Power Consumption of 260 to 360 W seems too much

[Hugo Ochoa]

I use my system at home for backing up my computers and play FullHD video on my TV via the PS3.

When I press the button on my Eaton 5s 1500 VA UPS, I see a reading of 320 W when the NAS is idling and 360 to 380 W when its under load. I'm not sure if that's 100% load but still seems high. The system I build is detailed in my signature.

I made a calculation that it would cost about $20 a month to run this my system 24/7 so it's not really that much considering I probably spend more on coffee. However, the system is very loud and can be easily heard running outside my office which is annoying to me. The office also gets pretty hot when the run has run for a while.

Seeing that NAS systems from qnap, asustor, synology, etc (I like Synology DiskStation DS2415+). All run at or under 100 W under load and seem to have similar o better features that FreeNAS, except that they cost more. The higher cost could be justified by the savings in build time, features, quiet operation, and power consumption. My system is very loud even in the Xrackpro 6U enclosure.

I haven't seen any reviews on how does FreeNas compare to these prebuilt systems but I'm thinking that I could use a quieter system that uses less power.

Here's my system specs:

• FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201508250051
• Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80637E31230V2,
• SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX,

• 12 WD Red WD40EFRX 4TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5",

• Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11K4/32,

• Supermicro SuperChassis 826E1-R800LPB,

• Verbatim 4GB USB flash drive,

• 2 IBM ServeRAID M1115 cross-flashed to a LSI9211-8i in IT mode.

• Supermicro SuperChassis CSE-826E1-R800LPB in JBOD configuration with 12 Hitachi 1TB NAS drives.

• XRackPro 6U by Gizmac Server Rach Noise Reduction Rackmount Enclosure Cabinet.

 

[gpsguy]

Please put your system specs in the body of your message. Many of us use mobile devices and or use Tapatalk. We can't see your signature and therefore can't help out.


Sent from my phone

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Do you have 12 drives, or 24? Are you running WD Reds, or Hitachi NAS drives, or both? Your signature shows 2x 826E1-R800LPB, each of which has an 800W PSU. Two M1115s, 32GB of RAM ... seems like it would be pretty power hungry.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Do you have 12 drives, or 24? Are you running WD Reds, or Hitachi NAS drives, or both? Your signature shows 2x 826E1-R800LPB, each of which has an 800W PSU. Two M1115s, 32GB of RAM ... seems like it would be pretty power hungry.

24 drives, Everything in my specs (see updated OP) is running. It is a very high availability and speed system. I'm just wondering if I could match it with a Synology DiskStation DS2415+

 

[DrKK]

I did a napkin calculation given your equipment, and I get a number that is lower than yours, but still close enough that I would believe yours is correct.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I'm just wondering if I could match it with a Synology DiskStation DS2415+

I guess that depends on how you define "match". For storage capacity, apparently you could, but would the software, features and data protection capabilities meet your needs? If so, maybe the DS2415+ would be a good option for you.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

I guess that depends on how you define "match". For storage capacity, apparently you could, but would the software, features and data protection capabilities meet your needs? If so, maybe the DS2415+ would be a good option for you.

As far as data protection capabilities I'm not sure if the DS2415+ would be any better than my current system. I'm using Raidz3 on all my volumes and I would use a similar setup with the DS2415+. Not sure about SHR. However, DSM software features like surveillance seem interesting and the 5.2 version has many new features that look equal or better than FreeNAS 9.3. The diskless system can be had for $1,680 which is a reasonable price since I already have the drives.
I'm not a guru on this so maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. Any thoughts?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Any thoughts?

Based on the fact that the DS2415+ uses the EXT4 filesystem on the internal drives, I deduce that it's probably running software RAID on some flavor of Linux. As far as I know, software RAID on Linux does not offer the protection against bit rot that ZFS offers.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Based on the fact that the DS2415+ uses the EXT4 filesystem on the internal drives, I deduce that it's probably running software RAID on some flavor of Linux. As far as I know, software RAID on Linux does not offer the protection against bit rot that ZFS offers.

Is bit rot really a problem? I did a search for bit rot and it seems like there's a lot of controversy on weather bit rot actually can cause data loss. HDD have built in data correction and then there's the raid level redundancy to fix data that is corrupted beyond that. There could be hardware errors between memory and the drives but how often does that happen in an enterprise level system as the DS2415+?

 

[anodos]

Is bit rot really a problem? I did a search for bit rot and it seems like there's a lot of controversy on weather bit rot actually can cause data loss. HDD have built in data correction and then there's the raid level redundancy to fix data that is corrupted beyond that. There could be hardware errors between memory and the drives but how often does that happen in an enterprise level system as the DS2415+?

