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Revamping my unraid for energy efficient 24/7

deviousx

By deviousx
in Hardware

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deviousx Apprentice

deviousx

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Had my unraid for other a year now and been pretty happy with it overall.

 

I used one of the forum stickied build guide and spare parts to create the original but now looking to refine it and keep it energy efficient.

 

And based in UK and my next electricity bill is estimated £150+  :o

 

unRAID: version 5.0-rc16c

MOBO:  Asus M4A88T-M 880G

CPU: AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz

RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 2x2GB DDR3 1600

PSU Corsair CX 430

CASE Coolmaster Haf 932

HDDs:

Samsung HD204UI F4 3.5 inch 2TB 32MB 5400rpm (parity)

Western Digital WD Green WD20EARX 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s X4

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal (cache)

 

Running Couchpotato v2, Sabnzbd, Sickbeard x2 and MySQL server which i have yet to set up.

 

Its storing all my Movies/TV shows/Anime and servicing 2 HTPCs and a Gaming PC.

 

It has about 1 tb left and probably going for around 12tb in the long run but I'm just adding as i go along for now but sure need an adapter to add more hdds.

 

This is probably not the main or worse offender but i'm going through them all one by one and as this is on 24/7 guess good place to start.

 

Any advice things to change or swap out be appreciated

 

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garycase Grand Master

garycase

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I've got a Supermicro X7SPA-H-D525-O Atom board with 6 3TB WD Reds.  With the drives spun down it draws 20watts.

 

HOWEVER ... for the add-ins you want, you probably want a bit more CPU "horsepower", so I'd use the Asus board dirtysanchez listed above with a Core i3 => you'll still get the idle draw down to the mid-30's and have plenty of "horsepower" for add-ons.

 

However, I'd suggest you get a wattmeter and measure your actual idle draw before making any changes.    That would also be useful for anything else you're trying to analyze vis-à-vis potential savings.

 

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garycase Grand Master

garycase

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Is this being used by anyone yet for unRaid?

 

No, and I doubt it will be.    This board is targeted at micro-blade servers for very high capacity datacenters, and is not at all economical for UnRAID usage.    Supermicro's site shows it as "Coming Soon"  [ http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SAi-2750F.cfm ];  but there are a few listed on e-bay [ http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-SuperMicro-A1SAI-2750F-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-FULL-MFR-WARRANTY-/331016545939?pt=Motherboards&hash=item4d121fa693 ]

 

It IS an attractive board .. but with only 6 SATA ports at nearly 3 times the cost of a D525-based X7SPA-H-D525-O (which also has 6 SATA ports),  I'd go with the X7SPA if you want an Atom board;  or use the Asus board dirtysanchez uses with a Core i3 if you want more "horsepower" .

 

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garycase Grand Master

garycase

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The tirade seems a bit unnecessary.  I doubt anyone's going to buy a $550 mini-ITX board for UnRAID when a $110 Asus board with a $125 Core-i3 will easily outperform it with the same number of SATA ports and only about 10w extra power draw; and for a basic NAS that doesn't need the horsepower, the D525 board has the same storage capacity.    As I noted, the board is being targeted at mini-blades for large datacenters [e.g. https://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/system/2U/2015/SYS-2015TA-HTRF.cfm ]

 

 

As for your question ...

 

Do you know ANY Mini-ITX board with more than 6 SATA ports?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157357

 

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neilt0 Community Regular

neilt0

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The answer is the HP Microserver, now what's the question?  ;D

 

If you're in the UK, you can get one (if you're quick) for about £80. I just sold the 250GB drive you get with it for £16, so effectively, it cost me £64. I haven't measured the N54L power usage, but I've seen under 20W on idle with my old N36L.

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deviousx Apprentice

deviousx

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Thanks guys for all awesome support and posts.

 

I'm leaning towards dirtysanchez build or waiting for Ford Prefect suggestion to became available but need to compare the two.

 

The answer is the HP Microserver, now what's the question?  ;D

 

If you're in the UK, you can get one (if you're quick) for about £80. I just sold the 250GB drive you get with it for £16, so effectively, it cost me £64. I haven't measured the N54L power usage, but I've seen under 20W on idle with my old N36L.

 

I looked at that before i made my unraid but didn't quite get it and see how it fit my needs.

 

I've got a Supermicro X7SPA-H-D525-O Atom board with 6 3TB WD Reds.  With the drives spun down it draws 20watts.

 

HOWEVER ... for the add-ins you want, you probably want a bit more CPU "horsepower", so I'd use the Asus board dirtysanchez listed above with a Core i3 => you'll still get the idle draw down to the mid-30's and have plenty of "horsepower" for add-ons.

 

However, I'd suggest you get a wattmeter and measure your actual idle draw before making any changes.    That would also be useful for anything else you're trying to analyze vis-à-vis potential savings.

 

 

That great idea be best possible test but i know nothing about wattmeters so how about this one:https://www.rcgeeks.co.uk/Turnigy-7-in-1-Mega-Meter-Battery-Checker-Watt-Meter-Servo-Tester-Temp-Gauge?gclid=CPKjwtaP0LkCFYPHtAodbngAmA

 

As you probably know, less hard drives with larger capacities will help you $ave power in the £ong run! The great thing about unRAID is you can grow the array by swapping out drives as time and money permit.

