Dell r730 vs r720 power usage

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neb50

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Aug 28, 2018
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I currently have a couple of r720 based servers and was wondering what the power difference would be if I switched them with a pair of r730's with similar performance. I plan on re-using same drives and networking so that will be the same except server 1 will probably drop to a single HBA for both.

I tried to find power usage comparison's between the two and only found vague responses that the r730 uses less power. I also know that I probably won't ever get my money back in savings between the two setups, but might do it anyway just to get something different.

r720 - dual e5-2667v2's with 128GB of PC3L ram (8x16)
currently using ~220-260w with esxi with 6 running VM's including Blue Iris, Plex, and FreeNAS)
2-HBA's (9207-8i and HBA330) with 16 SSD's (4 SAS3 and 12 SATA)
dual SD card reader
128GB SSD on SATA controller
r720xd - dual e5-2650v2s with 128GB of PC3 ram (8x16)
currently using ~145w at basically idle (esxi with 2 VM's running FreeNAS as backup server and APC shutdown)
Single HBA(9207-8i) with 4 HDD's and 2 SDD's
dual SD card reader
intel 16GB optane in PCIe adaptor

replace those with
r730 - single e5-2695v4 with 128GB of PC4 ram (4x32)
run same items as r720 except single HBA330 mini
r730xd - single e5-2690v4 with 64 or 128GB of PC4 ram (4x32 or 4x16)
run same items as r720xd except HBA330 mini
 
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neb50

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Aug 28, 2018
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Since I didn't get any replies, I figured I would update with what I found out after swapping out to a couple R730xd's.

R730xd - single e5-2697v3 with 192GB of ram (4x32 and 4x16)
24 - 2.5" front bay + 2 - 2.5" rear bay chassis
currently using ~165-190w with 7 running VM's including Blue Iris, Plex, and TrueNAS
1-HBA (HBA330 mini) with 14 SSD's (3 SAS3 and 11 SATA)
dual SD card reader
16GB intel optane in PCIe adaptor

R730xd - single e5-2697v3 with 128GB of ram (4x32)
12 - 3.5" front bay + 4 - 3.5" mid bay + 2 - 2.5" rear bays
currently using ~125w at basically idle (esxi with 2 VM's running FreeNAS as backup server and Grafana)
1-HBA (HBA330 mini) with 8 HDD's and 2 SSD's
dual SD card reader
16GB intel optane in PCIe adaptor

So it is about 60-70w savings on the main server that has the VM's running with 2 less SSD's and 1 less HBA. CPU is plenty fast enough and more ram. There is around 20w savings on the backup/secondary server with 4 more HDD's installed in it so still not too bad.

The power savings will take a long time to make up the cost difference in my area, but I found a decent deal on the new servers and wanted to try it out.
 
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marcoi

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I think going from dual to single cpu saved a bit of energy. There might have been a little more savings if you ended up with v4 cpu as they are 14nm vs 22nm of v1-v3 cpus but the price difference between v3 and v4 cpus probably wouldnt be worth it.

Also when setting up the server, if you go into bios/lifecycle check power settings. I think i have my r730 set to dell best power per watt setting. Some of those bios settings may help in lowering the power as well.
 

neb50

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Aug 28, 2018
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I think I am using the power per watt OS setting so I might be able save a little more if I let the iDRAC do the power savings, but read that it can cause latency issues with the VM's.

Yes, the v4's were quite a bit more per CPU so went with the v3's (2690v4 was $200 vs $100 for the 2697v3). The V1-V2 made some difference on my old setup and they were cheap enough when I switched them out.
 

nk215

Active Member
Oct 6, 2015
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Since I didn't get any replies, I figured I would update with what I found out after swapping out to a couple R730xd's.

R730xd - single e5-2697v3 with 192GB of ram (4x32 and 4x16)
24 - 2.5" front bay + 2 - 2.5" rear bay chassis
currently using ~165-190w with 7 running VM's including Blue Iris, Plex, and TrueNAS
1-HBA (HBA330 mini) with 14 SSD's (3 SAS3 and 11 SATA)
dual SD card reader
16GB intel optane in PCIe adaptor

R730xd - single e5-2697v3 with 128GB of ram (4x32)
12 - 3.5" front bay + 4 - 3.5" mid bay + 2 - 2.5" rear bays
currently using ~125w at basically idle (esxi with 2 VM's running FreeNAS as backup server and Grafana)
1-HBA (HBA330 mini) with 8 HDD's and 2 SSD's
dual SD card reader
16GB intel optane in PCIe adaptor

So it is about 60-70w savings on the main server that has the VM's running with 2 less SSD's and 1 less HBA. CPU is plenty fast enough and more ram. There is around 20w savings on the backup/secondary server with 4 more HDD's installed in it so still not too bad.

The power savings will take a long time to make up the cost difference in my area, but I found a decent deal on the new servers and wanted to try it out.
Thank you for the follow up. I hope more people would do this.

My R730 with a dual E-2696v4, 512Gb memory, 4 600GB SAS drive idle at 252 watts from the iDRAC page. That seems high.
 

msg7086

Active Member
May 2, 2017
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You can start with empty system, pulling out all drives and memory sticks (except 1) and see how bad it is, then adding stuff back to see who burns the juice most.
 

neb50

Member
Aug 28, 2018
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What do you have running on it and which power profile did you select?

I think the power does drop once it is fully booted into the OS with power savings set up within the BIOS and OS.

Also, forgot to mention that I am also running a fan script that drops the fan speeds based on Drive and CPU temps. I think the main one goes from 165 up to 182 with no other change than fan speed. I don't have the second CPU, extra memory or the 10-15000rpm spinning disks, so that might add up to the extra power that yours is using.
 

nk215

Active Member
Oct 6, 2015
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What do you have running on it and which power profile did you select?

I think the power does drop once it is fully booted into the OS with power savings set up within the BIOS and OS.

Also, forgot to mention that I am also running a fan script that drops the fan speeds based on Drive and CPU temps. I think the main one goes from 165 up to 182 with no other change than fan speed. I don't have the second CPU, extra memory or the 10-15000rpm spinning disks, so that might add up to the extra power that yours is using.
It has ESXi on it but everything was completely idle. The profile is the "performance per watt" setting on the BIOS.

The same computer with a dual 2647v4, minus the HDD (all S3700/s3610 SSD setup) with the same BIOS setting idles at 156 watts (running proxmox). Maybe the HDDs heat up the air which then registers higher temp on the CPU area so the fans react to that high temp to bring the CPU temp back down to ~35C range at idle.