SOLVED Energy saving

[Theapplefuture]

Hey Everybody,


A few weeks ago I asked how can I reduce the power of my FreeNAS Server so I just came with two „new“ ideas of saving some energy and I thought you could give me advises with that.

SO my first idea is that I shut down my NAS when not used (like once a day when I go to sleep and start it again when I return from work) because it will not be used at all during this time.
During weekends I would let my Server on the whole time because scrubs are scheduled to take place on weekends.


But because I read many comments on different forums that some don’t recommend to shut down the server so my other idea would be to under voltage my CPU to save some energy ?
I have a Xeon 2620v4 which only will be used for the Server itself and for Plex (max one 1080p transcoding)


Hope you can help me

 

[Bidule0hm]

I'm pretty sure you can't do that on a server motherboard for the simple and good reason it can make the system unstable and that's the last thing you want for a server.

 

[toadman]

Assuming the HW supports undervolting, AND you test it properly for stability, it could work for a *home* system. I'd test it for at least a week under several severe corner cases before I put it into use though.

That said, most modern CPUs are pretty power efficient at idle, so I'm not sure how much power saving you will get by undervolting just the CPU. You'd probably need to undervolt everything to get meaningful savings. (No idea, just guessing.) Granted, the appliance you are running has a lot to do with how idle they are. So if you are really sucking too much power for your liking, and you are only running NAS and plex, instead of Freenas maybe a native BSD or linux install is more appropriate for your use. Just thinking aloud on that...

 

[anmnz]

@Theapplefuture, do you actually know how much power your system is drawing? If you haven't measured it carefully, you're just stabbing in the dark and it's entirely possible you'll waste your time by doing things that have no, or negligible, actual effect on your power consumption. And endanger your data to boot.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

I have a Xeon 2620v4 which only will be used for the Server itself and for Plex (max one 1080p transcoding)

The fact that you are using a Xeon E5 platform alone is responsible for a excess idle power consumption in the range of 40W compared to a Xeon E3 platform (roughly estimated). My expectation is that CPU undervolting can save you hardly anything.

Unfortunately you chose the wrong platform from an energy saving point of view unless you need the additional features of an E5, which isn't obvious for me.