 

In regards to hard drives I 8tb worth data almost full so i guess its to decide whether to replace them with 3x 4tb or 4 x 3tb but kind of apprehensive to the amount of drives i'll have unused. Pus i will have to replace the parity drive to match but i think i need to replace it regardless as i've just realised it and cache are using the sata connections. Although i'm attempting save money in long run i still want it to be efficient in what it does. I've seen a lot of mention of wd red so are those any good.

 

Running fanless think worth throwing on a few fans?

 

Also realized i never setup bios properly as recommended in guide i saw with forcing ahci etc is it to late to do that?

 

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jumperalex Rising Star

jumperalex

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Yeah because I gotta tall ya, if you don't know how much energy you're really using, you're just guessing that new hardware will save you money.  If you haven't checked actual consumption via the linked Kill-A-Watt then you are probably going to spend money that will never be returned to you in the form of energy savings. 

 

Spending money to expand is of course a different issue and buying efficient hardware is worth it.  But you're likely going to find out that in the grand scheme right now your machine doesn't consume that much power so long as you are spinning the drives down when the array is idle.

 

And to be clear, I'd suggest running your server hooked to the kill-a-watt, accumulating power consumption count, for an amount of time (day, week, month) that will capture a fairly typical spectrum of your usage.  Just testing min (idle spun down) and max (full parity rebuild while transcoding 5 1080p streams) will tell you nothing about at which end of that spectrum you spend 90% of you time.  Remember that a "65watt TDP" processor is not consuming that much power when idle and by virtue of being faster than another "lower power" processor might finish transcode/indexing/etc faster allowing your array to spin down sooner. 

 

TL;DR: find out how much power you are really using before you spend money you'll never recoup.

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dirtysanchez Collaborator

dirtysanchez

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Agree with what jumperalex said. To put into perspective a bit, my server idles (with cache drive spinning 24/7, array drives spun down) at 38W, and at full load (parity check, all drives being accessed) runs just shy of 70W. Electricity pricing is tiered where I live, so even assuming all server electrical use is in the highest tier at the highest price of $0.19/kWh, the server only costs me $63/year at idle and $116/year at full load. I haven't left the Kill-A-Watt plugged in for a month (I should), but the server spends at least 90% of its time at idle, if not more.  It's safe to say it costs me about $70/year in electricity to run the server worst case.

 

To jumperalex's point, let's say you can shave $50/year off your electric bill by upgrading your system. Depending on the cost of the upgrade, the break-even point is many years down the road, often at least a decade.

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neilt0 Community Regular

neilt0

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The answer is the HP Microserver, now what's the question?  ;D

 

...the question is how to expand when the OP already got 6 disks and running low on space  ;D

 

Buy another one. Seriously, I have 2. They are so cheap. Then upgrade all the drives to 4TB. That's exactly what I'm doing.

 

The OP is running 2TB drives. Upgrade 'em. You'd be amazed what people will pay for old drives on FleaBay if you list carefully. I sold a 500GB drive for almost £20 yesterday. The 4TB drive arriving tomorrow cost me £106. You do the math!

 

I'm at 22TB on server 1, that will go to 24TB tomorrow when a new drive arrives (20TB usable).

 

Server 2 has 6x2TB drives. Those will get upgraded to 4TB drives eventually. If you need more than 48TB, then go for a Norco or similar.  It's enough for me. I also only switch on the second server once a week, or maybe even once a month, as it's long-term storage only.

 

I made the mistake of trying to run 20+ small drives in one server and it's a waste of time and money, IMO.

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deviousx Apprentice

deviousx

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Hahaha i'm so dumb i was thinking in my mind how the hell do i use this...

 

Your example makes much more sense lol.

 

Just ordering one off amazon

 

Since your in UK, you may want to take a look at these instead of the 120V Kill-A-Watt:

 

http://efergy.com/eu/products/electricity-monitors

 

The 'Energy monitoring socket 2.0' looks like it might do the trick.

That looks very nice and features look like they are very handy.

 

The answer is the HP Microserver, now what's the question?  ;D

 

...the question is how to expand when the OP already got 6 disks and running low on space  ;D

 

Buy another one. Seriously, I have 2. They are so cheap. Then upgrade all the drives to 4TB. That's exactly what I'm doing.

 

The OP is running 2TB drives. Upgrade 'em. You'd be amazed what people will pay for old drives on FleaBay if you list carefully. I sold a 500GB drive for almost £20 yesterday. The 4TB drive arriving tomorrow cost me £106. You do the math!

 

I'm at 22TB on server 1, that will go to 24TB tomorrow when a new drive arrives (20TB usable).

 

Server 2 has 6x2TB drives. Those will get upgraded to 4TB drives eventually. If you need more than 48TB, then go for a Norco or similar.  It's enough for me. I also only switch on the second server once a week, or maybe even once a month, as it's long-term storage only.

 

I made the mistake of trying to run 20+ small drives in one server and it's a waste of time and money, IMO.

Sounds interesting. Do they work in conjunction with unraid or are they standalone. I might Look into it for some long term storage.

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garycase Grand Master

garycase

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The watt meter you linked to is more for RC equipment. Garycase is talking something more like this: http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379343058&sr=8-1&keywords=kill-a-watt

 

I didn't suggest a Kill-a-Watt because he's in the UK.    Unfortunately, despite the manufacturer's name ["P3 International"], they don't make a version for European use.

 

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