Looking for replacement of power hungry MD1000

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ddaenen1

Member
Jul 7, 2020
45
8
8
Hello, i am new here so forgive me if i didn't post this in the right section.

I am running FreeNAS on a Supermicro X8SIL-F server with Xeon L3426 CPU and 32 GB ECC RAM connected through a Dell PERC flashed to HBA card to a Dell MD1000 with 15 2TB 3.5" SAS drives.

The setup runs really well and extremely stable and functions predominantly as 9Tb Plex-server and a 7 Tb general purpose share.

My issue is that the MD1000 is extremely power hungry with its 2 x 488W redundant PSU's and very loud fans. I didn't really consider this as i have PV panels on the roof and to that point, the PV configuration was generating more power than we consumed in the household and since my server rack is in the basement, fan noise was not a concern. Also, i don't really need that much storage space. My current library currently occupies less than 5% of the available storage capacity.

Bottom line, i am looking for a less power hungry solution. I would like to keep the Supermicro with FreeNAS and the HBA but replace the MD1000 with a solution that is more power consumption friendly and i would settle for anything that could provide a storage capacity of 4-6Tb as long as it is rack mountable but i do have a depth limit of about 50cm.

Any recommendations are much appreciated.
 

ajs

Active Member
Mar 27, 2018
101
36
28
Minnesota
Consolidate to a set of mirrored 10TB drives and ditch the DAS. I'd also replace the X8SIL-F/L3426 as more modern hardware will be much more power efficient. X10/E3-12xx v3 is a good middle ground for cost/power efficiency.
 

j_h_o

Active Member
Apr 21, 2015
666
187
43
California, US
Adding on, I'd watch for 10-14TB WD EasyStores, shuck (take them out of the enclosures) them, and use the drives in your existing server, without the DAS, given the small amount of disk space you actually use.
 

j_h_o

Active Member
Apr 21, 2015
666
187
43
California, US
Yeah.

If you wanted to reduce power, a SC721-TQ, with an X10SDV* derivative board, with some shucked WD EasyStores would reduce power consumption and noise significantly. With 4 drive bays, you'd safely get 20+TB with redundancies, and it would push 10Gbps with onboard interfaces.