Hi, I just joined the forum to reply to this.
Actually, the power savings can easily pay for itself quickly, especially if you buy a used platinum psu on ebay for 60-100 and you live somewhere with extortion level electric rates and your nas bumps you up to a higher priced tier.
Also, generally, unless you have a really old psu wiring harness, you can use the same hot swap psus in any supermicro sc8?? chassis and some others. The 2u, 3u, and 4u all use the same supplies.
I have been running a custom x9scm build and switched to a supermicro chassis about 6 months ago after extensive testing of performance and power draw. My custom build had 20 4tb drives running in an antec 1200 with a platinum 550w psu and was super quiet with about 160w idle draw (all drives spinning) but the supermicro chassis is very nicely modular and is rackmount able, although it is not as quiet.
I am now using a sc847 case with 36 4tb hitachi low power drives, a 1265L v2 and am getting 270-360w ac draw (idle to fully loaded) although I had it as low as 240w idle with fewer fans in initial prototyping.
Key ways to cut power draw (and noise) on supermicro chassis without major surgery are:
1 - Run only 1 psu unless you need the redundancy - remove the second supply slightly to avoid the warning BEEP if you just unplugh the power from it. Likewise, run only 1 chassis so you have fewer active psus at once unless you need to disconnect your jbod regularly. Momentary peak draw on my system is under 640w for just a moment during bootup with all fans on full and all drives spinning up, well within the capability of a single 800w supply.
2 - Get platinum or better rated supplies - ac draw of the pws-920p-1r draws about 12W per supply with the system off. An older generation non-80plus 900w supply draws closer to ~30W with the system off, and a gold rated 1400w supply was about 25W with the system off. I will retest for more accurate numbers and update. The extra draw is always there even at load in my tests. Bonus, the platinum supplies are quieter than the others, but don't spend the extra money on a sq "super quiet" unless you need a little less noise from the psu fan, their efficiency is the same as the 1r models, and they are a lot more expensive, even used.
3 - Connect the fans to the motherboard instead of the backplane if they are not already wired that way. The motherboard will slow them down when not needed, which is quieter and draws less power. Typical supermicro fans are 5-15 watts each at full speed, and even 3 fans running slower can save you 20-30W easily. Plus you can disconnect unneeded fans, if you environment is not hot, you may easily be able to get away with fewer fans, especially in larger chassis' just don't cut airflow over your lsi controller.
Disclaimer - I have been running zfsonlinux for years, but currently I am getting everyone I know to set up a freenas system for personal backups, and will probably set one up myself soon for tech support questions from them. Power and noise should not be significantly different between freenas and zol though.
Actually, the power savings can easily pay for itself quickly, especially if you buy a used platinum psu on ebay for 60-100 and you live somewhere with extortion level electric rates and your nas bumps you up to a higher priced tier.
Also, generally, unless you have a really old psu wiring harness, you can use the same hot swap psus in any supermicro sc8?? chassis and some others. The 2u, 3u, and 4u all use the same supplies.
I have been running a custom x9scm build and switched to a supermicro chassis about 6 months ago after extensive testing of performance and power draw. My custom build had 20 4tb drives running in an antec 1200 with a platinum 550w psu and was super quiet with about 160w idle draw (all drives spinning) but the supermicro chassis is very nicely modular and is rackmount able, although it is not as quiet.
I am now using a sc847 case with 36 4tb hitachi low power drives, a 1265L v2 and am getting 270-360w ac draw (idle to fully loaded) although I had it as low as 240w idle with fewer fans in initial prototyping.
Key ways to cut power draw (and noise) on supermicro chassis without major surgery are:
1 - Run only 1 psu unless you need the redundancy - remove the second supply slightly to avoid the warning BEEP if you just unplugh the power from it. Likewise, run only 1 chassis so you have fewer active psus at once unless you need to disconnect your jbod regularly. Momentary peak draw on my system is under 640w for just a moment during bootup with all fans on full and all drives spinning up, well within the capability of a single 800w supply.
2 - Get platinum or better rated supplies - ac draw of the pws-920p-1r draws about 12W per supply with the system off. An older generation non-80plus 900w supply draws closer to ~30W with the system off, and a gold rated 1400w supply was about 25W with the system off. I will retest for more accurate numbers and update. The extra draw is always there even at load in my tests. Bonus, the platinum supplies are quieter than the others, but don't spend the extra money on a sq "super quiet" unless you need a little less noise from the psu fan, their efficiency is the same as the 1r models, and they are a lot more expensive, even used.
3 - Connect the fans to the motherboard instead of the backplane if they are not already wired that way. The motherboard will slow them down when not needed, which is quieter and draws less power. Typical supermicro fans are 5-15 watts each at full speed, and even 3 fans running slower can save you 20-30W easily. Plus you can disconnect unneeded fans, if you environment is not hot, you may easily be able to get away with fewer fans, especially in larger chassis' just don't cut airflow over your lsi controller.
Disclaimer - I have been running zfsonlinux for years, but currently I am getting everyone I know to set up a freenas system for personal backups, and will probably set one up myself soon for tech support questions from them. Power and noise should not be significantly different between freenas and zol though.
