exchange CPU requires reinstall?

[ddaenen1]

This might be a silly question to some but i just want to be sure. I have become a bit more power-conscience and am thinking of optimizing where i can on existing hardware to push it down a bit. I have 2 servers with Xeon X3430 CPU's and 1 server with a Xeon L3426 CPU. My understanding is that the L3426 consumes 45W where the X3430 95W so i am thinking of replacing the 2 other X3430's with L3426's. What is unclear to me, is if i can just go about with shutting down the server, open it up, replace the CPU and boot it up again, or if i need to do an entire reinstall? From what i understand, both are from the exact same family.

Any insights or thoughts?

 

[Alecmascot]

No re-install will be required....this is not Windoze

 

[anmnz]

My understanding is that the L3426 consumes 45W where the X3430 95W

Those are maximum values. Your real consumption is likely a lot less.

Just IMO if you want to be serious about this, you need to start by measuring how much power you are using!

There are major improvements in power efficiency at idle in later CPU generations (Sandy/Ivy Bridge) -- you might find upgrading your hardware gives you a significant reduction in power consumption.

 

[ddaenen1]

Those are maximum values. Your real consumption is likely a lot less.

Just IMO if you want to be serious about this, you need to start by measuring how much power you are using!

That might be a good idea but i am not equipped for that. I have 2 Supermicro X8SIL-F's running FreeNAS, one exclusively for Nextcloud (with the X3430) and one for Plex and fileserver (with the L3426). Then i have another Dell R210 with an X3430 running pfsense and a Synology R214 used as backup and photoserver and last but not least, the big power consumer is the Dell MD1000 with 15 2TB SAS drives. The issue with the latter is that is is the biggest power sucker but also the most difficult one to replace since it would mean a full reinstall of of my plex server and i just don't have any space to transfer my movie library to to make this happen so i want to start with the easy wins.

 

[anmnz]

Easy wins, fair enough. I'd just be worried that if you don't measure first, you might end up wasting your time and money on the wrong thing.

 

[jgreco]

That might be a good idea but i am not equipped for that.

Do you have something like this available to you? Over here in the US, these are sold as "Kill-A-Watt" meters and they are not particularly expensive.

 

[ddaenen1]

Do you have something like this available to you? Over here in the US, these are sold as "Kill-A-Watt" meters and they are not particularly expensive.

No, but it is a good tip. Going to look into buying one of those.

 

[ddaenen1]

Well, we are almost a year later and much has changed. The power grid company replaced my old consumption meter with a digital one last September which allows me to check power consumption via their website online as detailled as hourly. That showed me that even at night, when all asleep, i was still sucking up 8-9kW per day. So i decided it was time for the MD1000 and one server had to go keeping only one with both Plex and NC. I have built myself a new system using the predominantly components from the existing server (mobo, CPU, 4 HDD's) and a 350 Enermax PSU i still had in my stash and did a full new TrueNAS install and subsequentially Plex and NC. This is now up and running and first indications show that my consumption at night went down to 5kW in the first @ days.

I am still considering replacing the CPU with an L3426 or alternatively replace the 8XIL-F completely with a more modern and power economical version. The only downside on that might be that i need to do a complete reinstall (do i?) and i just finished one so not much up for that right now.

 

[jgreco]

The old Nehalem servers were much more power hungry than the Sandy Bridge gear that came shortly thereafter, and much of it was recycled out of data centers as rapidly as folks could cover the capex, because the opex delta was so high. It isn't just the CPU's, it is also the board chipsets, the memory, etc.

FreeNAS should be fine if you back up the configuration and then restore it. The main issue is that if you change ethernet interface types, that may require some reconfiguration, and that is sometimes a bit complex if you have jails etc.

 

[ddaenen1]

The old Nehalem servers were much more power hungry than the Sandy Bridge gear that came shortly thereafter, and much of it was recycled out of data centers as rapidly as folks could cover the capex, because the opex delta was so high. It isn't just the CPU's, it is also the board chipsets, the memory, etc.

FreeNAS should be fine if you back up the configuration and then restore it. The main issue is that if you change ethernet interface types, that may require some reconfiguration, and that is sometimes a bit complex if you have jails etc.

But i would need to reinstall my jails and plugins, correct? Is there any chance that i could exchange from my current X8SIL-F with X3430 CPU to for example a Supermicro X9SCL+ -F mobo with a Xeon E3-1220 CPU and just boot TrueNAS from the SSD and get on with life?

I am not so concerned about the ethernet infaces. They would be the same Intel chipset as the 8XSIL-F and both jails are configured as vnet.

 

[jgreco]

Couldn't tell ya. I don't use FreeNAS jails or plugins, sorry.