Idle power savings upgrade path

[Andybluejay]

When building out my Truenas server I paid little attention to power draw as I was not paying for power at the time. So I’ve got an x9dri-ln4f with dual E5-2667 v2s, 256gb DDR3, and 36 drives, which idles in the ballpark of 450w. I know a bunch of that is from the disks themselves but I am hoping to reign it in a bit with a more modern CPU/mobo combo.

Would a jump to an x10 mobo and e5 v3/v4 be a worthwhile improvement? If not that, what is the next logical value proposition? The more modern Xeon product stack and supermicro x11/x12 motherboards that go with them vary wildly in features and price.

 

[Tom S]

I would unplug those 36 drives and re-measure the power draw of the CPU+MOBO+RAM alone before considering an upgrade path. I think you'll find that those 36 drives are the vast majority of your power consumption. If you can start downsizing the array to a smaller number of high capacity disks, that's your best bet by a long margin.

 

[RolloZ170]

I know a bunch of that is from the disks themselves

if you have i.e. Seagate ES.2 3TB SAS drives they need 5 to 7 watts idle power each.

 

[i386]

Would a jump to an x10 mobo and e5 v3/v4 be a worthwhile improvement?

Not really plus the platform is "eol" (except the embedded stuff)

If not that, what is the next logical value proposition?

"It depends"
- A single socket solution (unless your server needs a lot of ram and memory bandwidth)
- Replacing a bunch of small hdds with fewer larger hdds (like @Tom S said)
- and maybe a smaller chassis or fewer and "slower" fans
- (ssd chaching to reduce hdds activity)

I think depending on the location the investment in new parts will probably still be higher than the power costs...

 

[ano]

drives, pcie cards, memory = powerhogs.

 

[i386]

drives, pcie cards, memory = powerhogs.

Not to forget hosts & network devices

 

[BackupProphet]

Try to put the drives to sleep when not in use

 

[ano]

Not to forget hosts & network devices

I feel nics are a pcie device, but yes I said cards

connectx6 + cwdm4 x 2 = $$$ inwatts so much so Im using DAC for lab a lot suddenly, at 70cent per kwh... yeah it adds up

 

[MBastian]

My x9dri-ln4f with 256GB RAM, 2x E5-2690v2, RTX 3090 and four NVMEs idles at about 140W. The RTX draws like 20-30W at idle. ~800W at full power with Folding@Home. Definitely an energy hog but I don't run it 24/7

 

[Tom S]

It's definitely the drives.

Idle power would drop a little by going to a single-CPU motherboard, but that's a very expensive way to shed a few watts.

If you have older, smaller drives, the biggest power consumption upgrade it going to be moving to a smaller number of modern, high-capacity drives.

 

[bambi123]

I have just gone from a dual Intel 2660v2 Xeon 32GB memory system to an single CPU 12700K 64GB memory with the other hardware being the same.

The other hardware being 2x 10GB networks, RAID card, SAS Expander, and 20 WD RED drives.

My idle / base draw went from 250 Watts to under 100 Watts. Not only am I saving over 150 Watts in energy, the temperatures are so much lower now that I have also reduced my cooling requirements.

The new systems is several times faster than the old dual 2660v2 with the Virtual machines I run being much more responsive, and with the increased memory I can allocate more resources to some of the constrained VM's.

 

[Tom S]

For another data point: I built a 5950X system with 64GB of ECC RAM and a power supply carefully selected for low-load efficiency. Idle power draw was as low as 30W before I added the HBA and drives.

 

[BackupProphet]

The ivy bridge, v2 are not power hogs. You can get ivy bridge systems idling at 25 watt. See Dell r210 ii. A dual socket system will add 10-30 extra watt when idling.