Hi,

 

I've been using unraid for almost 2 years now. And now I start wondering how to make it more powerfriendly.

 

I am now using a X9SCM-F board with an E3-1240 that doen't support S3, so making it go asleep at night isn't possible, or is it?

 

Are there any plugins that help making the server less power consuming?

 

Can I change hardware (except motherboard)?

 

What are the first steps I can take to make the server less power hungry?

Step 1, allow your drives to spin down.

 

Step 1, allow your drives to spin down.

 

Done.

How many drives do you have?

 

Are they all "green" drives?  [WD Reds, WD Greens, Seagate LPs, Seagate NAS, etc.]

 

What is your current baseline idle consumption?  [Measured with a Kill-a-Watt]

 

All i can suggest is to take a realistic view. If you driver is to save money then a new MB or CPU likely offsets years of electricity costs (false economy). If you driver is the environment then the chemicals and power used to make new components will ofset using the old ones (false economy).

 

Rules of thumb only but keep it in mind

If you really want to save power without S3 support, you could shut it down daily every night.

Usually the bios has an auto power on, so it can be set to auto wake.

 

Another option is an advanced router software pack that has the ability to send Wake on Lan packets from a browser interface.

Then you can use your phone to wake it up.

 

As far as I know, the E3-1230/1240, etc, etc will only use as much power as you demand of it.

I.E. when it's idle, it doesn't draw that much power. When you fire up all these decompression tasks and/or transcoding, then the CPU is gonna work it.

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

 

I think it's more operating system and application support that's lacking.

 

The hardware (most likely), kernel (probably) and all applications need to support it. 

 

I think it's more of an application support thing. There have been people who have gotten it to work.

I don't know all the details though.

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!

 

While I suspect an X9SCM-F board/E3-1240 most likely DOES support S3, what's missing here is what add-on cards he has in the system.    In many cases those are what prevent successful S3 operation.    There are workarounds where a small program will execute on wake and automatically re-initialize the troublesome hardware; but that can be very tedious to get set up and working properly.

 

To be blunt, you don't buy server grade hardware to get a really energy efficient setup. Replacing your CPU with a E3-1220L v2 would help, but keep in mind it's not going to be as powerful as the CPU you have now.

I wouldn't be surprised if a power monitor using either CPU at idle showed the same results or very small differences.

The newer CPU's are so much better at power management then CPU's of yesteryear.

 

Is the cost premium for a low voltage CPU worth it in a home server.

Probably only if you are footing the bill for electric and having to actively cool a room with air conditioning.

 

A controlled timed shut off and an auto bios startup could achieve what you want if S3 becomes too difficult.

 

A funny side not. My friend was complaining that he kept getting up late for work.

So I asked him what time he woke up. I then programmed his bios to go on at that time.

 

2 weeks later he said, I don't get it. my computer keeps turning on and waking me up... just as I have to get up for work. 

 

He asked me how it's doing that and can I turn it off <grin> 

 

 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a power monitor using either CPU at idle showed the same results or very small differences.

The newer CPU's are so much better at power management then CPU's of yesteryear.

 

Is the cost premium for a low voltage CPU worth it in a home server.

Probably only if you are footing the bill for electric and having to actively cool a room with air conditioning.

 

A controlled timed shut off and an auto bios startup could achieve what you want if S3 becomes too difficult.

 

A funny side not. My friend was complaining that he kept getting up late for work.

So I asked him what time he woke up. I then programmed his bios to go on at that time.

 

2 weeks later he said, I don't get it. my computer keeps turning on and waking me up... just as I have to get up for work. 

 

He asked me how it's doing that and can I turn it off <grin> 

 

 

I suspect that the E3-1220L v2 is actually based on a mobile i7 part and should therefore idle even lower.

 

http://forums.vr-zone.com/hardware-depot/2185459-xeon-e3-1220l-v2-ongoing-review.html#post11599263

I've been using unraid for almost 2 years now. And now I start wondering how to make it more powerfriendly.

What is your motivation and end goal? Are you trying to save money on electricity? If so, I don't know of anything you can buy that will save more electricity than the part costs. If you are trying to save the planet, I don't know of anything that costs less to manufacture than the electricity you will save.

 

That leaves behaviour changes, which means shutting down the machine when not in use, and waiting the extra minutes to boot it back up.

 

When you run out of capacity, buy the largest drive your system and budget supports, and retire the oldest most power hungry drive you can.

 

Make sure all the disks that can stay spun down do, by concentrating well used media on one or two disks, and archival stuff all together on disks that are seldom used.

 

All this conversation about what parts save the most electricity is fine for a new build or fixing a broken machine, but mostly useless if you already have a running machine, mostly because of the cost of parts vs the energy they use either to run or manufacture.

Sometimes it's just about seeing how little power we can use 

 

Hybrid cars;  solar heating and power systems for houses; etc. almost never pay off in terms of $$ ... but we can "feel good" about using them 

Do you have a graphics card installed (I don't see one in your sig)?  If so removing that might save 30w or so if you can run headless.

 

With all of my drives powered down my setup is pulling 80w which is more than I was hoping for when I built the server.  However I hadn't considered the impact of a graphics card and therefore didn't specifically look for a mobo that allowed me to run without one, which is annoying!  I'm assuming that it is the graphics card pulling the extra juice over my cpu which is 34w I believe, but I might be wrong.

 

I turn my server off at night using the powerdown script available on this site (with a cron job scheduled in my go script) and use the bios to auto wake it the next morning.

