Power consumption with 150W Pico-PSU

[riporto]

Hi all,
I'm almost new to Freenas but I'm assembling my second Nas, first one was based on Windows 7.
The priority for this Nas was power consumption: it has to be as low as possible.
Currently power consumption is about 28W with two 2.5" disks, 16Gb DDR3 1333, Celeron G1610 on ASUS P8H61-I LX R2.0 (Intel H61) Mini-ITX Motherboard and the 160W stock power pack.
My question is: would I lower power consumption replacing the 160W stock power pack with a 150W Pico-PSU and 150W external brick?

 

[cyberjock]

That's something you'd have to comparefor yourself. It depends on the efficiency curve of your current power supply along with the curve for the PicoPSU and your loading. I will tell you that the PicoPSUs are pretty efficient, so you have a pretty good chance that a PicoPSU will be better. However, if you don't already own a PicoPSU you'll have to drop the money for it just to upgrade, and you aren't likely to make the money back over the lifetime of the PicoPSU.

More than likely, the difference between the two PSUs and the wattage saved will be less than 5 watts. So while you would technically save on electricity, you'll spend so much buying a new PSU its really not a smart choice. If your current PSU fails, then maybe consider a PicoPSU as a replacement. But 99% of the time, if you already own a PSU its more economical to use one you already have over buying a new one.

 

[riporto]

Briefly you are saying that probably I would save around 5W, but because of the cost of the pico-PSU it would certainly not be convenient...

 

[cyberjock]

Briefly you are saying that probably I would save around 5W, but because of the cost of the pico-PSU it would certainly not be convenient...

Yes, but don't take 5watts savings for granted. You'd have to do load comparisons to the efficiency curve for both PSUs. You could very well see watts go up depending on the math.

 

[riporto]

Ok, thank you for info!
I'll let you know what I'll decide to do.

 

[Alchete]

Mine saves 6W at idle vs. a 450W power supply.

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?11451-BUILD-2013-i3-22nm-16GB-ECC-RAM-18TB-Pico-PS-34W-Idle

 

[cyberjock]

So you will save about 2¢ per day. If you paid what I paid for mine (about $80 after shipping costs) it'll take you just over 2 years if you run the server 24x7. If you run it any less than that it'll take longer.

Now if you were in California where the price of electricity is tiered, and the price doubles(or more) once you go past the first tier you may find that your savings will be MUCH faster. I still can't believe people pay for electricity with the prices in California where they are. I've heard that once you go past the bottom tier(which is so low you are guaranteed to go over it) the price is like 39¢/kWh.

Glad it was a savings and not an increase.