Power shedule

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Forssux

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Hi There,

I moved from a QNAP solution to the Freenas solution at home.
What I miss is a GUI based power shedule option to put the pc to sleep and awake it at a given time shedule and this for a week.

KInd Regards
Guy F
 

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Yatti420

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You can shutdown the server with the a shutdown command.. The power up depends on the settings available in the BIOS.. I had it working on my old setup.. I now just use IPMI to power up when I want..
 

Forssux

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@Yatti420 this is an answer beside the point...
SHEDULE people who are able to put a Freenas on a old pc now how to shutdown...
 

tio

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you can configure startup and shutdown times in the PC's bios you have with little difficulty. However constant spin up and spin down of non enterprise disks will yield a lot more wear and lead them to fail early then if they were left on constantly.
 

Forssux

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It seems that people like to put stuff in the bios or do via the CLI..
This is fine of course for those that like to use this system...
However as Freenas services are offered as a Webpage I guess there's merit in asking for a solution that the commercial counterparts offer.
Maybe somebody can put a gui around a script like the one found here http://forums.nas4free.org/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=4229

Kind Regards
Guy
 

cyberjock

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Well, you can make your own scripts to do this however you want. There's several version of them floating around here. But doing it in the GUI.. not likely. The GUI can only have so many options to choose from. And to be honest, shutting down FreeNAS servers isn't recommended. And to be bluntly honest, NAS4Free is nothing even remotely close to a "commercial counterpart". It's more of a joke in my opinion. And most people I talk to that have used NAS4Free before say the same thing.
 

Forssux

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Strange where is it written that servers should run all the time?.....
The Gui options offered in my screenshot will do just fine...if one would follow your reasoning one can abandon Freenas or Nas4Free project.
Where your discomfort from nas4free comes from...I have no idea..
I however have a Nas4free server running as a FTP server Freenas didn't install here..I think both have there merits..Your signature is great apply it please.


Back to topic I'm not smart enough to write these scripts hence the reason I use GUI..
I'm sure that turning my server of during night from 24:00 till 09:00 will save me money and is better for the server.
It's not that I'm asking to put the disk to sleep every 5 minutes...

Regards
Guy
 

cyberjock

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Few things to think about with regards to 24x7 servers:

1. Stuff happens at night. If you are always shutting it down from midnight until 9am, that maintenance won't happen. Some maintenance only happens on weekends too, so saying you'll leave it on on a Tuesday night doesn't alleviate all of the problems. Some things only happen once a week or once a month. It's a schedule you'd have to set and if you have a complex schedule setup(which many people do) then you'd be lucky to be turning it off twice a week.
2. Hard drives just last longer if you leave them spinning all the time. Nobody understands why, but it's a commonly observed phenomenon.
3. If you build your server right, you shouldn't be swallowing kWh whole, and you shouldn't be worried about the $1-2 you'll save by shutting down your server for that twice a week I mentioned in #1.

As for my(and many other's) discomfort, their product has been a source of many problems. I can't tell you how many people come here and admit they are using NAS4Free but aren't getting support so they are here looking for help with recovering their data or mounting their pools. Also, their support is crap. I ran(not walked) away from trying to decide between NAS4Free and FreeNAS when someone was having a problem with their pool and one of the NAS4Free developers said to use fsck on your zpool. Anyone with any knowledge of ZFS knows there is no fsck on your zpool. The user even confronted them about it because the user knew better. The developer responded with "oh.. well, I don't know then".

So let me ask these 2 questions:

1. If a developer(a developer!!!) tells you to use fsck on a zpool, do you think he's going to really be coding a good product for ZFS?
2. If the support from the actual developers is "well, I don't know then", what kind of example does that set for their community?

We've had issues where the developers created code just to help someone get their pool back. Not saying that's the norm or that it should be expected. But, there's a big difference in quality from what you get from FreeNAS developers and what you get from the NAS4Free developers.
 

