Save power

[norskman]

There are some of us, who do not use their NAS at night time.

Could we see a way, through the GUI to have a turn-off and a turn-on time?

Turning a PC on, may or may not be so easy to implement. But many BIOS's have this feature built in.

So maybe a turn off time?? I am not a programmer or a script writer.....any thoughts?

Think of all the fuel we could save, which you can use on your highways and byways.....instead of powering all of those FreeNAS servers....

 

[Ericloewe]

No, this issue has been discussed to death.

It's actually possible that you'll be using more power once you factor in the drives having to spin back up and the power required to build more drives to replace the early failures caused by your spinning them down.

 

[cyberjock]

What ^^^ said. But I'll go a little deeper.

What to shutdown your system at 10PM? Easy. Create a scheduled task in the WebGUI that runs at 10PM that is "shutdown -p now". Done. Your shutdown are now scheduled.

What your startups to be schedule at 6AM? Easy. Go into your BIOS and set that up (if supported). Done. Your startups are now scheduled.

The OS cannot schedule a start-up time. So there is never, ever going to be a way to do this because the OS is not accessible when the system is powered off. So you'll *have* to rely on your BIOS' featureset supporting schedule bootup times if you want it.

As @Ericloewe said above though, we've discussed this to death. ;)

 

[FreeNASBob]

No, this issue has been discussed to death.

It's actually possible that you'll be using more power once you factor in the drives having to spin back up and the power required to build more drives to replace the early failures caused by your spinning them down.

Even on a super power-sipping FreeNAS build using 70W with the minimum recommended 6 drives spinning, shutting down for 8 hours each night would save 204 kWh per year. I have HDDs in my PC that spin down and up multiple times a day without issue for over 6 years. Even if that's extreme and they would only last 5 years normally, that's over 1 MWh. Do you really think the power difference between replacing a drive every 5 years as opposed to every 7 or 8 is 1 MWh or more? That would require each HDD's manufacture to consume about 500 kWh (thus giving us 1000MWh/6 additional power consumption with owing to reducing service life by 33%). If they're manufacturing those drives in California it would be over $80 just for the electricity to manufacture them.

 

[pirateghost]

Freenas expects to be running 24/7. You will be interfering with its scheduled tasks of scrubs and smart tests....it simply isn't worth it.

 

[FreeNASBob]

Freenas expects to be running 24/7. You will be interfering with its scheduled tasks of scrubs and smart tests....it simply isn't worth it.

I agree shutting down isn't a good option. Better support for power saving states should be a priority, though. Having a FreeNAS box with the ability to behave more like a PC with sleep mode would go a long way to maintaining functionality without wasting so much power. My PC can "sleep" where the only power it's using is to keep bits in RAM and some very minimal CPU activity, but cron jobs or LAN activity can wake it right up in a matter of 2 seconds and run as normal. The current "we don't support it because we don't like the tradeoffs" seems awkward given the spirit of open source software is usually to give the user utmost control rather than taking the Apple/Microsoft approach of "we block you from doing x because we think it's best for you".

I realize that FreeNAS is just riding on FreeBSD and doesn't really do a lot of original development on top of it, so I guess that's unlikely to happen until FreeBSD does so.

 

[pirateghost]

Actually open source means you can code up the patches required and submit them for review. It doesn't mean you can demand the features and they get made for you.

Many of us prefer the 'enterprise' level of freenas.

 

[FreeNASBob]

Actually open source means you can code up the patches required and submit them for review. It doesn't mean you can demand the features and they get made for you.

I've been down that road. Too many egos and pissing matches. It's not worth the development time just to have some module owner refuse to take the patch because they don't want users to have a choice.

If the appropriate folks were to guarantee that code to support more power saving options would make it into FreeNAS as long as it meets defined standards, then it might be worth starting work. Until then, nope.

Many of us prefer the 'enterprise' level of freenas.

Which is fine, but why do you want to cram it down people's throats who don't want it? Does it hurt you in some way for others to have the ability to use it differently?

