October 24, 20223 yr I want to lower my power consumption during these times, so I am doing some investigation into my server. Overview when idle Power consumption Idle + spun-down: My system is idling at around 80-100W when the array is spun down: Spun-up idle: When all disks are spun up (no load), but mostly idling the server uses 135W. Full load: With full load (Parity-Sync + Downloads running) it uses 180-200W. My system is built with MB: Gigabyte H470M DS3H (default BIOS settings with only fan settings set to Silent) Idle: 20-30W (bad source) CPU: i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz Idle: 10W Full load: 86W (source) Ram: 4 x 32GB G.Skill Value DDR4-2666 C19 DC idle: 4 x 3W = 12W (estimated based on source) SAS Controller: LSI SAS 9300-8i SGL Full load: 14-19W (source) Idle: should be lower than 13W, but is not specified NIC: ASUS XGC100C 10G Idle: Less than 10W (From what I can tell other small NICs use) HDD Array: Parity: Seagate Exos X16 16 TB (ST16000NM001G) 9 x Seagate Exos X16 16 TB (ST16000NM001G) 2 x WD Red Plus NAS - 8 TB (WD80EFZZ) SSD: 2 x Crucial MX500 SSD 2.5" - 1TB Idle: Less than 1W (source) PSU: Corsair CX600M, 600W PSU From this - I estimate my system should idle 50-80W, so I am unhopeful the system can idle at lower. However, when I compare to "standard" products: Synology DS1821+ Idle: 26W (source) Load: 60W Mac Mini M1: Idle: 6,8W (source) Load: 39W Is there any hope to lower my power consumption? What is your systems idling at? tower-diagnostics-20221024-0818.zip Edited October 25, 20223 yr by mrbusiness
October 24, 20223 yr Community Expert 7 hours ago, mrbusiness said: NIC: ASUS XGC100C 10G Idle: Less than 10W (From what I can tell other small NICs use) That is surely wrong. Or, maybe, if you dont plug in any cable. I also have no big faith in your power meter 250V? PC power supplies usually freak out and shut off over 240V (at least the good ones). Your list is missing the PSU totally, so maybe there are many more parts that you forgot to count in?
October 24, 20223 yr Community Expert Try installing the Tips and Tweaks plugin. It has a Power Saving Settings to adjust how CPU handles Scales CPU frequency based on load. One more thing have a look at Dockers to see if you have one of more of them active when you 'think' the CPU is idle... EDIT: More more thing. Most PS have much lower efficiency ratings as total load drops. IT might be that your 80+ efficiency PS may only have an efficiency in the range of 50% at low level loads. Edited October 24, 20223 yr by Frank1940
October 24, 20223 yr You're comparing apples to oranges. To lower power to the same as your examples of low power machines you need to Get rid of most of your ram. The mini has 8gb, the nas has 4. Remove most of your hard drives. The mini has one ssd and the nas most likely does not take the hard drives into account for their numbers since it does not come with the drives. Remove your sas controller. Neither of your examples have one. And lastly remove your 10gb nic and go back to using the one built into your mother board. 10gb is going to use more power than 1gb and you are most likely still powering your onboard one. You can get less power use but you will have to remove items and/or replace them with more power efficient items. You're probably best to only power on the server when you are going to use it or look into adding renewable energy sources to your house if you can. If you are going to start replacing hardware you need to figure out how long of paying less in power bills it will take to offset what it cost you to buy the new hardware if that is the only reason you are getting the new hardware. Edited October 24, 20223 yr by chris smashe
October 25, 20223 yr Author 15 hours ago, MAM59 said: That is surely wrong. Or, maybe, if you dont plug in any cable. I also have no big faith in your power meter 250V? PC power supplies usually freak out and shut off over 240V (at least the good ones). Your list is missing the PSU totally, so maybe there are many more parts that you forgot to count in? Good observation - I added the PSU now (Corsair CX600M, 600W PSU). It is very strange that the Power Meter shows 250V. I have removed it for now and will look for another one. However, it is this very commonly used model: HiHome WiFi Smart Plug 16A with Energy Meter (WPP-16S). Although I can see that the model is no longer on the marked and a newer version is being sold. Will investigate further if it is a known issue with the model.
October 25, 20223 yr Author 9 hours ago, chris smashe said: You're comparing apples to oranges. To lower power to the same as your examples of low power machines you need to Get rid of most of your ram. The mini has 8gb, the nas has 4. Remove most of your hard drives. The mini has one ssd and the nas most likely does not take the hard drives into account for their numbers since it does not come with the drives. Remove your sas controller. Neither of your examples have one. And lastly remove your 10gb nic and go back to using the one built into your mother board. 10gb is going to use more power than 1gb and you are most likely still powering your onboard one. You can get less power use but you will have to remove items and/or replace them with more power efficient items. You're probably best to only power on the server when you are going to use it or look into adding renewable energy sources to your house if you can. If you are going to start replacing hardware you need to figure out how long of paying less in power bills it will take to offset what it cost you to buy the new hardware if that is the only reason you are getting the new hardware. I understand that I can remove hardware to save power, but my intention is to keep everything as-is. I just want to know if something is preventing things from not to run in low-power or idle mode(s).
October 25, 20223 yr Author 10 hours ago, Frank1940 said: Try installing the Tips and Tweaks plugin. It has a Power Saving Settings to adjust how CPU handles Scales CPU frequency based on load. One more thing have a look at Dockers to see if you have one of more of them active when you 'think' the CPU is idle... EDIT: More more thing. Most PS have much lower efficiency ratings as total load drops. IT might be that your 80+ efficiency PS may only have an efficiency in the range of 50% at low level loads. I will try and looks through all the Power Saving settings I can find. I already had it installed and it was set to Power Save with Turbo Boost to Yes.
May 5, 20233 yr Hey my friend MrBusiness. See this topic. It can shave 10 - 20 Watts of your idle load. Kind regards, Duncan.
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