Power consumption of MD-1510/LL with 5 x 1.5TB WD disks in idle

Hi

I recently figured out that my electricity bills went up..

Lime is not the only server at home, so I am trying to find out the source of the problem by selectively shutting down equipment and reading the meter of the power company

Question: what shall be power consumption of unRAID box in idle state?

Storage is used periodically basically between 6pm and 9pm, other than that it is idle.

help appreciated

Michael

The base system will use about 35-40 Watts together. The controller cards use about 4W each, so add another 8W.

The hard disks use about 3-4W idle, so add another 15W for 5 drives.

P.S. this wasn't that hard to find out yourself.

Edit: and since you actually own this server, why don't you just get a Kill-a-watt somewhere and do the measuring yourself (and share the info).

Question: what shall be power consumption of unRAID box in idle state?

As suggested, the kill-a-watt meter is a great tool to have around the house. Takes the guess work out of something like this.

Storage is used periodically basically between 6pm and 9pm, other than that it is idle.

If you know your period of use accurately like this, you can adjust the bios to automatically power up every day at a certain time.

Then set a cron job in unRAID to have the server shut off at a certain time.

It's not as good a deep sleep modes, but it's simple enough to do.

The base system will use about 35-40 Watts together. The controller cards use about 4W each, so add another 8W.

 

The hard disks use about 3-4W idle, so add another 15W for 5 drives.

 

P.S. this wasn't that hard to find out yourself.

 

Edit: and since you actually own this server, why don't you just get a Kill-a-watt somewhere and do the measuring yourself (and share the info).

Actually, I did something different.

I just used the meter of the electricity provider. For few hours with Lime ON, and then for few hours with Lime OFF.

So I tracked every time the totals and calculated the delta..

I got something like 300W

I wanted to see if that's normal or not..

300 watts for an idle machine at a short point of testing is allot.

If the machine was running flat out with heavy calculation or all the drives were busy then fine.

300watts total use after 3-4 hours would sound about right. (but probably could be better)

My machine with two disks active and torrent activity pulls about 90-110watts (with 6 of the 8 drives idle).

I will do more testing.

Anyway, from what I see unRAID does not enter some sort of standby state (S1??) except for disks spindown..

I believe Linux does have some packages for power management

S1 does not save you much... you have to go to S3 (POS) to save juice.

Some mobos will, and some wont.  Some will but only if you tweak some settings.  All require you to enable S3 STR in the BIOS.

If you have a mobo that will enter S3 under Linux, then you have to have some way to wake it up.  Some NICs will WOL under Linux, and some will not.

Also, all your drives will spin up when waking from S3, and that increases wear and tear.... whereas leaving the system running, wil only necessitate spinning up the one drive you access.

In the US, the average cost is $1 per Watt-year, or in other words, each Watt used by a box that is on 7x24x365 costs $1/year.

A low-power mobo and 6 drives can be built that only pulls under 35 Watts with drives spun down.

from what I see unRAID does not enter some sort of standby state (S1??) except for disks spindown..

I believe Linux does have some packages for power management

There are some members exploring this method. Reads like it still needs some tweaking.

It all depends on what sort of server you built.

My unRAID server draws around 35 watts when idle with array disks spun down but cache disk spun up, and 53 watts with disks spun up, and around 65 watts when performing parity check. This is on an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz with 4Gig ram, with 3 WD 2TB Green Drives for Array, and 1 WD 1TB Black Drive for Cache. As you can see, mine is built for higher performance and lower power.

25-35 idle,

53 spun up

65 parity check

75 kernel compile

94 max on post

Your 300W sounds way too high.

I would also recommend you just buy a Kill-a-Watt type meter. They're cheap enough.

I think my server was something like 55W with the disks spun down and about 90W during a parity check. That's with 4 drives 2x WD green and 2 x Seagate 1T. It was measured with a crappy old PS that I have since replaced with a 80+ supply so I should measure it again some time.

Peter

Your 300W sounds way too high.

Keep in mind.

Actually, I did something different.

I just used the meter of the electricity provider. For few hours with Lime ON, and then for few hours with Lime OFF.

So I tracked every time the totals and calculated the delta..

I got something like 300W

If I am reading this correctly, the 300W was over a period of time, I.E. a "few" hours not a specific "point in time" that the kill-a-watt would measure with an immediate review.

I would also recommend you just buy a Kill-a-Watt type meter. They're cheap enough.

I second this.

