Hello all,

 

I'd like to ask that anyone who has measured the total power draw of their server, particularly if you are using a socketed CPU (non-Atom etc), to post this result.  Specifically, if anyone has measurements taken without disks, of just the MB/CPU/RAM at idle, I'd be very curious to see them.  I am trying to determine a course of action for a midrange but lower power build, and am having trouble deciding between E1200/1400/1500/1600/3200 on the 775 side, or Athlon X2 250u/260u/270u on the AM3 side.  What testing I have done myself (three 775 MBs and three 775 CPUs) has resulted in no combination idling at anything less than 50w.

 

Thanks.

If you search in unRAID Compulsive Design for "Idle (avg)" you'll find many posts lower than 50W with drives.  Are you only considering the CPUs listed or are you open to other options depending on the power consumption?

 

Here is a direct link to the search results: Idle (avg)

 

Greg

Thanks.  I am browsing the search results now.

 

No, I am totally open to all options, I just want very low power consumption from the get go, with the ability to upgrade down the road if need be without rebuilding the server (ie just add a faster CPU or a CPU with more cores).  I was looking at the G530 with an Intel MB, but that's starting to climb just beyond my initial budget (I still need a few 3TB drives and was hoping to build the server up slowly over time).

 

 

I can't tell you what my server alone is idling at but my UPS says that my server at idle, cable modem, 5 port switch and wifi router together draw around 70 W.

 

CPU: Core i3-2120

Motherboard: ASRock H61M-GE

RAM: 8GB 1333MHz DDR3

Case: Antec Nine Hundred

Drive Cage(s): 2x SuperMicro 5-in-3

Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 400W

SATA Expansion Card(s): 1x SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Fans: 2x 120mm, 1x 200mm plus 2x 92mm on the drive cages

Drives: 4x WD Green 2TB, 1x WD Green 3TB, 1x Hitachi 2TB 7200rpm, and 2x WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200rpm laptop drives. One of those laptop drives is constantly spun up because of the various plugins I have installed on it.

 

 

In case you were curious, my wifi router is an Apple AirPort Extreme dual radio, my switch is a TrendNet Green 5 port and my cable modem is an Arris TM722G.

 

So all that is doing about 70W when the server is idle.

 

EDIT: I just remembered I also have an HP t5740 thin client with an Intel Atom N280 in it running Win7 Embedded that I use to run a few Windows based services and applications but I can't remember if I have that plugged in to the battery backup side or the surge protection only side of my UPS. I believe the load the UPS shows is for the battery backup only. I'll have to check when I get home which I have it plugged in to.

From my earlier measurements: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8325.msg80994#msg80994

 

The latest Intel CPUs idle even lower (nearly half the power draw) than this ancient i3 530 cpu!

 

Paraphrasing my earlier posts:

My 4 2TB drives unRAID idles at around 35 watts with drives spun down and hit around 55-60 watts during a parity check with all drives active. I run an Intel i3 530 CPU with 4 Gig DDR3 memory on an MSI H55 motherboard, and quite a few 120mm cooling fans.

 

The 'Green drives' will pull around 6 watts powered up, 3.7 watts idle, and 0.8 watts spun down