You know, my FreeNAS server with no drives.. Xeon e3-1230v2, 32GB of ECC RAM, dual GB Intel LAN, uses less power than your machine at the wall. Mine sat at a solid 35watts with powerd off. Plus, since I have AES-NI I do use encryption for one of my zpools. :p
I should note that this was not my first choice in hardware. :(
I had a nice box spec’d out, with ECC and ultra-low TDP processor. Alas, my wife put in her veto when she saw the price tag (about $1.9k), and I had to find ways to get the price tag down to about $1k. Her argument: for that price, I could buy a new hard drive once a year for 20 years in a row and copy everything I’ve currently got over… counter-arguments about how that doesn’t save my data from bit rot were destroyed with a simple “none of your data is that important”.
My goals:
- small, for home use (Mini-ITX or DTX since I decided on the Node 304 early on)
- primarily to be used with WiFi (802.11n, later perhaps 802.11ac)
- RaidZ2 (6 drives)
- Enough usable space for 2 TimeMachine backups and all of my current data, preferably more (4TB available space would be cutting it very close)
- full disk encryption
- preferably on the fly compression
- preferably low energy consumption
- preferably ECC RAM
At least the A4 has AES-NI (all modern processors seem to have it), so full disk encryption probably sucks by about a factor of 10 less than it would otherwise. Since WiFi is such a bandwidth bottleneck, even this little $46 processor is sufficient (though not ideal).
Most prices listed below are Newegg or Amazon.
Code:
Drive options: (6x) WD Red 3 TB 6x $145.99 = $875.94 (12TB available) (6x) WD Red 2 TB 6x $109.99 = $659.94 (8TB available) (6x) WD Red 1 TB 6x $79.99 = $479.94 (4TB available) High End Combo with ECC: Fractal Design Node 304 $89.99 Supermicro X9SPV-M4-3UE (Core i7 @17W TDP) $619.99 (2x) Kingston KVR16LSE11/8 (16GB) 2x $86.68 SeaSonic SS-400FL2 (Platinum) $119.99 = $1477.33 (4TB available) = $1657.33 (8TB available) = $1873.33 (12TB available) Mid Range Combo ECC: Fractal Design Node 304 $89.99 Intel® Server Board S1200KPR $159.99 Intel Core i3-3220T (35W) $125 LSI Logic SAS9211-4i $175 Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2 (8GB) $88.99 SeaSonic SSR-450RM (Gold) $74.99 = $1193.90 (4TB available) = $1373.90 (8TB available) Low End Combo (no ECC): Fractal Design Node 304 $89.99 ASRock MB FM2 FM2A85X (AMD) $99.99 AMD A4-4000 (65W) $45.99 Corsair CMV8GX3M2A1333C9 (8GB) $67.99 Corsair CX430M (Bronze) $49.99 = $833.89 (4TB available) = $1013.89 (8TB available) = $1229.89 (12TB available)