FreeNAS test box idle: 30.5W / busy 39W

[xbmcg]

Hi,

just for reference:

MoBo: ASUS N4L-VM-DH Sockel 479
CPU: Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo 2GHz
RAM: 2 x 1 GB DDR2
PSU: beQuiet 300W
HD: 2 x WD3200BEKT scorpio black 2.5" SATA2 (7200rpm)

freeNAS-x64

IDLE: 30.5W
BUSY: 39W

issues:

it is an old board, it has

2 SATA1 + PATA (Intel ® ICH7-M DH Southbridge:- 1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33 - 2 x Serial ATA supports RAID 0, 1 and Intel ® Matrix Storage Technology)
2 SATA2 (JMicron SATA Controller: 1 x Internal Serial ATA 3,0 Gb / s + 1 x External Serial ATA 3,0 Gb / s (SATA On-the-Go), RAID 0, 1 support)
GBit LAN (Intel 82573L Gb Ethernet (Vidalia))
1 x PCI-E x 16
1 x PCI-E x 1
2 x PCI

The mobo has 2 SATAII Ports (1 internal, 1 eSATA at the JMicron), but only one is recognized by freeBSD at full SATA2 speed, the other stays at SATA1.

However, configured at RAID1 zfs, 500Mbps Transferrate is O.K. and it is low-power.
By the way, is there a way to put the CPU / Graphics to sleep - e.g. turn off the monitor instead of a screen saver?



I plan a new setup with a more recent bord:

ZOTAC M880G-ITX
AMD Turion II Neo Dual-Core K625 1,5GHz
6 SATAIII (6Gbps), 2 USB 3.0 + 6 USB 2.0
1Gbit LAN + WiFi 802.11n
Mini-ITX
8GB DDR3 RAM
same drives, psu as above

I want to test the performance difference / power consumption and will post the results later here.
(more ram, faster sata lanes, will also remove the wifi later to see if this saves some more watts)

 

[xbmcg]

My new setup, as planned:

ZOTAC M880G-ITX
AMD Turion II Neo Dual-Core K625 1,5GHz
6 SATAIII (6Gbps), 2 USB 3.0 + 6 USB 2.0
1Gbit LAN + WiFi 802.11n
Mini-ITX
8GB DDR3 RAM
same drives, psu as above

I want to test the performance difference / power consumption and will post the results later here.
(more ram, faster sata lanes, will also remove the wifi later to see if this saves some more watts)

So what are the test results:

Network troughput 90-95% (of the GBit Interface), 850Mbps average on a 10GB Transfer, no drop outs.
MS Reports 100 MBytes / second, what corresponds with the LAN troughput.

File System is zfs mirror (RAID1) on fast notebook sata2 drives, no compression, no deduplication.
Processor sleeps while transfering data, ram is almost empty too.

I think, it is pretty good for such small beast.

Power consumption: 40.0W BUSY, 35W IDLE, ...

Conclusion: the good old Intel core 2 duo T7200 is better in power savings, but the performance
of the new amd mobo is much better (80% speed increase 500Mbps => 850Mbps) due to SATA3 Ports.