Idle power consumption, apps reads/writes on disks

TrueNAS General
1

Hi

New to Truenas. Installed Electric Eel on an old PC to test Truenas media server capabilities.

I have seen threads about systems running idle under 10W, tried to apply recommendations but my system sits at 33-38W when idle. Measured with a wattmeter.
Looking for ideas to further lower idle power draw.

My hardware:

  • MB: Gigabyte Z170X-UD3
  • CPU: Intel Core i5 6600 + 1 CPU fan
  • SSD: 1 NVME
  • HDD: 2 SATA3 (1TB + 2 TB)
  • Case fans: 3
  • PSU: Seasonic P-660 (80+ platinum)
  • no GPU (other than the iGPU HD 530)

I have setup a Stripe ZFS pool (not great, I know, but mostly testing for now). I am running 8 apps from official repository, since I wanted to test Truenas media server capabilities.

I can hear the 2 HDD writing/reading every 5 seconds. The CPU is idle, most of the time, in the very low temps (room temperature).

Based on other threads, what I tried, to lower idle consumption:

  • HDD setup: HDD Standby: 5, Adv. Power Management: 1, Enable S.M.A.R.T.: No.
  • Moved System dataset from the Striped ZFS pool (hdd) to boot-pool (ssd)
  • Bios setup: CPU C-states enabled, ASPM enabled , RC6 (Render Standby) enabled, aggressive LPM Support enabled (ALPM)

Some results:

  • Apps: when stopping all 8 apps, goes from 33W to 32W. 5 minutes later, disks spindown, power draw goes to 21W ! Restarting 1 app (without additional storage on the stripped ZFS pool, just the default ixVolumes) immediately spins up the disks.
  • HDD: with apps running, none of Adv. Power Management levels I tried made a difference on watts. I do not intend to spindown disks ā€œin productionā€, but just trying to figure why they stay active. I will probably revert to a non-spindown level, after tests.

Based on the above:

  1. seems like the apps are reading/writing on the disks 24/7 (I can hear them). Cannot figure if ixVolumes are stored on my disks or on the ssd. If on the disks, and if one wanted to lower HDD power draw while running apps, would it make sense to move ixVolumes to the SSD ? if even possible.
ls -la /mnt
total 26
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root  4 Nov 21 00:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 29 Nov  8 20:42 ..
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root  8 Nov 20 23:52 .ix-apps
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root  3 Nov 21 00:11 Stripe3Gb
  1. anything huge I missed, to lower idle power draw into 10W territory ? Considering disconnecting one of the intake case fans, that does not blow on the disks.
2

You cannot achieve that figure with spinning drives.

3

You really must dedicate (at least) an SSD/NVME for the apps, avoiding the continue use of the rust disk. This will help a lot in terms of heat, noise and power consumption.
Edit: forget 1 important thing: the disk you use for the SO, will be used for SO and nothing else (except system dataset).

And donā€™t use spin down/disable smart test just for save (donā€™t know) 2ā‚¬ every months? Not worth IMHO, minimum power consumption without spin down (128) Is a good compromise. Just keep in mind that for when you move on production.

Donā€™t think your hardware will be capable of that.
My system Is same gen as yours, im on ~40w idle, but im using a bronze PSU and server grade hw

4

Depending on your HD and fan placement, Iā€™ve found that one 120mm case can cool 3 HDs enough. But as was said here, 10W cannot be achieved with your system and continuously active HDs. Agree that moving all apps and their services to the SSD will lower watts but have doubts about the amount of power used by the ATX board.

5

That may not be achievable with that CPU either way.
Most people claiming idle power usage that low run newer processors with superior idle W performance.

6

Or they run processors like the N100 series that can barely operate as a TrueNAS server yet sort of tick a few of the boxes.

But if the goal is a Raspberry-Pi price point with a single 20TB drive that is scrubbed / served / etc. then such platforms may be able to do the job with sub 10W power consumption @ 1GBit at least some of the time (if you use HDD spin-down, for example).

Itā€™ll still be arguably ā€˜betterā€™ than a Pi because itā€™s running ZFS, can run scrubs, etc. even as the non-redundant aspect re: storage runs counter to the spirit of ZFS. But you could consider it solely for local media storage of stuff you donā€™t care to lose while the real (power-hungry) NAS sleeps.

Or its a piece of your tiered storage architecture where everything stays in the cloud and this endpoint is stocked / buffered with data as needed for lower-latency use. In general, I agree that a SSD makes more sense in the low-power game, however.

7

The N100, and to a lesser degree previous iterations of the N-line, are neat power efficient CPUs. They make fantastic small appliance platforms when you need to run something non-ARM.

I still wouldnā€™t use it as a NAS due to the anaemic connectivity options.

8

Agreed. But if the goal is very low power consumption, expect a CPU / RAM combination that has to make some serious compromises that might work some of the time. I usually see N100 in use as a IDS / gateway tool, where the processor is adequate right up to gigabit speefd

9

For a low power x86 platform with good connectivity there is the Atom C3000 line. Not the same price as N100 obviously.

10

Accepting the right compromise, in my experience , Is possible to build a decent system that can idle at really low power and donā€™t cost much. Off course iā€™m not talking about server grade hw.
I had an SFF PC laying around, an Acer XC330, is based on a apu mobile soc (A9 9420): put an Intel nic on It, larger RAM, 1 NVME, 1 small SSD and a 2tb WD Red plusā€¦ Running minimal service, just 3-4 apps, using the rust disk only for internal/external replicationā€¦ the idle power Is around 7-9w.
Nothing that can be advisable for a main system, but for something to be on just for accept backup and run those basic apps, cost me way less than pay a cloud service

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