are significantly cheaper when ordering directly from hardkernel compared to local re-sellers and shipping only took a couple days (DHL express). On a side note: I also ordered a Noctua 95mm fan, and CPU temps are usually right around 40 degrees C according to TrueNAS. Furthermore, Hardkernel offers a power adapter cable from their barrel connector to molex so you can connect it to a regular PSU.
