Energy-conscious (remote) Gaming NAS

[nastard]

Hello everyone,

Let's say I want to disembowel my gaming PC and build a power-conscious NAS that also doubles as (multiple) gaming PCs (using GPU passthrough to Windows VMs) with Unraid.

It should give me full performance for Gaming and NAS (not necessary at the same time) but should be as power-saving as possible when powered on but idle (VMs turned off).

It might also find some other Docker/VM-based server-related tasks in the future, like being a dedicated gaming server, but my concern in this post is "only" to find the holy grail in terms of low power consumption in idle (NAS active but unused) and optimal gaming performance when used (while ideally still making use of power saving features the hardware provides, like clock rate adjustments).

 

Let's set a benchmark: 35.44W ("typical" in use), 18.63W (idle disks), thats what the 6-bay QNAP TS-653D that I was looking into before getting the idea to build a all-in-one frankenserver is using, according to spec sheets. I don't care about power consumption during gaming.

 

First off: is it realistic to reach idle power consumption this low with normal inexpensive consumer/server hardware at all when realizing such a project (regardless of the hardware listed below)?

 

This is the hardware I would like to reuse (potentially replacing later):

• MB: Asrock Z270M Extreme4 MicroATX Socket 1151 with VT-d and VT-x

  • I would consider replacing this with an MB with better power saving if necessary, not restricted to μATX

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz

• GPU 0: Intel HD Graphics 630 on CPU (could be disabled if power-relevant)
• GPU 1: Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX
• GPU 2: ATI Radeon HD 4800 (will be replaced with something more potent for player 2 at some point)
• 32GB DDR4-RAM

• 750 Watt Corsair CX Series CX750M Modular 80+ Bronze

  • No idea if this is a good power supply for the task

• Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 500GB SSD

Hardware I would add:

• A tower with >6 front 3.5" bays
• A bunch of shucked 8TB WD My Book drives (I know about the TLER problem)
• Maybe a bigger/faster SSD for caching
• Some NIC >= 2.5GBaseT (still undecided)

 

My primary quesions are:

• Is the hardware generally suited for the task or are any components not able to efficiently save power when idle?
• Does Unraid make use of power saving features? I noticed for instance that while Windows 10 running on bare metal slows down the CPU to something <2GHz, the same system running in the VM does not. How about PCIe power saving for the GPUs?

But really, ANY remarks, ideas or links to useful resources are appreciated.

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by nastard

[Decto]

22 hours ago, nastard said:

Let's set a benchmark: 35.44W ("typical" in use), 18.63W (idle disks), thats what the 6-bay QNAP TS-653D that I was looking into before getting the idea to build a all-in-one frankenserver is using, according to spec sheets. I don't care about power consumption during gaming.

 

 

That is a very ambitious power target. 

 

You should get 40-50W idle for the base system, add ~10W idle for each discrete GPU.

What power reading does your current system give?

 

I have a LGA2011 10C20T CPU, 8 HDD, 3 SDD with a Quadro P2000 (GTX1060) Quadro P1000 (GTX1050) and GTX1650.

My current idle with drives spun down but both VM's (P1000 + GTX1650) running and at a windows desktop is ~100W

If I shut the VM's down then ~90W

 

Take out 1 GPU, less memory, a more efficient platform gets you back to the 60-70W idle with 2 GPU which would be my best estimate.

 

I'd also skip the Radeon card, likely to be more trouble than it's worth.

I've tried 3 different Radeon RX cards in the last few months and while I got them working, I had a number of random issues, lockups with unclean shutdowns etc. I replaced the card with my spare Quadro and no more issues. 

 

Also consider you'll only have 3 cores for gaming in a VM, best to keep one for Unraid so running 2 gaming VM's will be a stretch. 

I have one at 4 cores and one at 2 cores.

[nastard]

Thanks for the reply, @Decto.

Seems like I have some expectation management to do.

I decided to order the a Fractal Design 804 case and a energy measuring device and just try it out with the hardware I have (ditching the Radeon as you suggested).

I can't really tell the total power consumption but I hope I will with the measuring device.

I'll report my findings here. If it turns out that the idle power consumption in non-VM mode isn't acceptable, I will build a dedicated NAS with the case and a low-TDP Ryzen 3.