There's probably a reason MS is sinking money into ReFS. ;)

 

[Savage]

Yeah. It is linux. The SHR raid they use is probably built on top of existing linux volume management and raid stuff. Some of their models do have integrated hardware raid that is exposed too. The last rack station I installed allowed for raid 0,1,5 etc with the built in LSI SAS/SATA HBA as well.

Also : Xpenology . I personally have a performance oriented freenas for my work stuffs; but I also have an xpenology box stuffed with old hard drives (which is what my freenas backs up on :P)

Based on the fact that the DS2415+ uses the EXT4 filesystem on the internal drives, I deduce that it's probably running software RAID on some flavor of Linux. As far as I know, software RAID on Linux does not offer the protection against bit rot that ZFS offers.

 

[depasseg]

Here's my system specs:

• FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201508250051
• Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80637E31230V2,
• SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX,

• 12 WD Red WD40EFRX 4TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5",

• Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11K4/32,

• Supermicro SuperChassis 826E1-R800LPB,

• Verbatim 4GB USB flash drive,

• 2 IBM ServeRAID M1115 cross-flashed to a LSI9211-8i in IT mode.

• Supermicro SuperChassis CSE-826E1-R800LPB in JBOD configuration with 12 Hitachi 1TB NAS drives.

• XRackPro 6U by Gizmac Server Rach Noise Reduction Rackmount Enclosure Cabinet.

Your power usage for that PSU, MB, and 2 chassis with 24 drives seems on target from my perspective.

A newer supermicro system will be more power efficient and be much quieter. My Freenas1 isn't audible 10 feet away and barely noticeable 3 feet away.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Is bit rot really a problem?

Yes, drives do not always return the same data that was originally written.

HDD have built in data correction and then there's the raid level redundancy to fix data that is corrupted beyond that.

Assuming you accept that drives sometimes return invalid data, the next question is, "What is the impact?" With most filesystems, including EXT4, if a drive returns invalid data, the OS has no idea, and the user just attributes the result (corrupt JPEG, Word document won't load) to an application-level failure. With ZFS, invalid data returned from a drive is immediately detected, and in most cases can be corrected automatically. BTRFS tries to do the same thing, but is not as mature as ZFS.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Interesting points! However, it seems to me that if data corruption due to bit rot was such a big problem, companies would only use ZFS as their file systems and that's just not the case. It seems to me that hobbyist such as myself that use their FreeNas systems for home use are mostly the users of ZFS and companies that actually rely on the integrity of their data for their daily business use other "lesser" file systems such as NTFS. Ext4, etc.


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[anodos]

Interesting points! However, it seems to me that if data corruption due to bit rot was such a big problem, companies would only use ZFS as their file systems and that's just not the case. It seems to me that hobbyist such as myself that use their FreeNas systems for home use are mostly the users of ZFS and companies that actually rely on the integrity of their data for their daily business use other "lesser" file systems such as NTFS. Ext4, etc.


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Conjecture based on small sample sizes is usually wrong. File storage at work is ZFS based.

 

[JDCynical]

Interesting points! However, it seems to me that if data corruption due to bit rot was such a big problem, companies would only use ZFS as their file systems and that's just not the case. It seems to me that hobbyist such as myself that use their FreeNas systems for home use are mostly the users of ZFS and companies that actually rely on the integrity of their data for their daily business use other "lesser" file systems such as NTFS. Ext4, etc.

Momentum is a heck of a thing. :)

I've seen many a company stick with their old 'proven' systems, as well as not want to change to any newer system that can't make use of their existing hardware investment. Heck, I know of one company that still has P3 based systems in production use.


Be it not wanting to spend the budget on a newer system, or just being afraid to try something different, you can't make a judgement based on what companies are currently using. Change takes a very long time to happen, especially in the larger businesses.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Does anyone have suggestions for a more efficient system that would provide equal performance and storage capacity?


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[cyberjock]

Your hardware and mine is nearly identical. I think your 260w is very reasonable for the hardware.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Your hardware and mine is nearly identical. I think your 260w is very reasonable for the hardware.

would it be possible to change the PSU for a Supermicro PWS-1K03A-1R? Would it be more energy efficient migrating both of my chassis to 1 SuperChassis 848E16-R1K62B?

 

[cyberjock]

Don't know... but unless the PSU is free, the couple of % savings will probably never pay for the cost of the PSU.

You'd have to look up in Supermicro's documentation to figure out what is/isn't compatible with a given chassis.