Forssux

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With regards to your 2 questions I don't think that I should answer the obvious...
1). Your point 1 seems to indicate that Freenas in my case is used in an Enterprice enverionement...It's not I have bought an old HP server on ebay with the only purpose to serve as a file server. I do the maintance and at Night I sleep..
2). I can honestly not understand this...can you point me to papers about this...Why is it that Commercial Nas Thecus,Qnap Synologi are all wrong and implement a feature like this...One thing is sure consuming 300 W 24/7 electricity a year is double expensive as running it only 12 houres a day. 0.35€*0.3KWH*24*365=919€ If I can Halve this I can buy new Hard Drives every year and still have money in my pocket.
3)I would shut it down roughly half the time...My server is an old HP ML310....

Still not convinced? It doesn't mather I Offer 25 € for a plugin that does what I would like to do shutdown (sleep) and awake at certain intervals

Regards
Guy
 

cyberjock

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1. And you risk breaking the design of FreeNAS. Do what you want. I can't tell you how many teamviewer sessions I've had with people literally crying over their lost data asking "why" and I say.. "hmm.. you didn't do a scrub in 2 years. That is part of your problem.". It was expected that it would be up 24x7. That's how it was engineered. If you don't like that, do what you want. It's your data, right? It's your loss if you decide the reward from saving a few dollars of electricity makes it worth the potential consequences.
2. Have you ever owned either of those? I know the Thecus is a POS. Someone has one at their job and they opened it up one day to find it had zero fans installed! Qnap.. well, many of our users of FreeNAS gave up when their Qnap ate their data. Also, noteworthy is that neither of those devices are anything even remotely comparable to FreeNAS. Yes, they are all NASes. But that is literally the only thing they have in common. FreeNAS is open source, the other's aren't. FreeNAS offers far more control, far more performance, and far more reliability than those other devices. And probably the most important aspect is the fact that neither use ZFS in the same fashion as FreeNAS. In fact, those devices are made with so little RAM and such a poor performing CPU you can't even run ZFS on them reliably. Oh, but the Thecus will gladly sell you a machine with a whopping 4GB of non-ECC RAM for ZFS. And if you ask ZFS engineers about it, they'll tell you that you are a moron if you use non-ECC RAM with ZFS. But, you'll gladly buy that device for $400 or so and hop, skip, and jump all the way home while you bought a poorly designed, poorly engineered, and extremely poorly implemented ZFS version.

So I'm sorry, but your comparisons are invalid. Now, if you want to compare to a product like OpenIndiana, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc. then that would be more fair. But, those products will probably recommend 24x7 uptime(and maybe even promote it as a "high reliability setup").

And if your hardware is using 300w, you could probably spend $500 on newer hardware and reap the cost savings just by using more efficient hardware. No joke, I did the math and my "upgraded server" will pay for itself in 3 years. So why wouldn't I buy the newer hardware and reap that benefit? It's like getting the hardware for free! I've got one of the biggest systems with 24 drives installed, and I don't even use 300w under full load. This is why we tell people that you might save money on hardware by buying used stuff from ebay that will 'do the job'. But you'll pay far more for it in the end with higher electric bills.
 

Forssux

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It seems to me you start arguing for the sake of arguing ...
You only state opinions ...never links to YOUR claims....
If you have 24 disks I think that you certainly consume 150 W so that would be half of mine..
What is your server? Which components did you put in it ...
It doesn't even matter because even if you had a server from the future already running that only consumes 10 W in total you still could halve that with a power schedule very easy. Now imagine if 100000 users worldwide would do this...wouldn't it be better for the climate?
For your information I have a QNAP TS-509 Pro .... It had its hickups (power cut in street) but nothing a raid rebuild ore rsync wouldn't cope with. Also QNAP runs on linux and can be altered very easily. iXSystem can be compared to companies like QNAP etc they both offer hardware based NAS..one is based on FreeBSD the other on Linux...So no need to start trashing on the other companies..No Fan ( If your Server would only consume 150W then a better design could easily get rid of this heat with a large Heatsink..) would be welcome absolute silent then :smile:


In my humble opinion FreeNas lacks a feature called power schedule...