OK

I measured yesterday power consumption of the whole apartment using the Wattmeter of the electric company, it was 3.6KW during the period of 9:00 to 17:00

Today, I switched off Lime server completely (yesterday it was idle) at 8:30. Using same Wattmeter, I measured today 2.7KW for the ~ same period (9:05 to 17:20)

So, I assume that Lime consumption during 8 hours of idle time is 0.9KW or 0.113KWh.. How did you get 35W I have no idea

Anyway, I want to have some power management component and to put the storage box on sleep.

We're talking here about 1000KWh per year!

N.B. Lime is connected to UPS (~700W). Could it be that the UPS increases power consumption?

N.B. Lime is connected to UPS (~700W). Could it be that the UPS increases power consumption?

Most definitely yes! There's power "lost" for keeping the battery full.

OK

I measured yesterday power consumption of the whole apartment using the Wattmeter of the electric company, it was 3.6KW during the period of 9:00 to 17:00

Today, I switched off Lime server completely (yesterday it was idle) at 8:30. Using same Wattmeter, I measured today 2.7KW for the ~ same period (9:05 to 17:20)

So, I assume that Lime consumption during 8 hours of idle time is 0.9KW or 0.113KWh.. How did you get 35W I have no idea

 

Anyway, I want to have some power management component and to put the storage box on sleep.

We're talking here about 1000KWh per year!

 

N.B. Lime is connected to UPS (~700W). Could it be that the UPS increases power consumption?

.9 KWh total power usage over 8 hours

or .113 KW

or 113 Watts.

Some older CPUs drew a fair amount of power all by themselves... older power supplies were not as efficient...  

Can you list your power supply, motherboard, cpu, ram, video card, add-on cards, disks, fans, etc in your server.  It might help to see if 113 watts is out of line.

Most consumer UPS are standby/inactive when power is available, they would add a few watts to the power draw.   Did you unplug the UPS when you switched off the unRAID server?

Joe L.

OK

I measured yesterday power consumption of the whole apartment using the Wattmeter of the electric company, it was 3.6KW during the period of 9:00 to 17:00

Today, I switched off Lime server completely (yesterday it was idle) at 8:30. Using same Wattmeter, I measured today 2.7KW for the ~ same period (9:05 to 17:20)

So, I assume that Lime consumption during 8 hours of idle time is 0.9KW or 0.113KWh.. How did you get 35W I have no idea

 

Anyway, I want to have some power management component and to put the storage box on sleep.

We're talking here about 1000KWh per year!

 

N.B. Lime is connected to UPS (~700W). Could it be that the UPS increases power consumption?

That would be

.9 KWh total power usage over 8 hours

or .113 KW

or 113 Watts.

 

Some older CPUs drew a fair amount of power all by themselves... older power supplies were not as efficient...  

Can you list your power supply, motherboard, cpu, ram, video card, add-on cards, disks, fans, etc in your server.  It might help to see if 113 watts is out of line.

 

Most consumer UPS are standby/inactive when power is available, they would add a few watts to the power draw.   Did you unplug the UPS when you switched off the unRAID server?

Machine is brand new, as stated in the subject, from Lime.

I got it in the beginning of September.

Tom upgraded the stock configuration with 2.4GHz Dual-Core processor and 4GB RAM

I did not unplug the UPS, so I could see the UPS consumption as well..

I ordered Watt-metering device from eBay, so I will get these figures measured from another side as well..

I hope that the Wattmeter of the power company is calibrated

Anyway, the point is that 113W per hour is for Lime box DOING NOTHING!!!

Why not implement some power management, reducing CPU voltage, shutting down one of the cores?

I understood that Linux already handles all this..

Going by the post made by dlmh

40 watts for MB

8  watts for disk controller cards

20  watts for idle disk drives

25  watts for fans  (I'm guessing 5 fans @ 5 watts each, one on CPU, one on back of case, 3 others behind disks)

= 93 watts total

Now, power supplies are not 100% efficient... really good ones are 85% so...

93 / .85 =  109 watts.

Throw in a few watts for more memory, or things I forgot, and it is pretty darned close to the 113 watts draw you measured.

or...

If the power supply was 82% efficient, it would be

93 / .82 = 113.4 watts.

Joe L.

Going by the post made by dlmh

40 watts for MB

8   watts for disk controller cards

20  watts for idle disk drives

25  watts for fans  (I'm guessing 5 fans @ 5 watts each, one on CPU, one on back of case, 3 others behind disks)

 

= 93 watts total

Now, power supplies are not 100% efficient... really good ones are 85% so...

 

93 / .85 =  109 watts.

