Optimizing power consumption: TrueNAS Scale Server

[somethingweird]

keep 2x 100W lightbulb - turned off forever to offset the power consumption of the NAS?

 

[cainam]

Hi
I have a HomeNAS build of a Jonsbo N2 and a N100 CPU. I have 2 SSD and 1 2.5HDD in it. My consumation is about 20Watt. How can i lower that (the 2.5HDD i have spin down as i dont need this allways on). Thanks for any ideas

Regards Rapha

 

[sretalla]

the 2.5HDD i have

Almost all 2.5" HDDs are SMR... have you checked yours? https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/list-of-known-smr-drives.141/

 

[cainam]

no... never checkd... as the 2.5 HDD is just for jellyfin and has no sensitive datas...

 

[NugentS]

Reducing power below 20 Watts - I would suspect you are well into the law of diminishing returns
My N100 system pulls 100W

 

[cainam]

Reducing power below 20 Watts - I would suspect you are well into the law of diminishing returns
My N100 system pulls 100W

but i talking of idle consumation...

 

[ChrisRJ]

but i talking of idle consumation...

Yes. 20 W idle is really low. I am not aware of any scenario to go below that without seriously risking your data.

 

[cainam]

But if I check some of the synologys they have in standby (which it is 90% of the time) abou 5-7kw

 

[danb35]

I'm sure you meant 5-7 watts, not 5-7 kilowatts. But that's an apples-to-Chevrolets comparison.

 

[cainam]

Yes ;-) watts not kw… but why I can’t get lower and close to synology?!

 

[danb35]

Because TrueNAS doesn't run on a cheap ARM processor. Its power and flexibility have a cost, and that cost is expressed in RAM and CPU cycles--and that means power.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Because TrueNAS doesn't run on a cheap ARM processor. Its power and flexibility have a cost, and that cost is expressed in RAM and CPU cycles--and that means power.

@cainam : Really, it's the above. The added security of TrueNAS creates a lot of overhead resulting in high resources usage and is the expected cost of that security. Industrial robustness has an associated up-front cost which is paid to mitigate the hidden cost of data corruption/loss. It's basically "cheap insurance," the associated question is, "how valuable is your data?"

 

[cainam]

Thanks for explanation .
My data’s are not super ultra important, just private doks… but don’t want to lose it . For that I have a backup on the cloude
Other software maybe better for my purpose?

 

[ChrisRJ]

What is your use-case?

 

[cainam]

Just a central place to have my datas to access from all computers and mobile

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Just a central place to have my datas to access from all computers and mobile

Synology. I run those where the situation calls for it.

TrueNAS is sometimes "a bit much," or even "way too much." However I've also installed it on a tiny system for limited users and it works great.

 

[sfatula]

I often have a different way of looking at things. I actually saved power by moving to Truenas Scale. (Or, you could say I was using too much power before I guess). I threw out my i9900 desktop/"NAS" with fancy GPU and such, and replaced it with a custom made Scale machine that idles in the 70's (watts). For the desktop, to go along with previous poster who mentioned Pis but possibly in jest, I am using a Pi 5. So, the additional couple watts for the "desktop" + Scale compared to the old desktop, bug savings.

Yes, a desktop with Pi5. I do VSC for coding, DBeaver, Libreoffice, browsers, thunderbird, discord, audacity, makemkv, picard, mkvtoolnix, bdsup2sub++. subtitle edit, tsmuxer, vlc, remmina, nextcloud sync, keepassxc, digikam, krita, moneydance, back in time, qownnotes, various ffmpeg, and more on it's quite fast now. I build my Scale containers there too using docker, arm to x86_64 is no issue.

So, I could say Scale saved me power. But really, just a wiser use of power and not doing the coder / computer guy thing of buying way too much machine.