Regards
Guy
 

cyberjock

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OK, this is gonna sound harsh, but I don't mean it this way.

I'm not arguing to argue. I have far better things to do with my time than argue with people. Plain and simple. In fact, some people are put off because I don't want to write a book and waste my life answering posts here.. for free. Hell, I could be doing far more productive things with my life that are far more beneficial to me.. like organizing my socks.

I'm under no obligation to provide links. I'm a volunteer(just like every single poster here). I don't bother providing links unless I have them handy. Now, if you want to pay me to work on your stuff, I'll find all the links you want. But while i'm on my time, I'll do as much or as little linking as I want. You are welcome to do your own research at any time, with or without posting, and with or without my consent.

My server hardware is discussed in my noobie presentation, so again, I will provide you with no link as it is already available to you VERY readily.

And as for halving the power, there's also losses to shutting down the server. Hard drives are well known to wear out more quickly when drives are having to spin up and down more frequently than being left on 24x7. So you are saving money in electricity, but spending money and time on RMAs and new hard drives because you are wearing them out faster. Where's the happy medium? I don't know. But most of us prefer to run it 24x7 and not deal with the inconvenience of dealing with failed disks.

And you are welcome to compare whatever you want. I can compare my SUV to a hybrid compact car. Doesn't make it a good comparison. They both provide good transportation, but similaries quickly become differences beyond that. The same is basically true of QNAP versus FreeNAS. To the common user its "a device that stores my stuff". But that's about all they have in common when you dig deeper.

Good luck to you though! Hope it all works out for the best.
 

Forssux

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I agree that we disagree on several things..

Still there's one thing that you can't seem to understand.
Writing here with your credentials as forum guard or whatever and the saying that shutting down the drives in a controlled manner twice a day will wear out the hard disk is just PLAIN wrong.
Most of FreeNas users are using it because it's free open source or offers ZFS or whatever..I'm certain we all use the cheapest possible drives..which already these days have spin down etc.. built in.

I myself administer a Dalet Archive system at work where indeed "Professorial Enterprice HP certified Disk" are installed" They tend to stop working at the same rate as my Green Disks at home.

But Beside all this - and I don't want to be rude honestly - If somebody wan'ts a feature who are you to say that he don't need it.
certainly as a Forum/Guard some restraint is advised here ...
It's useless to do this as you can imagine that my feature request stays on my list..
You see this a lot on forums answering beside the point just to provide an answer and gather (trophy ) points ...
And yes when you say something is wrong/wright you should provide links if you want to be taken seriously of course..

Still I which you all the best and hope you become more ecologically minded.
Regards Guy
 

cyberjock

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Fine, disagree with me. I'm not even the one that noticed the effect of leaving drives on 24x7. And, if you actually check out all of the WD greens, reds, blacks, and blues.. the only ones that spin down by default are the laptop version!

It doesn't matter.. i'm providing advice. It's free. Take it or leave it. Even argue with me. I don't care. I've got 24 dives, all out of warranty since they are all over 3 years old, and had 3 failures since installing them all. So I'd tend to think that I'm doing *something* right. While other people can't even get 1/2 their drives to last 2 years, I'm cruising along. And 2 of those 3 drives I consider to be my own fault...

As for certified disks, if you search around here, there's been so many mixed results with them that the "certification" means just about as much as toilet paper to me. My "WD Greens" are doing an amazing job, and they aren't certified to do anything except store consumer data. Yet I've never seen a server with 24 drives be as reliable as mine have been.

But yeah, call me wrong. I'll still tell others the same thing I told you. Why? Because when I look back at others and view other's opinions and how they did, they do FAR FAR better than a system that shuts down nightly.
 
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