Throw in a few watts for more memory, or things I forgot, and it is pretty darned close to the 113 watts draw you measured.

or...

If the power supply was 82% efficient, it would be

93 / .82 = 113.4 watts.

 

Joe L.

But if the box will reduce CPU speed once idle, shutdown the fans.. and will finally enter S3..

I think it is a pity to pay for the electricity bills, if 16 hours out of 24 we're simply not at home, right?

Going by the post made by dlmh

40 watts for MB

8   watts for disk controller cards

20  watts for idle disk drives

25  watts for fans  (I'm guessing 5 fans @ 5 watts each, one on CPU, one on back of case, 3 others behind disks)

 

= 93 watts total

Now, power supplies are not 100% efficient... really good ones are 85% so...

 

93 / .85 =  109 watts.

Throw in a few watts for more memory, or things I forgot, and it is pretty darned close to the 113 watts draw you measured.

or...

If the power supply was 82% efficient, it would be

93 / .82 = 113.4 watts.

 

Joe L.

 

But if the box will reduce CPU speed once idle, shutdown the fans.. and will finally enter S3..

I think it is a pity to pay for the electricity bills, if 16 hours out of 24 we're simply not at home, right?

 

All I was trying to say was your estimate based on the power meter is probably pretty close to what is expected.  I'll be curious to learn what the kill-a-watt meter shows once it arrives.

Joe L.

Unless I missed it, no one has yet mentioned that there is a successful user mod that should accomplish what michael123 wants, though it may depend on the motherboard in his server, and requires sending a wake on LAN packet or manually waking up the server.

wiki article (No one has yet found time to update this to incorporate the latest enhanced script - link below.)

forum discussion Can skip most of it, thanks to the wiki.

latest enhanced script Discussion leading to these changes begins here.

All I was trying to say was your estimate based on the power meter is probably pretty close to what is expected.  I'll be curious to learn what the kill-a-watt meter shows once it arrives.

It does sound accurate. My server pulls about 115 watts with 6 drives idle + 2 drives spinning. 24x7.

I have a 2.6GHZ Core 2 duo with 4GB of ram (9 drives total).

At a point in time it's anywhere from 109-116 watts unless running parity check.

Even when I clocked the processor down to 1.6ghz, it still pulled the same electricity.

When I used a Celeron 440 (2ghz) it was still pulling more power then I expected. (This surprised me as I expected a savings in power)

The only time I saw greater decreases in power was with Mobile Processors.

Both my 1ghz Celeron M and 2.4Ghz core 2 duo mobile pulled around 35-45 watts on idle.

Brrr.

Windows7 has some new feature to shutdown processor cores.. should it help?

In the meantime I will see if I can run the script provided here to put the system into S3..

I installed the the monitoring script, which is supposed to me the machine into S3.

But I do not see it works.. Is there any log? How can I know for sure?

Maybe I shall turn on something in Bios?

Tom, what are the recommended by Lime settings to put the machine into S3?

I installed the the monitoring script, which is supposed to me the machine into S3.

But I do not see it works.. Is there any log? How can I know for sure?

 

Maybe I shall turn on something in Bios?

 

Tom, what are the recommended by Lime settings to put the machine into S3?

S3 is NOT part or unRAID and has not been recommended by Tom or Limetech.  You are probably going to have to read through the thread in the custimization forum and ask for help there.

I understand the need/want for low power, but if you are not going to be using the machine during certain periods of time, why not just shut it off?  I have torrents running on my machine which means I can't put it into S3 (nor do I want to anyway), but I know you were looking into running rtorrent also, so running that and having S3 would be two contradicting things.

Shutting the machine off and S3 consume more or less same amount of power (shall be about 5W) but I did not measure yet.

But.. using S3 will bring machine almost instantly from offline

Also, same topic or not, I have variable fan control installed, set it on minimum, but I still hear their noise. S3 will resolve this for sure, but will be nice if the fan speed will be reduced in S1 idle as well.

Regarding torrents, I think most power-saving way is to run torrents on my laptop, and then to transfer to storage once finished. Running on lime is more convenient, but not before unRaid OS will "know" to shutdown Cores and to use less power.. For me, this is just not cost-effective.

unRaid is advertised here as 'green power'.. Really??

Synology uses 30W in idle and 70W in peak power (with better performance figures and more features)

I thought that Lime is more power-saving as it does not use RAID!!

There are power management packages for Linux, I pretty much sure it can be integrated here without lot of work

unRAID made for home!

If you built your own system, as many have, you could have more storage, more performance, and use less energy than the Synology.