Is there any way to optimize power consumption further?

[Shahmatt]

My recently built UNRAID server has the following hardware:

1. Intel i3-2100 on Biostar TZ68a+ board

2. 4GB DDR2 RAM

3. 1x4TB Toshiba S300 HDWT740 + 2x1TB WD Red WD10EFRX

4. FSP Aurum 400W Gold PSU

5. I run one case fan and one CPU fan

 

With the exception of the Toshiba drive, all other hardware are at least 7 years old.

 

On first setup the idle power drain was around 45 to 50 Watts. I've managed to whittle that down to around 35 to 40 Watts after using Powertop, activating ASPM in BIOS and enabling all C states, and disabling Audio according to this thread:

 

One thing that did not work was the i-gpu driver from CA. The Intel-iGPU-TOP plugin installed (and power draw dropped by about 4 Watts) but I lost my display as a result. I'm guessing the drop in power was simply due to an iGPU no longer operating.

 

I also tried changing CPU governor to powersave but that didn't seem to make a perceptible difference.

 

As a next step I'm thinking about going with a passive heatsink for the CPU. That might save between 1 and 4 Watts, but it's not much of a dent really.

 

Is there anything else I could try doing? 35 to 40 Watts is really too much and could add quite a bit to the power bills.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Shahmatt

[Squid]

Set an a power saving curve on the CPU fan in the BIOS.  Undervolt the case fan to 5V instead of 12 depending upon how its connected.  Not huge savings, but it'll add up over time.

 

Depending upon how often in your use case the drives have to spin up, either set them to never spin down or add in a cache drive.  If they wind up spinning up a lot, you're trading off the high spin up current required to instead be the low current required to keep them spinning.  A cache drive would accomplish the same thing.  Keeps the drives spun down for writes

[Shahmatt]

10 hours ago, Squid said:

Set an a power saving curve on the CPU fan in the BIOS.  Undervolt the case fan to 5V instead of 12 depending upon how its connected.  Not huge savings, but it'll add up over time.

 

Depending upon how often in your use case the drives have to spin up, either set them to never spin down or add in a cache drive.  If they wind up spinning up a lot, you're trading off the high spin up current required to instead be the low current required to keep them spinning.  A cache drive would accomplish the same thing.  Keeps the drives spun down for writes

Thanks for your reply.

 

I forgot to mention I do have a cache drive. It is a 64GB Crucial M4 SSD. I have moved appdata and system files to it. Since I am only using the Syncthing docker container I believe this should be efficient.

 

I have adjusted the CPU fan governor. It now runs on lowest speed and temperature is less than 50C. Power consumption still remains in the late 30s.

 

I have setup S3 sleep mode and enabled a scheduled wake event.

 

When in S3 the power drops to about 1.5W. On a previous instance I had BIOS set to S1 sleep and the power dropped from 40 to 20 Watts. So from this I guess the drives 3 HDDs + 1 SSD consume 40 - 20 Watts = 20 Watts of power.

 

Since Syncthing is my only running docker I set it to run a syncronize event every 3 hours. I have also now set the disks to spin down after 15 mins of inactivity.

 

As I am posting I am waiting for the disks to spin down. I am also measuring total cumulative power in kWh. I will do this for a day to estimate my annual bills.
 

Question: I have syncthing running from a cache drive but the share folder used for file sync is on disk1 HDD. Should I set this share folder to Prefer Cache instead? Is the job of mover to update the contents of cache to disk1 according to a schedule?

Edited February 26, 2022 by Shahmatt

[Shahmatt]

Ignore my question on the cache drive as some reading provided the answer. I've set syncthing share to disk1 and cache to Yes. So any syncing will only activate the SSD and the HDD will spin up only with Mover once a day.

 

I've disabled the case fan and changed the CPU fan governor again to let the system and CPU run a bit hotter. I now seem to be idling at 27 to 30 Watts. I guess this is alright for now.

 

As a last step I will look into undervolting this CPU when I have time. Thanks for the help.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Shahmatt

[mgutt]

Your hardware is too old. Buy at least 6th gen if you want a low power consumption. ITX or mATX boards preferred.

[Shahmatt]

1 hour ago, mgutt said:

Your hardware is too old. Buy at least 6th gen if you want a low power consumption. ITX or mATX boards preferred.

I am only trying to optimize the hardware I already have.

 

I think for additional redundancy and power savings I could look at lower Watt PSUs (which will have higher efficiency within the range).

 

Also will try to source a passive heatsink.

[mgutt]

2 hours ago, Shahmatt said:

savings I could look at lower Watt PSUs (which will have higher efficiency within the range).

Won't save anything as in your consumption range it's already efficient. Smaller power supplies help only on very low power consumptions (under 20W). PS the most efficient power supply for low power consumption is the Corsair RM550x (2021). It's already ATX12VO compatible.

 

And before wasting money on a new power supply an old 6th Gen PC would cost nearly the same and consumes 50% less.

[Shahmatt]

Thanks for the comment. Will look at 6th gen options.

[methanoid]

Necro this thread as I am surprised there isnt more discussion on HOW to optimize a system for power usage. 

 

Powertop isnt installed by default so you need NerdTools to install it.

BIOS settings - which are needed (ASPM on but any others)

sudo lspci -vv | awk '/ASPM/{print $0}' RS= | grep --color -P '(^[a-z0-9:.]+|ASPM )'   to identify stuff that needs tweaks?

Then some script needed to force some devices to enable ASPM like    https://gist.github.com/baybal/b499fc5811a7073df0c03ab8da4be904

 

 

I have no idea really and was hoping one of the gurus could come to the rescue?

 

[ConnerVT]

801 Posts and counting here:

 

[methanoid]

Hilarious... usually the unraid community is actually helpful but no matter.