Old computer? No problem!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The 90W quote is the actual power usage of the server with the internal 8TB of storage, as measured at the plug using a watt meter.  The startup power requirement is 132W.  The peak power requirement, after start up, is 89.8W.  The idle power requirement is 82.1W.

The power consumption of my desktop CPU i7 3770K is approximately 42W idle, spiking to 76.8W under load.  The power consumption of the PIII 800Mhz Coppermine is 13W idle, spiking to 25W.  These are well documented numbers, easily verified.

I don't buy for a second that a NAS hardware could consume an equal amount of electricity compared to any desktop computer.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation_figures#Pentium_III the CPU alone consumes over 20W of power without any peripherals, gpu, motherboard, drives or psu losses. The CPU will most likely run at full speed at all times due to lack of power saving support on linux.

A 3Tb NAS consumes overall as much at 100% utilization: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6157/western-digital-red-review-are-nasoptimized-hdds-worth-the-premium/3

But even so as I said the price of electricity is hardly enough to cover the price of the NAS hardware.

[Skuzzy]

I don't buy for a second that a NAS hardware could consume an equal amount of electricity compared to any desktop computer.

It doesn't.  It uses 10W less, approximately, as I do not have one to measure.  That was just one unit from Netgear and what they stated as the power usage.  Check others to see if you can find one using less.

Your power usage opinion is just an opinion.  I'll take what my watt meter and o-scope tell me over your opinion.

However, your opinion about CPU power usage flies against the face of facts.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It doesn't.  It uses 10W less, approximately, as I do not have one to measure.  That was just one unit from Netgear and what they stated as the power usage.  Check others to see if you can find one using less.

Your power usage opinion is just an opinion.  I'll take what my watt meter and o-scope tell me over your opinion.

However, your opinion about CPU power usage flies against the face of facts.

Feel free to make change requests to wikipedia if you think the figures are off.

It's really hard to believe a NAS without all the hardware components of a typical desktop PC could consume only 10W less electricity. I just provided you with a link that shows a 20W overall consumption using 3Tb worth of drives (in Raid1). That's fairly much more than 10W difference to your 76W under load.

[Skuzzy]

Find a 4 drive NAS and see what the power usage is, then we can talk apples to apples.

I have stated the power usage of the PIII 800Mhz Coppermine CPU to be 25W.  Mine uses a little more due to the aftermarket heatsink/fan I have.  And a current Core i7 3770K is about 80W.  So how does that equate to the old CPU using more power?  My electrical engineering degree tells me 80 > 25.  I think first year math students would agree.

I can point you to the Intel specifications, as well.

The old support electronics also use less power than todays support chips do.  Why?  Because they were clocked so much slower than the current generation of chips are.  Here is a true statement.  Power costs, per clock cycle, is much, much cheaper today, than it has ever been before.  However, actual power costs are higher today than they were years ago.

A top of the line gaming unit in the old days only needed a 450W power supply.  Today, they are using 1200W supplies and higher.  If you plot the power usage of CPU's, over the years, you would find it will resemble a saw tooth pattern, to some degree.

You cannot make a blanket statement about power usage being lower that it used to be.  Yes, you can pick a low powered Atom CPU, and compare it to an old CPU and make the statement work.  One can also pick a CPU requiring 80W today, versus an old 20W CPU.

The point of this topic is old hardware can be used to do many things, which makes the old hardware efficient to use.  Here is an exercise for you.

Tell me what components I need to do the following:

Router
Hardened Firewall
Media Server (8TB of storage)
File Server (8TB storage)
Print Server
Scanner Server

Just give me a list and I will do the research to determine the amount of power need for all those items and let's see what is more efficient.  I think that is a fair approach, given you are the one challenging the use of old computers as being an inefficient means to an end.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Find a 4 drive NAS and see what the power usage is, then we can talk apples to apples.

I have stated the power usage of the PIII 800Mhz Coppermine CPU to be 25W.  Mine uses a little more due to the aftermarket heatsink/fan I have.  And a current Core i7 3770K is about 80W.  So how does that equate to the old CPU using more power?  My electrical engineering degree tells me 80 > 25.  I think first year math students would agree.

I can point you to the Intel specifications, as well.

The old support electronics also use less power than todays support chips do.  Why?  Because they were clocked so much slower than the current generation of chips are.  Here is a true statement.  Power costs, per clock cycle, is much, much cheaper today, than it has ever been before.  However, actual power costs are higher today than they were years ago.

A top of the line gaming unit in the old days only needed a 450W power supply.  Today, they are using 1200W supplies and higher.  If you plot the power usage of CPU's, over the years, you would find it will resemble a saw tooth pattern, to some degree.

You cannot make a blanket statement about power usage being lower that it used to be.  Yes, you can pick a low powered Atom CPU, and compare it to an old CPU and make the statement work.  One can also pick a CPU requiring 80W today, versus an old 20W CPU.

The point of this topic is old hardware can be used to do many things, which makes the old hardware efficient to use.  Here is an exercise for you.

Tell me what components I need to do the following:

Router
Hardened Firewall
Media Server (8TB of storage)
File Server (8TB storage)
Print Server
Scanner Server

Just give me a list and I will do the research to determine the amount of power need for all those items and let's see what is more efficient.  I think that is a fair approach, given you are the one challenging the use of old computers as being an inefficient means to an end.

I said an old computer running linux 24/7 consumes more electricity than a dedicated NAS, I made no comparison to new computers. That was your invention.

Most people have a router and a SPI firewall built in their modems. NAS handles both media and file serving. Printers and scanners do not need dedicated servers in home use. So this is quite unfruitful.

[Skuzzy]

All of this is quite unnecessary.

Here;

Is there a way to consume less power and accommodate all those features?

All NAS units do not support DLNA.  Some do it better than others, but you can get away with a $800 U.S. unit which uses about 45W to 50W of power.  Not bad.

You can buy a firewall product for around $3,000.00 U.S. which offers the same functionality as what I have done.  It uses around 85W or power.  A software firewall or one built into a consumer grade router is not even close to what I am running.  Does that mean you cannot away with a cheap solution?  It depends on how secure you really want to be.

For print and scanner server, a simple USB to Ethernet device will suffice, if you can find one that supports your printer and scanner.  Power use is negligible.  A couple of watts, tops.  I cannot find one that supports the devices I have, but I have not exhausted the search.


Discounting the firewall.  I am using about 40W to 45W more power with the old computer doing the work. 

If money is no object, and power is your main concern, then this is not a good solution for you.

Ta-da

[2bighorn]

So this is quite unfruitful.

It's so because you're comparing needs of the most with needs of the power users. It's like asking farmer to ditch pickup in favor of Prius for the sake of saving energy.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Argh! I originally already said that the power savings are not large enough to warrant the extra hardware cost. I just pointed out that the old hardware will probably consume more electricity. The typical noise of older computers may also be an issue to some.

[Skuzzy]

Argh! I originally already said that the power savings are not large enough to warrant the extra hardware cost. I just pointed out that the old hardware will probably consume more electricity. The typical noise of older computers may also be an issue to some.

I admit I misread what you said and thought you were making a computer comparison.  From that point it got more convoluted.

Actually, my server cannot be heard.