 

[pirateghost]

Nobody is forcing you to use freenas. There are plenty of products specifically intended for home use. There is nothing being crammed down your throat. You are free to use any OS you desire for your server.

 

[FreeNASBob]

Nobody is forcing you to use freenas. There are plenty of products specifically intended for home use. There is nothing being crammed down your throat. You are free to use any OS you desire for your server.

That's a cop out answer. Every criticism of everything ever can be answered thusly. Don't like taxes? Nobody is forcing you to live here, etc. The old "love it or leave it" dogma.

Nobody is forcing me to use FreeNAS, but FreeNAS is forcing me to waste power for no reason other than people like it that way if I do choose to use FreeNAS. I'm not aware of any other NAS software that supports ZFS and has good power management. Can you point me in that direction? I'd be happy to try it out and evangelize on here to others looking to use natural resources more responsibly.

 

[pirateghost]

You won't be evangelizing other OSes on these forums. Feel free to try any other NAS software out.

I still don't understand why you think the OS needs to support it when you can just set a script to power it off whenever you like. @cyberjock explained exactly how to do it.

 

[FreeNASBob]

You won't be evangelizing other OSes on these forums. Feel free to try any other NAS software out.

This thread says to me, "FreeNAS will not be supporting better power management and we will not allow people on these forums to let users know about other software that does." Some people are more interested in sweeping shortcomings under the rug by controlling the information available to users than they are in assisting those users. That's what I meant when I said, "Too many egos and pissing matches."

I still don't understand why you think the OS needs to support it when you can just set a script to power it off whenever you like. @cyberjock explained exactly how to do it.

We're not talking about powering off, we're talking about better power management in FreeNAS. If it existed we could achieve the low power usage of powering off without impacting cron jobs , scrubs, or other functionality.

You're not going to convince me of your opinion, and I'm not going to convince you of mine. It should be pointed out that the reason this topic comes up time and time again is because users want it, and as long as the FreeNAS folks choose not to implement a feature that so many users want it's going to keep coming up. It seems peculiar to me to take action to prevent these users from finding out about other systems that might suit their needs better, as doing so is just a guarantee that even more users will find their way onto these forums to post about this lack of functionality rather than just move on.

 

[BigDave]

If the appropriate folks were to guarantee that code to support more power saving options would make it into FreeNAS as long as it meets defined standards, then it might be worth starting work. Until then, nope.

It's just this type of thing that produces spin offs. Get some people together and create Low Power NAS !!!
Use the open source code and create what you envision.

You're not going to convince me of your opinion, and I'm not going to convince you of mine.

We have agreed to disagree :)
No hard feelings Bob, your camps numbers are growing all the time, but FreeNAS is enterprize software for
servers that in most cases are running 24/7 for world wide access. It just also happens to be used in private homes.

 

[pirateghost]

You are free to try other OSes.

You are free to mention them to users that are looking for that same feature set.

You can even fork freenas and build it exactly as you wish and distribute it (assuming you don't break the licensing model).

What you can't do is come here EVANGELIZING that other OS and try to persuade others to join you as you deter from freenas. People can make their own minds up as to what OS to use. Nobody said freenas is the only NAS OS out there. Everyone is free to research and formulate their own opinion on a product.

We very frequently recommend other OSes on these forums when we see that freenas doesn't fit their particular application/configuration.

There is a fine line between informing someone of another choice and spamming the forums 'evangelizing' another option.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Better support for power saving states should be a priority, though.

Is there server hardware out there which is recommended for FreeNAS and supports ACPI power states other than S0 (Working) and S5 (Soft Off)?

 

[Yatti420]

e not talking about powering off, we're talking about better power management in FreeNAS. If it existed we could achieve the low power usage of powering off without impacting cron jobs , scrubs, or other functionality.

Refer to the post #2.. Just schedule power offs and power ons. I have a thread I believe linked on my profile.. Servers and server software run 247 and arent powered off.. As for green products it's not even funny how efficient are PCs are versus a decade or two ago.. and it will continue.. Some will never power down drives due to perceived wear and tear (actual wear and tear or otherwise) and guess what we all still wake up tomorrow!..