Super Power-Efficient ITX Nas CPU/Motherboard?
Super Power-Efficient ITX Nas CPU/Motherboard?
I've got a NAS built in a Node 304 mini itx case that works great, but uses a ton of power. In Unraid (the OS for my NAS) there is some kind of issue with the Ryzen 3900x processor that I'm running that means I have to disable all sleep states - so it's always at it's 100W TDP. Power is super expensive where I live so I'd love to find something more power efficient.
Does it make more sense to buy a more recent(ish) 5th gen ryzen in hopes that the sleep states will work, and thus save money by keeping my existing motherboard?
Or I could go with something a bit more interesting. I've seen on Aliexpress motherboards with mobile CPU's soldered which are very power efficient. For example the N100 has an insane 6W TDP and comes on special boards with lots of sata ports and 2.5G networking (link). The worry with the n100 though is that it only officially supports 16G of ram which might not be enough for zfs.
Any thoughts? Is anyone running a power-efficient build who could throw some advice my way? Thanks!
If you're really worried about power use, you could switch to an itx motherboard with an soc laptop chip in it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
itx motherboard with an soc laptop chip
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Oh yeah these are super cool. Seems like they've gotten pretty expensive lately though, I can't seem to find a good deal on Aliexpress
Have you measured the power consumption with a kill-a-watt (or similar)?
I have the nas connected to a UPS that reports it's power draw and it sits at about 100W at all times. There are one or two other small devices connected to it usually, so the nas itself is probably using a hair less that that at idle, but still it's quite high.
This seems very suspicious, get a cheap watt metter and test it with that. If it still says 100W I would say there's something wrong in your CPU, motherboard or software. Not necessarily the CPU, can be the motherboard or simply your Linux is set to run the CPU at full clock all the time.
Btw, I have a Ryzen 5 2600 and that thing goes down to 20W or so.
I'm looking at the TerraMaster F4-423 which is basically an Intel NUC soldered to a SATA controller. It has 4x 3.5" SATA bays, an internal USB slot for the OS, 2x m.2 slots, HDMI output, 2x 2.5G LAN, etc. Comes with 4GB RAM, supports up to 32GB. I think it's the smallest NAS with custom OS you can get.
Can you put Linux (God's intended OS) on it?
Of course. The original OS, Terramaster OS (TOS), is Linux based and you can replace it with other plain Linux versions or a NAS-specific distro such as OMV or UnRAID.
Since this is basically an Intel NUC, even Windows might run on the thing.
It's certainly odd that your current CPU draws so much power if it isn't under load. I would try to investigate that further.
That said, zfs ram requirements are related to the total storage. If you don't have hundreds of terabyte storage, 16GB ram should be sufficient.
Okay that's good to know. Right now I'm only using ZFS for the ssds so it's only like 2TBs, but I eventually want the ability to migrate the main array which will be more like 40TB (raw capacity, so some will be used for parity)
Honestly, when Unraid is the culprit, why not change that instead?
I would, and I plan to someday, but my whole storage system is setup on it and migrating would be an enormous pain. Also right now I rely on it's ability to create a RAID array with differently sized drives. Next time I upgrade, I plan go get homogeneous drives, so maybe then would be the time to move away from Unraid.
How many HDD are you running? Set to spin down or no? Those spinning all the time add up quickly.
Sleep state and power States are different things... I've never heard of power profiles causing issues. I'd try keeping sleep disabled in BIOS and then look into what you need to change to allow the processor to idle/downclock. There's no reason this shouldn't work I'm aware of.
Could try undervolting as well.
Okay maybe I can mess with that. I think when I initially was having problems I just nuked everything I could related to power states just to get things working again. Maybe I can try turning some stuff back on.
I'm only running 3hdds at the moment, and they're setup to spin down automatically which does save some power for sure.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers PSU Power Supply Unit RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 12 acronyms.
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Regarding the N100 idea: https://youtu.be/Ppo6C_JhDHM?si=UHUs6jseifBTuulZ
Look for the 4 minute mark, but the whole video is really good.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Ppo6C_JhDHM?si=UHUs6jseifBTuulZ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I just wish NewPipe would open piped.video links automatically.
I have MSI Z270-A PRO and intel G3930. With 2 SSDs it was draining 22W, but after adding toshiba 12TB HDD it went up to 35W. Before adding HDD I was testing different PSUs and some were using 35W (instead of 22W on this one). Check if your PSU is overdimensioned like 1000W or something like that (PSU is super unefficient if you use it at <10% of max power)
Note that I dont have GPU
Yeah, the power supply is absolutely too big. I think I used it for a gaming pc before this, so it's in the ballpark of 800W. I also doubt it was a particularly efficient one to begin with, since I don't care much if a gaming PC is effecint since I don't keep it on.
I'll look into getting a lower-power one for cheap and see if that helps. Thanks!
Renoir and Cezanne PRO Apus can idle under 15W. I’ve built my NAS inside a Node 304 as well and use a Gigabyte A520I with a 5650G and ECC RAM because ZFS. Asus b550i works as well. As long as you activate both power savers in bios (cec/aspm/erp) your system will idle under 15W excluding other stuff. I’ve not seen under 20W with asrock boards. With a asm1166 m.2 adapter you get enough sata for the drive caddies which leaves you with 4 sata on the mainboard for cache ssds that you can mount between the caddies.
Lenovo thinkcentre? 🤔
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