 

I've considered changing my mobo for one I can run headless, but if you do the maths the investment works out to be a hell of a lot of electricity (years) to use before even breaking even.  I don't think you've stated your power consumptions, but I'd imagine unless you are using a huge amount this would be the same for you.

I'm assuming that it is the graphics card pulling the extra juice over my cpu which is 34w I believe, but I might be wrong.

 

I think you'd be surprised.  I doubt your graphics card is the "power hog."  The AsRock Extreme series motherboards draw a LOT of power (the newest version draws about 55w just for the motherboard).    I suspect your motherboard is drawing 30+ watts just by itself.  Assuming you used a low-end video card, it shouldn't draw more than 5-10 watts.

 

I'm assuming that it is the graphics card pulling the extra juice over my cpu which is 34w I believe, but I might be wrong.

 

I think you'd be surprised.  I doubt your graphics card is the "power hog."  The AsRock Extreme series motherboards draw a LOT of power (the newest version draws about 55w just for the motherboard).    I suspect your motherboard is drawing 30+ watts just by itself.  Assuming you used a low-end video card, it shouldn't draw more than 5-10 watts.

 

Yeah you could be right, I can't remove the graphics card to confirm annoyingly.  I don't even know what model card it is, its just one I had lying around.  Motherboard power use was another thing I didn't consider - I'd assumed minimal use, but maybe not.

 

Live and learn i guess - I'll know better for next time 

For me, the migration from P4's & XEON's to Pentium M's was about power, but also heat.

Yeah it cost me more, but in the end the sheer number of BTU's saved was a big plus.

 

I did not have to cool the apartment so much in the summer.

 

It's funny, when I started using the XEON's, the computer room was so warm, the heat came on less.

The landlord started to question if I was using the heat or something was wrong.

 

In the summer it was sweltering in my computer room.

 

This is where the LV XEONS and mobile processors worked out great for me.

I started moving everything to ITX mobile processors and laptops.

 

In the end I had only 2 large machines 1 dual core dual CPU XEON and the unRAID server along with HTPC's using mobile processors.  Worked out really well.  My electric bill went down and so did the heat output.

 

For one machine it may not matter, unless it's part of a Home Theater complex that you need to cool with air conditioning.  Then the power saved can be double.

 

Also really creative fan placement and using as much passive cooling as possible helps.

 

If I found the need, I might invest in the LV processor and some sort of passive heatsink. then use the convection of the 120MM or 140MM exhaust fan to cool the CPU.

 

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

 

Supermicro was very clear about it. Server grade boards don't need S3 and so it is not in the BIOS.

Do you have a graphics card installed (I don't see one in your sig)?  If so removing that might save 30w or so if you can run headless.

 

With all of my drives powered down my setup is pulling 80w which is more than I was hoping for when I built the server.  However I hadn't considered the impact of a graphics card and therefore didn't specifically look for a mobo that allowed me to run without one, which is annoying!  I'm assuming that it is the graphics card pulling the extra juice over my cpu which is 34w I believe, but I might be wrong.

 

I turn my server off at night using the powerdown script available on this site (with a cron job scheduled in my go script) and use the bios to auto wake it the next morning.

 

I've considered changing my mobo for one I can run headless, but if you do the maths the investment works out to be a hell of a lot of electricity (years) to use before even breaking even.  I don't think you've stated your power consumptions, but I'd imagine unless you are using a huge amount this would be the same for you.

 

 

I don't use a graphics card, the server runs completely headles. How do I use a cron job in the go script to powerdown? Like to give that a try. I guess the BIOS can only auto wake if it supports S3?

I don't use a graphics card, the server runs completely headles. How do I use a cron job in the go script to powerdown? Like to give that a try. I guess the BIOS can only auto wake if it supports S3?

 

Look in the bios or look in online manual.

many bios have the auto wake schedule.

I looked at the manual I cannot find it, so I'll assume that's not supported either.

 

Here's an example of what to look for.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bios-beginners,1126-8.html

http://www.technoburst.net/2010/06/auto-power-on-your-pc-using-bios.html

 

Other then that the only option left is Wake on Lan.

if you have another machine that is on 24x7 and you can do automated tasks from it, then you can have it send a WAKE on LAN on schedule or via some push button.

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

 

Supermicro was very clear about it. Server grade boards don't need S3 and so it is not in the BIOS.

 

Well in that case perhaps such motherboards are not suitable for home server use?

 

My Asus Workstation class motherboard has been rock solid!

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

 

Supermicro was very clear about it. Server grade boards don't need S3 and so it is not in the BIOS.

 

Well in that case perhaps such motherboards are not suitable for home server use?

 

My Asus Workstation class motherboard has been rock solid!

 

My SuperMicro X7SPA-HF-D525 build with 4 4TB drives cost to run:

At 100% load, the server will cost ~$45/year to run

At idle, the server will cost ~$18/year to run

90+ % of the time will be in idle.... I can live with the $1.50/month and not care about suspend.

I don't believe for a second that that Combo does not support s3 sleep!! Computers a good 5+ years ago support it!!

 

Supermicro was very clear about it. Server grade boards don't need S3 and so it is not in the BIOS.

 

Well in that case perhaps such motherboards are not suitable for home server use?

 

My Asus Workstation class motherboard has been rock solid!

 

 

That is a whole different discussion. I had considered the P8BWS but it didn't have IPMI, which I value more than S3.